The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia · Chapter
The Princess Pursues Her Inquiry with More Diligence Than Success explained
Princess Nekayah investigates private life by visiting many families, but finds their pleasures shallow, their griefs transient, and their affections based on trivialities.
What happens
Princess Nekayah investigates private life by visiting many families, but finds their pleasures shallow, their griefs transient, and their affections based on trivialities. She and Rasselas meet in a summerhouse on the Nile, where she laments that no house is free from some fury that destroys its quiet. She also observes that poverty is often concealed in cities, and that even her charitable acts sometimes breed resentment rather than gratitude.
Themes in this chapter
The Search for Happiness
Nekayah's diligent inquiry into private life reveals that even in seemingly prosperous homes, happiness is elusive and disturbed by petty conflicts and transient emotions.
The Vanity of Human Wishes
The Princess finds that the pleasures of the families she visits are poor, artificial, and embittered by competition, illustrating the vanity of human desires.
The Inevitability of Suffering
Nekayah concludes that no house is free from some fury that destroys its quiet, and that even the poor suffer from concealed indigence and the resentment of benefactors.
Characters to notice
- Nekayah
The Princess pursues her inquiry into private life, visiting many families and finding them full of petty competitions and transient joys.
- Rasselas
Rasselas meets with Nekayah in the evening summerhouse and compares her findings to his own observations in Courts.
- Imlac
Mentioned as having accustomed Nekayah to deeper conversation, making her dissatisfied with childish levity.
Key passages
“I have, since the last partition of our provinces, enabled myself to enter familiarly into many families, where there was the fairest show of prosperity and peace, and know not one house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet.”
Since dividing our territories, I have visited many families that appeared prosperous and peaceful, yet I have found not a single home free from some torment that ruins its tranquility.
Nekayah summarizes her disappointing findings to Rasselas.
“Poverty has in large cities very different appearances. It is often concealed in splendour and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest.”
In big cities, poverty takes many forms and is frequently hidden behind displays of wealth or waste. Most people work hard to hide their lack of resources from others.
Nekayah observes the hidden nature of urban poverty.