The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible to meet with good company here, in a country so barbarous as that of the most northerly part of Europe, near the Frozen ocean, and within but a very few degrees of Nova Zembla.
But this being the country where the state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before, are all banished; this city was full of noblemen, princes, gentlemen, colonels, and, in short, all degrees of the nobility, gentry, soldiery, and courtiers of Muscovy. Here were the famous prince Galilfken, or Galoffken, and his son; the old general Robostisky, and several other persons of note, and some ladies.
By means of my Scots merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, I made an acquaintance with several of these gentlemen, and some of them of the first rank; and from these, in the long winter nights, in which I staid here, I received several agreeable visits. It was talking one night with a certain prince, one of the banished ministers of state belonging to the czar of Muscovy, that my talk of my particular case began. He had been telling me abundance of fine things, of the greatness, the magnificence, and dominions, and the absolute power of the emperor of the Russians. I interrupted him, and told him, I was a greater and more powerful prince than ever the czar of Muscovy was, though my dominions were not so large, or my people so many. The Russian grandee looked a little surprised, and fixing his eyes steadily upon me, began to wonder what I meant.
I told him his wonder would cease when I had explained myself. First, I told him, I had the absolute disposal of the lives and fortunes of all my subjects: that notwithstanding my absolute power, I had not one person disaffected to my government or to my person, in all my dominions. He shook his head at that, and said, there, indeed, I outdid the czar of Muscovy. I told him, that all the lands in my kingdom were my own, and all my subjects were not only my tenants, but tenants at will; that they would all fight for me to the last drop; and that never tyrant, for such I acknowledged myself to be, was ever so universally beloved, and yet so horribly feared, by his subjects.
After amusing them with these riddles in government for awhile, I opened the case, and told them the story at large of my living in the island, and how I managed both myself and the people there that were under me, just as I have since minuted it down. They were exceedingly taken with the story, and especially the prince, who told me with a sigh, that the true greatness of life was to be master of ourselves; that he would not have changed such a state of life as mine, to have been czar of Muscovy, and that he found more felicity in the retirement he seemed to be banished to there, than ever he found in the highest authority he enjoyed in the court of his master the czar: that the height of human wisdom was to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm, without. When he came first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, and the clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but a little time and consideration had made him look into himself, as well as round himself, to things without: that he found the mind of man, if it was but once brought to reflect upon the state of universal life, and how little this world was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectly capable of making a felicity for itself, fully satisfying to itself, and suitable to its own best ends and desires, with but very little assistance from the world; that air to breathe in, food to sustain life, clothes for warmth, and liberty for exercise, in order to health, completed, in his opinion, all that the world could do for us: and though the greatness, the authority, the riches, and the pleasures, which some enjoyed in the world, and which he had enjoyed his share of, had much in them that was agreeable to us, yet he observed, that all those things chiefly gratified the coarsest of our affections; such as our ambition, our particular pride, our avarice, our vanity, and our sensuality; all which were, indeed, the mere product of the worst part of man, were in themselves crimes, and had in them the seeds of all manner of crimes; but neither were related to, or concerned with, any of those virtues that constituted us wise men, or of those graces which distinguished us as Christians; that being now deprived of all the fancied felicity which he enjoyed in the full exercise of all those vices, he said, he was at leisure to look upon the dark side of them, where he found all manner of deformity; and was now convinced, that virtue only makes a man truly wise, rich, and great, and preserves him in the way to a superior happiness in a future state; and in this, he said, they were more happy in their banishment, than all their enemies were, who had the full possession of all the wealth and power that they (the banished) had left behind them.
“Nor, Sir,” said he, “do I bring my mind to this politically, by the necessity of my circumstances, which some call miserable; but if I know any thing of myself, I would not go back, no not though my master, the czar, should call me, and offer to reinstate me in all my former grandeur; I say, I would no more go back to it, than I believe my soul, when it shall be delivered from this prison of the body, and has had a taste of the glorious state beyond life, would come back to the gaol of flesh and blood it is now enclosed in, and leave Heaven to deal in the dirt and grime of human affairs.”
He spake this with so much warmth in his temper, so much earnestness and motion of his spirits, which were apparent in his countenance, that it was evident it was the true sense of his soul; and indeed there was no room to doubt his sincerity.
I told him, I once thought myself a kind of a monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account, but that I thought he was not a monarch only, but a great conqueror; for that he that has got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and has the absolute dominion over himself, and whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city. “But, my lord,” said I, “shall I take the liberty to ask you a question?”—“With all my heart,” said he. “If the door of your liberty was opened,” said I, “would not you take hold of it to deliver yourself from this exile?”
“Hold,” said he, “your question is subtle, and requires some serious just distinctions to give it a sincere answer; and I’ll give it you from the bottom of my heart. Nothing that I know of in this world would move me to deliver myself from the state of banishment, except these two: first, the enjoyment of my relations; and secondly, a little warmer climate. But I protest to you, that to go back to the pomp of the court, the glory, the power, the hurry of a minister of state; the wealth, the gaiety, and the pleasures, that is to say, follies of a courtier; if my master should send me word this moment, that he restores me to all he banished me from, I protest, if I know myself at all, I would not leave this wilderness, these deserts, and these frozen lakes, for the palace of Moscow.”
“But, my lord,” said I, “perhaps you not only are banished from the pleasures of the court, and from the power, and authority, and wealth, you enjoyed before, but you may be absent too from some of the conveniencies of life; your estate, perhaps, confiscated, and your effects plundered; and the supplies left you here may not be suitable to the ordinary demands of life.”