They heard his resolution with surprise, but, after a short pause, offered to conduct him to Cairo.  He dug up a considerable treasure, which he had hid among the rocks, and accompanied them to the city, on which, as he approached it, he gazed with rapture.

CHAP.  XXII.

THE HAPPINESS OF A LIFE, LED ACCORDING TO NATURE.

Rasselas went often to an assembly of learned men, who met, at stated times, to unbend their minds, and compare their opinions.  Their manners were somewhat coarse, but their conversation was instructive, and their disputations acute, though sometimes too violent, and often continued, till neither controvertist remembered, upon what question they began.  Some faults were almost general among them; every one was desirous to dictate to the rest, and every one was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of another depreciated.

In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview with the hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him censure a course of life, which he had so deliberately chosen, and so laudably followed.  The sentiments of the hearers were various.  Some were of opinion, that the folly of his choice had been justly punished by condemnation to perpetual perseverance.  One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him a hypocrite.  Some talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals, and considered retirement as a desertion of duty.  Others readily allowed, that there was a time, when the claims of the publick were satisfied, and when a man might properly sequester himself, to review his life, and purify his heart.  One, who appeared more affected with the narrative than the rest, thought it likely, that the hermit would, in a few years, go back to his retreat, and, perhaps, if shame did not restrain, or death intercept him, return once more from his retreat into the world:  “For the hope of happiness,” said he “is so strongly impressed, that the longest experience is not able to efface it.  Of the present state, whatever it may be, we feel, and are forced to confess, the misery; yet, when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.  But the time will surely come, when desire will be no longer our torment, and no man shall be wretched, but by his own fault.”

“This,” said a philosopher, who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, “is the present condition of a wise man.  The time is already come, when none are wretched, but by their own fault.  Nothing is more idle, than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.  The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law, with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity.  He that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the delusions of hope, or importunities of desire;