uncommon in their fortune or conduct. He frequented the
voluptuous and the frugal, the idle and the busy, the merchants and the men of
learning.
    The prince, being now able to converse with fluency, and having learned the
caution necessary to be observed in his intercourse with strangers, began to
accompany Imlac to places of resort, and to enter into all assemblies, that he
might make his choice of life.
    For some time he thought choice needless, because all appeared to him
equally happy. Wherever he went he met gaiety and kindness, and heard the song
of joy, or the laugh of carelessness. He began to believe that the world
overflowed with universal plenty, and that nothing was with-held either from
want or merit; that every hand showered liberality, and every heart melted with
benevolence: »and who then, says he, will be suffered to be wretched?«
    Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was unwilling to crush the hope
of inexperience; till one day, having sat a while silent, »I know not, said the
prince, what can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of our friends. I
see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind restless and
uneasy. I am unsatisfied with those pleasures which I seem most to court; I live
in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself, and am
only loud and merry to conceal my sadness.«
    »Every man, said Imlac, may, by examining his own mind, guess what passes in
the minds of others: when you feel that your own gaiety is counterfeit, it may
justly lead you to suspect that of your companions not to be sincere. Envy is
commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never
to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of
obtaining it for himself. In the assembly, where you passed the last night,
there appeared such spriteliness of air, and volatility of fancy, as might have
suited beings of an higher order, formed to inhabit serener regions inaccessible
to care or sorrow: yet, believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread
the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection.«
    »This, said the prince, may be true of others, since it is true of me; yet,
whatever be the general infelicity of man, one condition is more happy than
another, and wisdom surely directs us to take the least evil in the choice of
life.