A philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, Rasselas ponders a number of subjects — romantic love, flights of imagination, the great discoveries of science, and speculations about the meaning of happiness — all of which, Johnson implies, encourage man with false hopes and unrealistic estimates of what life has to offer.
Directed specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, Rasselas has often been compared with Voltaire’s Candide — which was published only a few weeks before Johnson’s work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.
A philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, Rasselas ponders a number of subjects — romantic love, flights of imagination, the great discoveries of science, and speculations about the meaning of happiness — all of which, Johnson implies, encourage man with false hopes and unrealistic estimates of what life has to offer.
Directed specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, Rasselas has often been compared with Voltaire’s Candide — which was published only a few weeks before Johnson’s work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.
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A philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, Rasselas ponders a number of subjects — romantic love, flights of imagination, the great discoveries of science, and speculations about the meaning of happiness — all of which, Johnson implies, encourage man with false hopes and unrealistic estimates of what life has to offer.
Directed specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, Rasselas has often been compared with Voltaire’s Candide — which was published only a few weeks before Johnson’s work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486146652 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Lexile: | 1240L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 657 KB |
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Read an Excerpt
The History of Rasselas
Prince of Abissinia
By Samuel Johnson
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14665-2
CHAPTER 1
Description of a palace in a valley.
YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and persue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abissinia.
Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperour, in whose dominions the Father of waters begins his course; whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world the harvests of Egypt.
According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abissinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne.
The place, which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abissinian princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage, by which it could be entered, was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could, without the help of engines, open or shut them.
From the mountains on every side, rivulets descended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water.
This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.
The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grass, or brouse the shrub, whether wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns; the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded.
The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with the necessaries of life, and all delights and superfluities were added at the annual visit which the emperour paid his children, when the iron gate was opened to the sound of musick; and during eight days every one that resided in the valley was required to propose whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately granted. All the artificers of pleasure were called to gladden the festivity; the musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers shewed their activity before the princes, in hope that they should pass their lives in this blissful captivity, to which these only were admitted whose performance was thought able to add novelty to luxury. Such was the appearance of security and delight which this retirement afforded, that they to whom it was new always desired that it might be perpetual; and as those, on whom the iron gate had once closed, were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience could not be known. Thus every year produced new schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment.
The palace stood on an eminence raised about thirty paces above the surface of the lake. It was divided into many squares or courts, built with greater or less magnificence according to the rank of those for whom they were designed. The roofs were turned into arches of massy stone joined with a cement that grew harder by time, and the building stood from century to century, deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of reparation.
This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none but some ancient officers who successively inherited the secrets of the place, was built as if suspicion herself had dictated the plan. To every room there was an open and secret passage, every square had a communication with the rest, either from the upper stories by private galleries, or by subterranean passages from the lower apartments. Many of the columns had unsuspected cavities, in which a long race of monarchs had reposited their treasures. They then closed up the opening with marble, which was never to be removed but in the utmost exigencies of the kingdom; and recorded their accumulations in a book which was itself concealed in a tower not entered but by the emperour, attended by the prince who stood next in succession.
CHAPTER 2The discontent of Rasselas in the happy valley.
HERE the sons and daughters of Abissinia lived only to know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that were skilful to delight, and gratified with whatever the senses can enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in the fortresses of security. Every art was practised to make them pleased with their own condition. The sages who instructed them, told them of nothing but the miseries of publick life, and described all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where discord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man.
To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily entertained with songs, the subject of which was the happy valley. Their appetites were excited by frequent enumerations of different enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every hour from the dawn of morning to the close of even.
These methods were generally successful; few of the Princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed their lives in full conviction that they had all within their reach that art or nature could bestow, and pitied those whom fate had excluded from this seat of tranquility, as the sport of chance, and the slaves of misery.
Thus they rose in the morning, and lay down at night, pleased with each other and with themselves, all but Rasselas, who, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from their pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him: he rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond the sound of musick. His attendants observed the change and endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure: he neglected their officiousness, repulsed their invitations, and spent day after day on the banks of rivulets sheltered with trees, where he sometimes listened to the birds in the branches, sometimes observed the fish playing in the stream, and anon cast his eyes upon the pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which some were biting the herbage, and some sleeping among the bushes.
This singularity of his humour made him much observed. One of the Sages, in whose conversation he had formerly delighted, followed him secretly, in hope of discovering the cause of his disquiet. Rasselas, who knew not that any one was near him, having for some time fixed his eyes upon the goats that were brousing among the rocks, began to compare their condition with his own.
"What," said he, "makes the difference between man and all the rest of the animal creation? Every beast that strays beside me has the same corporal necessities with myself; he is hungry and crops the grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream, his thirst and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps; he rises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty like him, but when thirst and hunger cease I am not at rest; I am, like him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied with fulness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy; I long again to be hungry that I may again quicken my attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly away to the groves where they sit in seeming happiness on the branches, and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried series of sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist and the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me to day, and will grow yet more wearisome to morrow. I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy."
After this he lifted up his head, and seeing the moon rising, walked towards the palace. As he passed through the fields, and saw the animals around him, "Ye, said he, are happy, and need not envy me that walk thus among you, burthened with myself; nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your felicity; for it is not the felicity of man. I have many distresses from which ye are free; I fear pain when I do not feel it; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and sometimes start at evils anticipated: surely the equity of providence has ballanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments."
With observations like these the prince amused himself as he returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled cheerfully in the diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to find that his heart was lightened.
CHAPTER 3The wants of him that wants nothing.
ON the next day his old instructor, imagining that he had now made himself acquainted with his disease of mind, was in hope of curing it by counsel, and officiously sought an opportunity of conference, which the prince, having long considered him as one whose intellects were exhausted, was not very willing to afford: "Why, said he, does this man thus intrude upon me; shall I be never suffered to forget those lectures which pleased only while they were new, and to become new again must be forgotten?" He then walked into the wood, and composed himself to his usual meditations; when, before his thoughts had taken any settled form, he perceived his persuer at his side, and was at first prompted by his impatience to go hastily away; but, being unwilling to offend a man whom he had once reverenced and still loved, he invited him to sit down with him on the bank.
The old man, thus encouraged, began to lament the change which had been lately observed in the prince, and to enquire why he so often retired from the pleasures of the palace, to loneliness and silence. "I fly from pleasure, said the prince, because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others." "You, Sir, said the sage, are the first who has complained of misery in the happy valley. I hope to convince you that your complaints have no real cause. You are here in full possession of all that the emperour of Abissinia can bestow; here is neither labour to be endured nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all that labour or danger can procure or purchase. Look round and tell me which of your wants is without supply: if you want nothing, how are you unhappy?"
"That I want nothing, said the prince, or that I know not what I want, is the cause of my complaint; if I had any known want, I should have a certain wish; that wish would excite endeavour, and I should not then repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the western mountain, or lament when the day breaks and sleep will no longer hide me from myself. When I see the kids and the lambs chasing one another, I fancy that I should be happy if I had something to persue. But, possessing all that I can want, I find one day and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter is still more tedious than the former. Let your experience inform me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, while nature was yet fresh, and every moment shewed me what I never had observed before. I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire."
The old man was surprized at this new species of affliction, and knew not what to reply, yet was unwilling to be silent. "Sir, said he, if you had seen the miseries of the world, you would know how to value your present state." "Now, said the prince, you have given me something to desire; I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of them is necessary to happiness."
CHAPTER 4The prince continues to grieve and muse.
AT this time the sound of musick proclaimed the hour of repast, and the conversation was concluded. The old man went away sufficiently discontented to find that his reasonings had produced the only conclusion which they were intended to prevent. But in the decline of life shame and grief are of short duration; whether it be that we bear easily what we have born long, or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard others; or, that we look with slight regard upon afflictions, to which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.
The prince, whose views were extended to a wider space, could not speedily quiet his emotions. He had been before terrified at the length of life which nature promised him, because he considered that in a long time much must be endured; he now rejoiced in his youth, because in many years much might be done.
This first beam of hope, that had been ever darted into his mind, rekindled youth in his cheeks, and doubled the lustre of his eyes. He was fired with the desire of doing something, though he knew not yet with distinctness, either end or means.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Page,
INTRODUCTION,
CHAPTER I - Description of a palace in a valley.,
CHAPTER II - The discontent of Rasselas in the happy valley.,
CHAPTER III - The wants of him that wants nothing.,
CHAPTER IV - The prince continues to grieve and muse.,
CHAPTER V - The prince meditates his escape.,
CHAPTER VI - A dissertation on the art of flying.,
CHAPTER VII - The prince finds a man of learning.,
CHAPTER VIII - The history of Imlac.,
CHAPTER IX - The history of Imlac continued.,
CHAPTER X - Imlac's history continued. A dissertation upon poetry.,
CHAPTER XI - Imlac's narrative continued. A hint on pilgrimage.,
CHAPTER XII - The story of Imlac continued.,
CHAPTER XIII - Rasselas discovers the means of escape.,
CHAPTER XIV - Rasselas and Imlac receive an unexpected visit.,
CHAPTER XV - The prince and princess leave the valley, and see many wonders.,
CHAPTER XVI - They enter Cairo, and find every man happy.,
CHAPTER XVII - The prince associates with young men of spirit and gaiety.,
CHAPTER XVIII - The prince finds a wise and happy man.,
CHAPTER XIX - A glimpse of pastoral life.,
CHAPTER XX - The danger of prosperity.,
CHAPTER XXI - The happiness of solitude. The hermit's history.,
CHAPTER XXII - The happiness of a life led according to nature.,
CHAPTER XXIII - The prince and his sister divide between them the work of observation.,
CHAPTER XXIV - The prince examines the happiness of high stations.,
CHAPTER XXV - The princess persues her enquiry with more diligence than success.,
CHAPTER XXVI - The princess continues her remarks upon private life.,
CHAPTER XXVII - Disquisition upon greatness.,
CHAPTER XXVIII - Rasselas and Nekayah continue their conversation.,
CHAPTER XXIX - The debate on marriage continued.,
CHAPTER XXX - Imlac enters, and changes the conversation.,
CHAPTER XXXI - They visit the Pyramids.,
CHAPTER XXXII - They enter the Pyramid.,
CHAPTER XXXIII - The princess meets with an unexpected misfortune.,
CHAPTER XXXIV - They return to Cairo without Pekuah.,
CHAPTER XXXV - The princess languishes for want of Pekuah.,
CHAPTER XXXVI - Pekuah is still remembered. The progress of sorrow.,
CHAPTER XXXVII - The princess hears news of Pekuah.,
CHAPTER XXXVIII - The adventures of the lady Pekuah.,
CHAPTER XXXIX - The adventures of Pekuah continued.,
CHAPTER XL - The history of a man of learning.,
CHAPTER XLI - The astronomer discovers the cause of his uneasiness.,
CHAPTER XLII - The opinion of the astronomer is explained and justified.,
CHAPTER XLIII - The astronomer leaves Imlac his directions.,
CHAPTER XLIV - The dangerous prevalence of imagination.,
CHAPTER XLV - They discourse with an old man.,
CHAPTER XLVI - The princess and Pekuah visit the astronomer.,
CHAPTER XLVII - The prince enters and brings a new topick.,
CHAPTER XLVIII - Imlac discourses on the nature of the soul.,
CHAPTER XLIX - The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded.,