, is a state more gloomy than solitude: it is
not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but
celibacy has no pleasures."

"What then is to be done?" said Rasselas; "the more we inquire, the less
we can resolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself, that has no
other inclination to regard."

CHAP. XXVII.

DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.

The conversation had a short pause. The prince, having considered his
sister's observations, told her that she had surveyed life with
prejudice, and supposed misery where she did not find it. "Your
narrative," says he, "throws yet a darker gloom upon the prospects of
futurity: the predictions of Imlac were but faint sketches of the evils
painted by Nekayah. I have been lately convinced, that quiet is not the
daughter of grandeur, or of power: that her presence is not to be bought
by wealth, nor enforced by conquest. It is evident, that as any man acts
in a wider compass, he must be more exposed to opposition from enmity,
or miscarriage from chance; whoever has many to please or to govern,
must use the ministry of many agents, some of whom will be wicked, and
some ignorant; by some he will be misled, and by others betrayed. If he
gratifies one, he will offend another: those that are not favoured will
think themselves injured; and, since favours can be conferred but upon
few, the greater number will be always discontented."

"The discontent," said the princess, "which is thus unreasonable, I
hope, that I shall always have spirit to despise, and you power to
repress."

"Discontent," answered Rasselas, "will not always be without reason
under the most just and vigilant administration of publick affairs.
None, however attentive, can always discover that merit, which indigence
or faction may happen to obscure; and none, however powerful, can always
reward it. Yet, he that sees inferiour desert advanced above him, will
naturally impute that preference to partiality or caprice; and, indeed,
it can scarcely be hoped that any man, however magnanimous by nature, or
exalted by condition, will be able to persist, for ever, in the fixed
and inexorable justice of distribution; he will sometimes indulge his
own affections, and sometimes those of his favourites; he will permit
some to please him who can never serve him; he will discover in those
whom he loves, qualities which, in reality, they do not possess; and to
those, from whom he receives pleasure, he will, in his t