"You know," said the Prince, "how little my life has made me

acquainted with diversity of opinions; it will be too long to hear
the arguments on both sides; you, that have considered them, tell

me the result."
"Pilgrimage," said Imlac, "like many other acts of piety, may be

reasonable or superstitious, according to the principles upon which
it is performed. Long journeys in search of truth are not

commanded. Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life,
is always found where it is honestly sought. Change of place is no

natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably produces
dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every day to view the

fields where great actions have been performed, and return with
stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of the same kind may

naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion had
its beginning, and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes

without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme
Being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another

is the dream of idle superstition, but that some places may operate
upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly

experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be
more successfully combated in Palestine, will perhaps find himself

mistaken; yet he may go thither without folly; he who thinks they
will be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and

religion."
"These," said the Prince, "are European distinctions. I will

consider them another time. What have you found to be the effect
of knowledge? Are those nations happier than we?"

"There is so much infelicity," said the poet, "in the world, that
scarce any man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the

comparative happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the
means of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which

every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere
privation, by which nothing can be produced; it is a vacuity in

which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction,
and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and

grieve when we forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude that if
nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow

more happy as out minds take a wider range.
"In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we shall find many

advantages on the side of the Europeans. They cure wounds and
diseases with which we languish and perish. We suffer inclemencies

of weather which they can obviate. They have engines for the
despatch of many laborious works, which we must perform by manual

industry. There is such communication between distant places that
one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another. Their

policy removes all public inconveniences; they have roads cut
through the mountains, and bridges laid over their rivers. And, if

we descend to the privacies of life, their habitations are more
commodious and their possessions are more secure."

"They are surely happy," said the Prince, "who have all these
conveniences, of which I envy none so much as the facility with

which separated friends interchange their thoughts."
"The Europeans," answered Imlac, "are less unhappy than we, but

they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much
is to be endured and little to be enjoyed."

CHAPTER XII - THE STORY OF IMLAC (CONTINUED).
"I AM not willing," said the Prince, "to suppose that happiness is

so parsimoniously distributed to mortals, nor can I believe but
that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to fill every

day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should provoke no
resentments; I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the

benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the
wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no

danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care
be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their

childhood had received. What would dare to molest him who might
call on every side to thousands enriched by his bounty or assisted

by his power? And why should not life glide away in the soft
reciprocation of protection and reverence? All this may be done

without the help of European refinements, which appear by their
effects to be rather specious than useful. Let us leave them and

pursue our journey."
"From Palestine," said Imlac, "I passed through many regions of

Asia; in the more civilised kingdoms as a trader, and among the
barbarians of the mountains as a pilgrim. At last I began to long

for my native country, that I might repose after my travels and
fatigues in the places where I had spent my earliest years, and

gladden my old companions with the recital of my adventures. Often
did I figure to myself those with whom I had sported away the gay

hours of dawning life, sitting round me in its evening, wondering
at my tales and listening to my counsels.

"When this thought had taken possession of my mind, I considered
every moment as wasted which did not bring me nearer to Abyssinia.

I hastened into Egypt, and, notwithstanding my impatience, was
detained ten months in the contemplation of its ancient

magnificence and in inquiries after the remains of its ancient
learning. I found in Cairo a mixture of all nations: some brought

thither by the love of knowledge, some by the hope of gain; many by
the desire of living after their own manner without observation,

and of lying hid in the obscurity of multitudes; for in a city
populous as Cairo it is possible to obtain at the same time the

gratifications of society and the secrecy of solitude.
"From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on the Red Sea,

passing along the coast till I arrived at the port from which I had
departed twenty years before. Here I joined myself to a caravan,

and re-entered my native country.
"I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen and the congratulations

of my friends, and was not without hope that my father, whatever
value he had set upon riches, would own with gladness and pride a

son who was able to add to the felicity and honour of the nation.
But I was soon convinced that my thoughts were vain. My father had

been dead fourteen years, having divided his wealth among my
brothers, who were removed to some other provinces. Of my

companions, the greater part was in the grave; of the rest, some
could with difficulty remember me, and some considered me as one

corrupted by foreign manners.
"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. I forgot,

after a time, my disappointment, and endeavoured to recommend
myself to the nobles of the kingdom; they admitted me to their

tables, heard my story, and dismissed me. I opened a school, and
was prohibited to teach. I then resolved to sit down in the quiet

of domestic life, and addressed a lady that was fond of my
conversation, but rejected my suit because my father was a

merchant.
"Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses, I resolved to hide

myself for ever from the world, and depend no longer on the opinion
or caprice of others. I waited for the time when the gate of the

Happy Valley should open, that I might bid farewell to hope and
fear; the day came, my performance was distinguished with favour,

and I resigned myself with joy to perpetual confinement."
"Hast thou here found happiness at last?" said Rasselas. "Tell me,

without reserve, art thou content with thy condition, or dost thou
wish to be again wandering and inquiring? All the inhabitants of

this valleycelebrate their lot, and at the annual visit of the
Emperor invite others to partake of their felicity."

"Great Prince," said Imlac, "I shall speak the truth. I know not
one of all your attendants who does not lament the hour when he

entered this retreat. I am less unhappy than the rest, because I
have a mind replete with images, which I can vary and combine at

pleasure. I can amuse my solitude by the renovation of the
knowledge which begins to fade from my memory, and by recollection

of the accidents of my past life. Yet all this ends in the
sorrowful consideration that my acquirements are now useless, and

that none of my pleasures can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose
minds have no impression but of the present moment, are either

corroded by malignant passions or sit stupid in the gloom of
perpetual vacancy."

"What passions can infest those," said the Prince, "who have no
rivals? We are in a place where impotence precludes malice, and

where all envy is repressed by community of enjoyments."
"There may be community," said Imlac, "of material possessions, but

there can never be community of love or of esteem. It must happen
that one will please more than another; he that knows himself