Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they
afford the 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.
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