Thus passed twenty months of his life; he busied himself so intensely in
visionary bustle that he forgot his real solitude. But one day the
consciousness of his own folly and inaction pierced him deeply. He
compared twenty months with the life of man. "The period of human
existence," said he, "may be reasonably estimated at forty years, of
which I have mused away the four-and-twentieth part."

These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he passed four
months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves. Then,
awakening to more vigorous exertion, he for a few hours regretted his
regret, and from that time bent his whole mind upon the means of
escaping from the Valley of Happiness.

He now found that it would be very difficult to effect that which it was
very easy to suppose effected. He passed week after week in clambering
the mountains, but found all the summits inaccessible by their
prominence. The iron gate was not only secured with all the power of
art, but was always watched by successive sentinels. In these fruitless
researches he spent ten months. The time, however, passed cheerfully
away, for he met a thousand amusements which beguiled his labour and
diversified his thought.

A little while afterwards he began to cherish hopes of escaping from the
valley by quite a different way. Among the artists allowed there, to
labour for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man
eminent for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many
engines both of use and recreation. He interested the prince in a
project of flying, and undertook to construct a pair of wings, in which
he would himself attempt an aerial flight. But, alas! when in a year's
time the wings were ready, and their contriver waved them and leaped