ere always jealous of the
beauty of each other; of a quality to which solicitude can add nothing,
and from which detraction can take nothing away. Many were in love with
triflers, like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love,
when, in truth, they were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on
sense or virtue, and, therefore, seldom ended but in vexation. Their
grief, however, like their joy, was transient; every thing floated in
their mind, unconnected with the past or future; so that one desire
easily gave way to another, as a second stone, cast into the water,
effaces and confounds the circles of the first.

With these girls she played, as with inoffensive animals, and found them
proud of her countenance, and weary of her company.

But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affability easily
persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow, to discharge their
secrets in her ear: and those, whom hope flattered, or prosperity
delighted, often courted her to partake their pleasures.

The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a private
summer house, on the bank of the Nile, and related to each other the
occurrences of the day. As they were sitting together, the princess cast
her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. "Answer," said she,
"great father of waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty
nations, to the invocations of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me,
if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which
thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint?"

"You are then," said Rasselas, "not more successful in private houses,
than I have been in courts." "I have, since the last partition of our
provinces," said the princess, "enabled myself to enter familiarly into
many families, where there was the fairest show of prosperity and peace,
and know not one house that is not haunted by some fury, that destroys
their quiet.

"I did not seek ease among the poor, because I concluded that, there, it
could not be found. But I saw many poor, whom I had supposed to live in
affluence. Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it
is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance. It is the
care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the
rest; they support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is
lost in contriving for the morrow.

"This, however, was an evil, which, though frequent,