able to persist for ever in fixed and inexorable justice of
distribution; he will sometimes indulge his own affections and

sometimes those of his favourites; he will permit some to please
him who can never serve him; he will discover in those whom he

loves qualities which in reality they do not possess, and to those
from whom he receives pleasure he will in his turn endeavour to

give it. Thus will recommendations sometimes prevail which were
purchased by money or by the more destructive bribery of flattery

and servility.
"He that hath much to do will do something wrong, and of that wrong

must suffer the consequences, and if it were possible that he
should always act rightly, yet, when such numbers are to judge of

his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct him by malevolence
and the good sometimes by mistake.

"The highest stations cannot therefore hope to be the abodes of
happiness, which I would willingly" target="_blank" title="ad.情愿地，乐意地">willingly believe to have fled from

thrones and palaces to seats of humbleprivacy and placid
obscurity. For what can hinder the faction" target="_blank" title="n.满意；满足">satisfaction or intercept the

expectations of him whose abilities are adequate to his
employments, who sees with his own eyes the whole circuit of his

influence, who chooses by his own knowledge all whom he trusts, and
whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or fear? Surely he has

nothing to do but to love and to be loved; to be virtuous and to be
happy."

"Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect goodness,"
said Nekayah, "this world will never afford an opportunity of

deciding. But this, at least, may be maintained, that we do not
always find visible happiness in proportion to visiblevirtue. All

natural and almost all political evils are incident alike to the
bad and good; they are confounded in the misery of a famine, and

not much distinguished in the fury of a faction; they sink together
in a tempest and are driven together from their country by

invaders. All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience
and a steady prospect of a happier state; this may enable us to

endure calamity with patience, but remember that patience must
oppose pain."

CHAPTER XXVIII - RASSELAS AND NEKAYAH CONTINUE THEIR CONVERSATION.
"DEAR Princess," said Rasselas, "you fall into the common errors of

exaggeratory declamation, by producing in a familiar disquisition
examples of national calamities and scenes of extensivemisery

which are found in books rather than in the world, and which, as
they are horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not imagine evils

which we do not feel, nor injure life by misrepresentations. I
cannot bear that querulous eloquence which threatens every city

with a siege like that of Jerusalem, that makes famine attend on
every flight of locust, and suspends pestilence on the wing of

every blast that issues from the south.
"On necessary and inevitable evils which overwhelm kingdoms at once

all disputation is vain; when they happen they must be endured.
But it is evident that these bursts of universaldistress are more

dreaded than felt; thousands and tens of thousands flourish in
youth and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than

domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations, whether
their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country

pursue their enemies or retreat before them. While Courts are
disturbed with intestine competitions and ambassadors are

negotiating in foreign countries, the smith still plies his anvil
and the husbandman drives his plough forward; the necessaries of

life are required and obtained, and the successive business of the
season continues to make its wonted revolutions.

"Let us cease to consider what perhaps may never happen, and what,
when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not

endeavour to modify the motions of the elements or to fix the
destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to consider what beings

like us may perform, each labouring for his own happiness by
promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of

others.
"Marriage is evidently the dictate of Nature; men and women were

made to be the companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be
persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of happiness."

"I know not," said the Princess, "whether marriage be more than one
of the innumerable modes of human misery. When I see and reckon

the various forms of connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of
lasting discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of

opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where both are
urged by violent impulses, the obstinatecontest of disagreeing

virtues where both are supported by consciousness of good
intention, I am sometimes disposed to think, with the severer

casuists of most nations, that marriage is rather permitted than
approved, and that none, but by the instigation of a passion too

much indulged, entangle themselves with indissoluble compact."
"You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you have, even now

represented celibacy as less happy than marriage. Both conditions
may be bad, but they cannot both be worse. Thus it happens, when

wrong opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy each
other and leave the mind open to truth."

"I did not expect," answered, the Princess, "to hear that imputed
to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty. To the

mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness
objects vast in their extent and various in their parts. When we

see or conceive the whole at once, we readily note the
discriminations and decide the preference, but of two systems, of

which neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full
compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication, where is the

wonder that, judging of the whole by parts, I am alternately
affected by one and the other as either presses on my memory or

fancy? We differ from ourselves just as we differ from each other
when we see only part of the question, as in the multifarious

relations of politics and morality, but when we perceive the whole
at once, as in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment,

and none ever varies in his opinion."
"Let us not add," said the Prince, "to the other evils of life the

bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour to vie with each other in
subtilties of argument. We are employed in a search of which both

are equally to enjoy the success or suffer by the miscarriage; it
is therefore fit that we assist each other. You surely conclude

too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its
institution; will not the misery of life prove equally that life

cannot be the gift of Heaven? The world must be peopled by
marriage or peopled without it."

"How the world is to be peopled," returned Nekayah, "is not my care
and need not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation

should omit to leave successors behind them; we are not now
inquiring for the world, but for ourselves."

CHAPTER XXIX - THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE (CONTINUED).
"THE good of the whole," says Rasselas, "is the same with the good

of all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be
evidently best for individuals; or a permanent and necessary duty

must be the cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed
to the convenience of others. In the estimate which you have made

of the two states, it appears that the incommodities of a single
life are in a great measure necessary and certain, but those of the

conjugal state accidental and avoidable. I cannot forbear to
flatter myself that prudence and benevolence will make marriage

happy. The general folly of mankind is the cause of general
complaint. What can be expected but disappointment and repentance

from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardour of
desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after

conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of
judgment, or purity of sentiment?

"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden,
meeting by chance or brought together by artifice, exchange

glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of one another.
Having little to divert attention or diversify thought, they find

themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that
they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what

nothing but voluntaryblindness before had concealed; they wear out
life in altercations, and charge Nature with cruelty.

"From those early marriages proceeds likewise the rivalry of
parents and children: the son is eager to enjoy the world before

the father is willing to forsake it, and there is hardly room at
once for two generations. The daughter begins to bloom before the

mother can be content to fade, and neither can forbear to wish for
the absence of the other.

"Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and
delay which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the