advantages on the side of the Europeans. They cure wounds and
diseases with which we languish and perish. We suffer inclemencies
of weather which they can obviate. They have engines for the
despatch of many laborious works, which we must perform by manual
industry. There is such communication between distant places that
one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another. Their
policy removes all public inconveniences; they have roads cut
through the mountains, and bridges laid over their rivers. And, if
we descend to the privacies of life, their habitations are more
commodious and their possessions are more secure."

"They are surely happy," said the Prince, "who have all these
conveniences, of which I envy none so much as the facility with
which separated friends interchange their thoughts."

"The Europeans," answered Imlac, "are less unhappy than we, but
they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much
is to be endured and little to be enjoyed."



CHAPTER XII--THE STORY OF IMLAC (continued).



"I am not willing," said the Prince, "to suppose that happiness is
so parsimoniously distributed to mortals, nor can I believe but
that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to fill every
day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should provoke no
resentments; I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the