in its motion, and delusive in
its direction.

He then communicated the various precepts given, from time to time, for
the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those who had
obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the slave
of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by
anger, emasculated by tenderness, or depressed by grief; but walks on
calmly through the tumults, or privacies of life, as the sun pursues
alike his course through the calm or the stormy sky.

He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, who
looked with indifference on those modes or accidents, to which the
vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay
aside their prejudices, and arm themselves against the shafts of malice
or misfortune, by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this state
only was happiness, and that this happiness was in every one's power.

Rasselas listened to him, with the veneration due to the instructions of
a superiour being, and, waiting for him at the door, humbly implored the
liberty of visiting so great a master of true wisdom. The lecturer
hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse of gold into his hand,
which he received with a mixture of joy and wonder.

"I have found," said the prince, at his return to Imlac, "a man who can
teach all that is necessary to be known; who, from the unshaken throne
of rational fortitude, looks down on the scenes of life changing beneath
him. He speaks, and attention watches his lips. He reasons, and
conviction closes his periods. This man shall be my future guide: I will
learn his doctrines, and imitate his life."

"Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust, or to admire the teachers of
morality: they discourse, like angels, but they live, like men."

Rasselas, who could not conceive, how any man could reason so forcibly,
without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his visit in a
few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned the power of
money, and made his way, by a piece of gold, to the inner apartment,
where he found the philosopher, in a room half-darkened, with his eyes
misty, and his face pale. "Sir," said he, "you are come at a time when
all human friendship is useless; what I suffer cannot be remedied, what
I have lost cannot be supplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from
whose tenderness I expected all the comforts of my age, died last night
of