A little while afterwards he began to cherish hopes of escaping from the valley by quite a different way.  Among the artists allowed there, to labour for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many engines both of use and recreation.  He interested the prince in a project of flying, and undertook to construct a pair of wings, in which he would himself attempt an aerial flight.  But, alas! when in a year’s time the wings were ready, and their contriver waved them and leaped from the little promontory on which he had taken his stand, he merely dropped into the lake, his wings only serving to sustain him in the water.

The prince was not much afflicted by this disaster, and he soon forgot any disappointment he had felt in the society and conversation of a new artist—­a poet called Imlac—­who delighted him by the narrative of his travels and dealings with men in various parts of Africa and Asia.

“Hast thou here found happiness at last?” asked Rasselas.  “Tell me, without reserve, art thou content with thy condition, or dost thou wish to be again wandering and inquiring?  All the inhabitants of this valley celebrate their lot, and at the annual visit of the emperor invite others to partake of their felicity.  Is this felicity genuine or feigned?”

“Great prince,” said Imlac, “I shall speak the truth.  I know not one of all your attendants who does not lament the hour when he entered this retreat.  I am less unhappy than the rest, because I have a mind replete with images, which I can vary and combine at pleasure.  The rest, whose minds have no impression but the present moment, are either corroded by malignant passions, or sit steeped in the gloom of perpetual vacancy.”

“What passions can infect those,” said the prince, “who have no rivals?  We are in a place where impotence precludes malice, and where all envy is repressed by community of enjoyments.”

“There may be community of material possessions,” said Imlac, “but there can never be community of love or of esteem.  It must happen that one will please more than another.  He that knows himself despised will always be envious, and still more envious and malevolent if he is condemned to live in the presence of those who despise him.  The invitations by which the inhabitants of the valley allure others to a state which they feel to be wretched proceed from the natural malignity of hopeless misery.  I look with pity on the crowds who are annually soliciting admission to captivity, and wish that it were lawful for me to warn them of their danger.”

Upon this hint, Rasselas opened his whole heart to Imlac, who, promising to assist him to escape, proposed the plan of piercing the mountain.  A suitable cavern having been found, the two men worked arduously at their task, and within a few days had accomplished it.  A few more days passed, and Rasselas and Imlac, with the prince’s sister, Nekayah, had gone by ship to Suez, and thence to Cairo.