hope that had been ever darted into his mind rekindled youth in his
cheeks, and doubled the lustre of his eyes. He was fired with the
desire of doing something, though he knew not yet, with
distinctness, either end or means. He was now no longer gloomy and
unsocial; but considering himself as master of a secret stock of
happiness, which he could only enjoy by concealing it, he affected
to be busy in all the schemes of diversion, and endeavoured to make
others pleased with the state of which he himself was weary. But
pleasures can never be so multiplied or continued as not to leave
much of life unemployed; there were many hours, both of the night
and day, which he could spend without suspicion in solitary
thought. The load of life was much lightened; he went eagerly into
the assemblies, because he supposed the frequency of his presence
necessary to the success of his purposes; he retired gladly to
privacy, because he had now a subject of thought. His chief
amusement was to picture to himself that world which he had never
seen, to place himself in various conditions, to be entangled in
imaginary difficulties, and to be engaged in wild adventures; but,
his benevolence always terminated his projects in the relief of
distress, the detection of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and the
diffusion of happiness.

Thus passed twenty months of the life of Rasselas. He busied
himself so intensely in visionary bustle that he forgot his real
solitude; and amidst hourly preparations for the various incidents
of human affairs, neglected to consider by what means he should
mingle with mankind.

One day, as he was sitting on a bank, he feigned to himself an
orphan virgin robbed of her little portion by a treacherous lover,