Integrity, without knowledge, is weak and useless; and knowledge,
without integrity, is dangerous and dreadful. I have found in thee all
the qualities requisite for trust--benevolence, experience, and
fortitude. I have long discharged an office, which I must soon quit at
the call of nature, and shall rejoice, in the hour of imbecility and
pain, to devolve it upon thee.'
"I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and protested, that
whatever could conduce to his happiness, would add likewise to mine.
"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not, without difficulty, credit. I have
possessed, for five years, the regulation of weather, and the
distribution of the seasons: the sun has listened to my dictates, and
passed, from tropick to tropick, by my direction; the clouds, at my
call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my
command; I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the
fervours of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers,
have, hitherto, refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by
equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or
restrain. I have administered this great office with exact justice, and
made, to the different nations of the earth, an impartial dividend of
rain and sunshine. What must have been the misery of half the globe, if
I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to
either side of the equator!'
CHAP.
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