to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, and
to lessen the tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately
gratified. Such was the appearance of security and delight which this
retirement afforded that they to whom it was new always desired that it
might be perpetual; and as those on whom the iron gate had once closed
were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience could not
be known.

Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to know the soft
vicissitudes of pleasure and repose. The sages who instructed them told
them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described all
beyond the mountains as regions of calamity where discord was always
raging, and where man preyed upon man. These methods were generally
successful. Few of the princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds;
they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other
and with themselves. All but Rasselas, who, in the twenty-sixth year of
his age, began to withdraw himself from the pastimes and assemblies, and
to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. His attendants
observed the change, and endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure; but
he neglected their officiousness and repulsed their invitations.

One day his old instructor began to lament the change which had been
lately observed in him, and to inquire why he so often retired from the
pleasures of the palace to loneliness and silence.

"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to
please. I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud
with my presence the happiness of others."

"You, sir," said the sage, "are the first who has complained of misery