and crying after him for restitution. So strongly was the image
impressed upon his mind that he started up in the maid's defence,
and ran forward to seize the plunderer with all the eagerness of
real pursuit. Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
Rasselas could not catch the fugitive with his utmost efforts; but,
resolving to weary by perseverance him whom he could not surpass in
speed, he pressed on till the foot of the mountain stopped his
course.

Here he recollected himself, and smiled at his own useless
impetuosity. Then raising his eyes to the mountain, "This," said
he, "is the fatal obstacle that hinders at once the enjoyment of
pleasure and the exercise of virtue. How long is it that my hopes
and wishes have flown beyond this boundary of my life, which yet I
never have attempted to surmount?"

Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse, and remembered
that since he first resolved to escape from his confinement, the
sun had passed twice over him in his annual course. He now felt a
degree of regret with which he had never been before acquainted.
He considered how much might have been done in the time which had
passed, and left nothing real behind it. He compared twenty months
with the life of man. "In life," said he, "is not to be counted
the ignorance of infancy or imbecility of age. We are long before
we are able to think, and we soon cease from the power of acting.
The true period of human existence may be reasonably estimated at
forty years, of which I have mused away the four-and-twentieth
part. What I have lost was certain, for I have certainly possessed
it; but of twenty months to come, who can assure me?"