"The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any longer by the
sighs of Nekayah: my search after happiness is now at an end. I
am resolved to retire from the world, with all its flatteries and
deceits, and will hide myself in solitude, without any other care
than to compose my thoughts and regulate my hours by a constant
succession of innocent occupations, till, with a mind purified from
earthly desires, I shall enter into that state to which all are
hastening, and in which I hope again to enjoy the friendship of
Pekuah."

"Do not entangle your mind," said Imlac, "by irrevocable
determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary
accumulation of misery. The weariness of retirement will continue
to increase when the loss of Pekuah is forgot. That you have been
deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason for rejection of
the rest."

"Since Pekuah was taken from me," said the Princess, "I have no
pleasure to reject or to retain. She that has no one to love or
trust has little to hope. She wants the radical principle of
happiness. We may perhaps allow that what satisfaction this world
can afford must arise from the conjunction of wealth, knowledge,
and goodness. Wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed, and
knowledge nothing but as it is communicated. They must therefore
be imparted to others, and to whom could I now delight to impart
them? Goodness affords the only comfort which can be enjoyed
without a partner, and goodness may be practised in retirement."

"How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it, I shall not,"