Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales Part 50

"Surely all these evils may be avoided, by that deliberation and delay, which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported, without the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection: one advantage, at least, will be certain; the parents will be visibly older than their children."

"What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, "and what experiment has not yet taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been told, that late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too important to be neglected, and I have often proposed it to those, whose accuracy of remark, and comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally determined, that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other, at a time, when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects.

"It is scarcely possible that two, travelling through the world, under the conduct of chance, should have been both directed to the same path, and it will not often happen, that either will quit the track which custom has made pleasing. When the desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity, it is soon succeeded by pride, ashamed to yield, or obstinacy, delighting to contend. And, even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the external mien, determines, likewise, the direction of the pa.s.sions, and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners. Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life, very often labours in vain; and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves!"

"But, surely," interposed the prince, "you suppose the chief motive of choice forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall seek a wife, it shall be my first question, whether she be willing to be led by reason."

"Thus it is," said Nekayah, "that philosophers are deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes, which reason can never decide; questions that elude investigation, and make logick ridiculous; cases where something must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act, upon any occasions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the minute detail of a domestick day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age, will, probably, escape the encroachments of their children; but, in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's mercy; or, if that should not happen, they must, at least, go out of the world, before they see those whom they love best, either wise or great.

"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope; and they lose, without equivalent, the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their surfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found, that those who marry late, are best pleased with their children, and those who marry early with their partners."

"The union of these two affections," said Ra.s.selas, "would produce all that could be wished. Perhaps there is a time, when marriage might unite them, a time neither too early for the father, nor too late for the husband."

"Every hour," answered the princess, "confirms my prejudice in favour of the position, so often uttered by the mouth of Imlac: 'That nature sets her gifts on the right hand and on the left.' Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract desire, are so const.i.tuted, that, as we approach one, we recede from another. There are goods so opposed, that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pa.s.s between them, at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long consideration; he does nothing, who endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn, while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring; no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile."

CHAP. x.x.x.

IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.

Here Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac," said Ra.s.selas, "I have been taking from the princess the dismal history of private life, and am almost discouraged from further search."

"It seems to me," said Imlac, "that, while you are making the choice of life, you neglect to live. You wander about a single city, which, however large and diversified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country, famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants; a country, where the sciences first dawned that illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil society or domestick life.

"The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of industry and power, before which all European magnificence is confessed to fade away.

The ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern builders; and, from the wonders which time has spared, we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has destroyed."

"My curiosity," said Ra.s.selas, "does not very strongly lead me to survey piles of stone, or mounds of earth; my business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of temples, or trace choked aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the present world."

"The things that are now before us," said the princess, "require attention, and deserve it. What have I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient times? with times which never can return, and heroes, whose form of life was different, from all that the present condition of mankind requires or allows?"

"To know any thing," returned the poet, "we must know its effects; to see men, we must see their works, that we may learn what reason has dictated, or pa.s.sion has incited, and find what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past; for all judgment is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is, that no mind is much employed upon the present: recollection and antic.i.p.ation fill up almost all our moments. Our pa.s.sions are joy and grief, love and hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief, the past is the object, and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have been before the effect.

"The present state of things is the consequence of the former, and it is natural to inquire, what were the sources of the good that we enjoy, or the evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent: if we are intrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil, who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

"There is no part of history so generally useful, as that which relates the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who have kingdoms to govern, have understandings to cultivate.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this, contemplative life has the advantage: great actions are seldom seen, but the labours of art are always at hand, for those who desire to know what art has been able to perform.

"When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed. Here begins the true use of such contemplation; we enlarge our comprehension by new ideas, and, perhaps, recover some art lost to mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known in our own country. At least, we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our improvements, or, what is the first motion towards good, discover our defects."

"I am willing," said the prince, "to see all that can deserve my search." "And I," said the princess, "shall rejoice to learn something of the manners of antiquity."

"The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and one of the most bulky works of manual industry," said Imlac, "are the pyramids; fabricks raised, before the time of history, and of which the earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these, the greatest is still standing, very little injured by time."

"Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah. "I have often heard of the pyramids, and shall not rest, till I have seen them, within and without, with my own eyes."

CHAP. x.x.xI.

THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.

The resolution being thus taken, they set out the next day. They laid tents upon their camels, being resolved to stay among the pyramids, till their curiosity was fully satisfied. They travelled gently, turned aside to every thing remarkable, stopped, from time to time, and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated nature.

When they came to the great pyramid, they were astonished at the extent of the base, and the height of the top. Imlac explained to them the principles upon which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabrick, intended to coextend its duration with that of the world: he showed, that its gradual diminution gave it such stability, as defeated all the common attacks of the elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by earthquakes themselves, the least resistible of natural violence. A concussion that should shatter the pyramid, would threaten the dissolution of the continent.

They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents at its foot.

Next day they prepared to enter its interiour apartments, and, having hired the common guides, climbed up to the first pa.s.sage, when the favourite of the princess, looking into the cavity, stepped back and trembled. "Pekuah," said the princess, "of what art thou afraid?" "Of the narrow entrance," answered the lady, "and of the dreadful gloom. I dare not enter a place which must, surely, be inhabited by unquiet souls. The original possessours of these dreadful vaults will start up before us, and, perhaps, shut us in for ever[a]." She spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her mistress.

"If all your fear be of apparitions," said the prince, "I will promise you safety: there is no danger from the dead; he that is once buried will be seen no more."

"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps, prevails, as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears".[b]

"Yet I do not mean to add new terrours to those which have already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason, why spectres should haunt the pyramid more than other places, or why they should have power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation of their privileges; we can take nothing from them, how then can we offend them?"

"My dear Pekuah," said the princess, "I will always go before you, and Imlac shall follow you. Remember that you are the companion of the princess of Abissinia."

"If the princess is pleased that her servant should die," returned the lady, "let her command some death less dreadful than enclosure in this horrid cavern. You know, I dare not disobey you: I must go, if you command me; but, if I once enter, I never shall come back."

The princess saw that her fear was too strong for expostulation or reproof, and, embracing her, told her, that she should stay in the tent, till their return. Pekuah was yet not satisfied, but entreated the princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose, as that of entering the rececess of the pyramid. "Though I cannot teach courage," said Nekayah, "I must not learn cowardice; nor leave, at last, undone what I came hither only to do."

[a] It may not be unacceptable to our readers, to quote, in this place, a stanza, from an Ode to Horror in the Student, ii. 313. It alludes to the story of a French gentleman, who, going into the catacombs, not far from Cairo, with some Arab guides, was there robbed by them, and left; a huge stone being placed over the entrance.

What felt the Gallic, traveller, When far in Arab desert, drear, He found within the catacomb, Alive, the terrors of a tomb?

While many a mummy, through the shade, In hieroglyphic stole arrayed, Seem'd to uprear the mystic head, And trace the gloom with ghostly tread; Thou heard'st him pour the stifled groan, Horror! his soul was all thy own! ED.

[b] See Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions. It is to be regretted, that Coleridge has never yet gratified the wish he professed to feel, in the first volume of his Friend, p. 246, to devote an entire work to the subject of dreams, visions, ghosts, witchcraft, &c; in it we should have had the satisfaction of tracing the workings of a most vivid imagination, a.n.a.lyzed by the most discriminating judgment. See Barrow's sermon on the being of G.o.d, proved from supernatural effects. We need scarcely request the reader to bear in mind, that Barrow was a mathematician, and one of the most severe of reasoners.--ED.

CHAP. x.x.xII.

THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID.

Pekuah descended to the tents, and the rest entered the pyramid: they pa.s.sed through the galleries, surveyed the vaults of marble, and examined the chest, in which the body of the founder is supposed to have been reposited. They then sat down in one of the most s.p.a.cious chambers, to rest awhile before they attempted to return.

"We have now," said Imlac, "gratified our minds with an exact view of the greatest work of man, except the wall of China.

"Of the wall it is very easy to a.s.sign the motive. It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians, whose unskilfulness in arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and who, from time to time, poured in upon the habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestick fowl. Their celerity and fierceness, made the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious.

"But, for the pyramids, no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labour of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been reposited, at far less expense, with equal security. It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination, which preys incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some employment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy, must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use, till use is supplied, must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish.

"I consider this mighty structure, as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid, the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of declining life, by seeing thousands labouring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another. Whoever thou art, that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appet.i.te of novelty, with perpetual gratifications, survey the pyramids, and confess thy folly!"

CHAP. x.x.xIII.

THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE.