Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Samuel Johnson

VIII

      THE HISTORY OF IMLAC

      The close of the day is, in the regions of the torrid zone, the only season of diversion and entertainment, and it was therefore midnight before the music ceased and the princesses retired.  Rasselas then called for his companion, and required him to begin the story of his life.

      “Sir,” said Imlac, “my history will not be long: the life that is devoted to knowledge passes silently away, and is very little diversified by events.  To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.  He wanders about the world without pomp or terror, and is neither known nor valued but by men like himself.

      “I was born in the kingdom of Goiama, at no great distance from the fountain of the Nile.  My father was a wealthy merchant, who traded between the inland countries of Africa and the ports of the Red Sea.  He was honest, frugal, and diligent, but of mean sentiments and narrow comprehension; he desired only to be rich, and to conceal his riches, lest he should be spoiled by the governors of the province.”

      “Surely,” said the Prince, “my father must be negligent of his charge if any man in his dominions dares take that which belongs to another.  Does he not know that kings are accountable for injustice permitted as well as done?  If I were Emperor, not the meanest of my subjects should be oppressed with impunity.  My blood boils when I am told that a merchant durst not enjoy his honest gains for fear of losing them by the rapacity of power.  Name the governor who robbed the people that I may declare his crimes to the Emperor!”

      “Sir,” said Imlac, “your ardour is the natural effect of virtue animated by youth.  The time will come when you will acquit your father, and perhaps hear with less impatience of the governor.  Oppression is, in the Abyssinian dominions, neither frequent nor tolerated; but no form of government has been yet discovered by which cruelty can be wholly prevented.  Subordination supposes power on one part and subjection on the other; and if power be in the hands of men it will sometimes be abused.  The vigilance of the supreme magistrate may do much, but much will still remain undone.  He can never know all the crimes that are committed, and can seldom punish all that he knows.”

      “This,” said the Prince, “I do not understand; but I had rather hear thee than dispute.  Continue thy narration.”

      “My father,” proceeded Imlac, “originally intended that I should have no other education than such as might qualify me for commerce; and discovering in me great strength of memory and quickness of apprehension, often declared his hope that I should be some time the richest man in Abyssinia.”

      “Why,” said the Prince, “did thy father desire the increase of his wealth when it was already greater than he durst discover or enjoy?  I am unwilling to doubt thy veracity, yet inconsistencies cannot both be true.”

      “Inconsistencies,” answered Imlac, “cannot both be right; but, imputed to man, they may both be true.  Yet diversity is not inconsistency.  My father might expect a time of greater security.  However, some desire is necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.”

      “This,” said the Prince, “I can in some measure conceive.  I repent that I interrupted thee.”

      “With this hope,” proceeded Imlac, “he sent me to school.  But when I had once found the delight of knowledge, and felt the pleasure of intelligence and the pride of invention, I began silently to despise riches, and determined to disappoint the purposes of my father, whose grossness of conception raised my pity.  I was twenty years old before his tenderness would expose me to the fatigue of travel; in which time I had been instructed, by successive masters, in all the literature of my native country.  As every hour taught me something new, I lived in a continual course of gratification; but as I advanced towards manhood, I lost much of the reverence with which I had been used to look on my instructors; because when the lessons were ended I did not find them wiser or better than common men.

      “At length my father resolved to initiate me in commerce; and, opening one of his subterranean treasuries, counted out ten thousand pieces of gold.  ‘This, young man,’ said he, ‘is the stock with which you must negotiate.  I began with less than a fifth part, and you see how diligence and parsimony have increased it.  This is your own, to waste or improve.  If you squander it by negligence or caprice, you must wait for my death before you will be rich; if in four years you double your stock, we will thenceforward let subordination cease, and live together as friends and partners, for he shall be always equal with me who is equally skilled in the art of growing rich.’

      “We laid out our money upon camels, concealed in bales of cheap goods, and travelled to the shore of the Red Sea.  When I cast my eye on the expanse of waters, my heart bounded like that of a prisoner escaped.  I felt an inextinguishable curiosity kindle in my mind, and resolved to snatch this opportunity of seeing the manners of other nations, and of learning sciences unknown in Abyssinia.

      “I remembered that my father had obliged me to the improvement of my stock, not by a promise, which I ought not to violate, but by a penalty, which I was at liberty to incur; and therefore determined to gratify my predominant desire, and, by drinking at the fountain of knowledge, to quench the thirst of curiosity.

      “As I was supposed to trade without connection with my father, it was easy for me to become acquainted with the master of a ship, and procure a passage to some other country.  I had no motives of choice to regulate my voyage.  It was sufficient for me that, wherever I wandered, I should see a country which I had not seen before.  I therefore entered a ship bound for Surat, having left a letter for my father declaring my intention.”

      CHAPTER IX

      THE HISTORY OF IMLAC (continued)

      “When I first entered upon the world of waters, and lost sight of land, I looked round about me in pleasing terror, and thinking my soul enlarged by the boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze around me for ever without satiety; but in a short time I grew weary of looking on barren uniformity, where I could only see again what I had already seen.  I then descended into the ship, and doubted for awhile whether all my future pleasures would not end, like this, in disgust and disappointment.  ‘Yet surely,’ said I, ‘the ocean and the land are very different.  The only variety of water is rest and motion.  But the earth has mountains and valleys, deserts and cities; it is inhabited by men of different customs and contrary opinions; and I may hope to find variety in life, though I should miss it in nature.’

      “With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused myself during the voyage, sometimes by learning from the sailors the art of navigation, which I have never practised, and sometimes by forming schemes for my conduct in different situations, in not one of which I have been ever placed.

      “I was almost weary of my naval amusements when we safely landed at Surat.  I secured my money and, purchasing some commodities for show, joined myself to a caravan that was passing into the inland country.  My companions, for some reason or other, conjecturing that I was rich, and, by my inquiries and admiration, finding that I was ignorant, considered me as a novice whom they had a right to cheat, and who was to learn, at the usual expense, the art of fraud.  They exposed me to the theft of servants and the exaction of officers, and saw me plundered upon false pretences, without any advantage to themselves but that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own knowledge.”

      “Stop a moment,” said the Prince; “is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?  I can easily conceive that all are pleased with superiority; but your ignorance was merely accidental, which, being neither your crime nor your folly, could afford them no reason to applaud themselves; and the knowledge which they had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually have shown by warning as betraying you.”

      “Pride,” said Imlac, “is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages, and envy feels not its own happiness but when it may be compared with the misery of others.  They were my enemies because they grieved to think me rich, and my oppressors because they delighted to find me weak.”

      “Proceed,”