had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,—­he shall march to his regiment.—­He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.—­He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.—­He’ll drop at last, said the Corporal, and what will become of his boy?  He shall not drop said my uncle Toby, firmly,—­Ah, well-a-day!—­do what we can for him, said Trim, maintaining his point,—­the poor soul will die.—­He shall not die, by G—­, cried my uncle Toby.

—­The accusing spirit, which flew up to Heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in;—­and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.[190]

“Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.”  Thus begins the famous tale which Dr. Johnson made the repository of so much of his wisdom, and so beautiful an example of English style.  Rasselas and his royal brothers and sisters live in a secluded portion of the earth known as the Happy Valley, where, completely isolated from the world, they await their succession to the crown of the imaginary land of Abyssinia, surrounded by every luxury which can make life agreeable, and shut off from all knowledge of those evils which can make it painful.  The aim of the story is to show the vanity of expecting perfect happiness, and the folly of sacrificing present advantages for the delusive promises of the future.

The scene opens in the Happy Valley, where there is all that labor or danger can procure or purchase, without either labor to be endured or danger to be dreaded.  Rasselas illustrates the habitual discontent of man by wearying of the monotonous happiness of his royal home, and, together with his sister Nekayah, who shares his ennui, and Imlac, a man of learning, he escapes from the abode of changeless joys and perpetual merriment.

Once beyond the barriers of the Happy Valley, Rasselas and Nekayah seek in the various ranks and conditions of men the abode of true happiness.  It is sought in vain amidst the hollow and noisy pleasures of the young and thoughtless; in vain among philosophers, whose theories so ill accord with their practice; in vain among shepherds, whose actual life contrasts so painfully with the descriptions of the poet; in vain in crowds, where sorrow lurks beneath the outward smile; in vain in the cell of the hermit, who counts the days till he shall once more mix with the world.  The task becomes more hopeless with each new disappointment.  Rasselas pursues his investigation among the higher ranks, in courts and cities; Nekayah, hers among the poor and humble, in the shop and the hamlet.  But when the brother and sister meet to share their experiences, they both have the same tale to tell of human discontent.  Finally, in returning disappointed to Abyssinia, they illustrate the tendency among men to look back with regret on the early pleasures of life, abandoned for the impossible happiness which discontent had taught them to seek.