 Of the way to happiness he found the learned and simple equally ignorant;
but, as he was yet young, he flattered himself that he had time remaining for
more experiments, and further inquiries. He communicated to Imlac his
observations and his doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts, and
remarks that gave him no comfort. He therefore discoursed more frequently and
freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself, and always
assisted him to give some reason why, though he had been hitherto frustrated, he
might succeed at last.
    »We have hitherto, said she, known but little of the world: we have never
yet been either great or mean. In our own country, though we had royalty, we had
no power, and in this we have not yet seen the private recesses of domestick
peace. Imlac favours not our search, lest we should in time find him mistaken.
We will divide the task between us: you shall try what is to be found in the
splendour of courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps
command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they afford most
opportunities of doing good: or, perhaps, what this world can give may be found
in the modest habitations of middle fortune; too low for great designs, and too
high for penury and distress.«
 

                                  Chapter XXIV

               The prince examines the happiness of high stations

Rasselas applauded the design, and appeared next day with a splendid retinue at
the court of the Bassa. He was soon distinguished for his magnificence, and
admitted, as a prince whose curiosity had brought him from distant countries, to
an intimacy with the great officers, and frequent conversation with the Bassa
himself.
    He was at first inclined to believe, that the man must be pleased with his
own condition, whom all approached with reverence, and heard with obedience, and
who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom. »There can be no
pleasure, said he, equal to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands all
made happy by wise administration. Yet, since, by the law of subordination, this
sublime delight can be in one nation but the lot of one, it is surely reasonable
to think that there is some satisfaction more popular and accessible, and that
millions can hardly be subjected to the will of a single man, only to fill his
particular breast with incommunicable content.«
    These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no solution of the
difficulty. But as presents and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found
