issues from the
south.

"On necessary and inevitable evils, which overwhelm kingdoms at once,
all disputation is vain: when they happen they must be endured. But it
is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded
than felt; thousands, and ten thousands, flourish in youth, and wither
in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestick evils, and
share the same pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or
cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies, or
retreat before them. While courts are disturbed with intestine
competitions, and ambassadours are negotiating in foreign countries, the
smith still plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives his plough
forward; the necessaries of life are required and obtained; and the
successive business of the seasons continues to make its wonted
revolutions.

"Let us cease to consider what, perhaps, may never happen, and what,
when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not
endeavour to modify the motions of the elements, or to fix the destiny
of kingdoms. It is our business to consider what beings, like us, may
perform; each labouring for his own happiness, by promoting, within his
circle, however narrow, the happiness of others.

"Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men and women are made to
be companions of each other; and, therefore, I cannot be persuaded, but
that marriage is one of the means of happiness."

"I know not," said the princess, "whether marriage be more than one of
the innumerable modes of human misery. When I see, and reckon, the
various forms of connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting
discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude
collisions of contrary desire, where both are urged by violent impulses,
the obstinate contests of disagreeable virtues, where both are supported
by consciousness of good intention, I am, sometimes, disposed to think,
with the severer casuists of most nations, that marriage is rather
permitted than approved, and that none, but by the instigation of a
passion, too much indulged, entangle themselves with indissoluble
compacts."

"You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you have, even now,
represented celibacy, as less happy than marriage. Both conditions may
be bad, but they cannot both be worst. Thus it happens, when wrong
opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy each other, and
leave the mind