The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"I cannot forbear to flatter myself," said Rasselas, "that prudence and benevolence will make marriage happy. 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. From these early marriages proceed 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."

"And yet," said Nekayah, "I have been told that late marriages are not eminently happy. It has generally been 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, and when life has been planned into method."

At this point Imlac entered, and having refused to talk upon the subject of their discourse, persuaded them to visit the great pyramid.

"I consider this mighty structure," said he, as they reposed in one of its chambers, "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."

Soon afterwards the prince told Imlac that he intended to devote himself to science, and to pass the rest of his days in retirement.

"Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac, "you ought to examine its hazards, and to converse with some of those who are grown old in the company of themselves."

He then introduced him to a learned astronomer, who had meditated over his science and over visionary schemes for so long that he believed that he possessed the regulation of the weather, and the distribution of the seasons.

A visit made subsequently to the catacombs tended still further to give a grave and sombre direction to the thoughts of the party.

"How gloomy," said Rasselas, "would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life."

"To me," said the princess, "the choice of life is become less important; I hope, hereafter, to think only on the choice of eternity."

It was now the time of the inundations of the Nile, and the searchers for happiness were, of necessity, confined to their house. Being, however, well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life which they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness which each of them had formed--schemes which now they well knew would never be carried out.

They deliberated with Imlac what was to be done, and finally resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return to Abyssinia.