they had not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not
read. They had no idea but of the few things that were within
their view, and had hardly names for anything but their clothes and
their food. As I bore a superior character, I was often called to
terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could.
If it could have amused me to hear the complaints of each against
the rest, I might have been often detained by long stories; but the
motives of their animosity were so small that I could not listen
without interrupting the tale."

"How," said Rasselas, "can the Arab, whom you represented as a man
of more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his
seraglio, when it is filled only with women like these? Are they
exquisitely beautiful?"

"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble
beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity,
without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like
the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and
carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find among
them, they were not those of friendship or society. When they were
playing about him he looked on them with inattentive superiority;
when they vied for his regard he sometimes turned away disgusted.
As they had no knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the
tediousness of life; as they had no choice, their fondness, or
appearance of fondness, excited in him neither pride nor gratitude.
He was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman who
saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard of which he
could never know the sincerity, and which he might often perceive
to be exerted not so much to delight him as to pain a rival. That