She had lost her
taste of pleasure, and her ambition of excellence. And her mind, though
forced into short excursions, always recurred to the image of her
friend.
Imlac was, every morning, earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries, and
was asked, every night, whether he had yet heard of Pekuah, till, not
being able to return the princess the answer that she desired, he was
less and less willing to come into her presence. She observed his
backwardness, and commanded him to attend her. "You are not," said she,
"to confound impatience with resentment, or to suppose, that I charge
you with negligence, because I repine at your unsuccessfulness. I do not
much wonder at your absence; I know that the unhappy are never pleasing,
and that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. To hear complaints
is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy; for who would cloud,
by adventitious grief, the short gleams of gaiety which life allows us?
or who, that is struggling under his own evils, will add to them the
miseries of another?
"The time is at hand, when none shall be disturbed any longer by the
sighs of Nekayah: my search after happiness is now at an end. I am
resolved to retire from the world, with all its flatteries and deceits,
and will hide myself in solitude, without any other care than to compose
my thoughts, and regulate my hours by a constant succession of innocent
occupations, till, with a mind purified from all earthly desires, I
shall enter into that state, to which all are hastening, and in which I
hope again to enjoy the friendship of Pekuah.
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