new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies by continual attrition conform their surfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children, and those who 5 marry early with their partners.”

"The union of these two affections," said Rasselas, "would produce all that could be wished. Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite them; a time neither too early for the father nor too late for 10 the husband."

"Every hour," answered the princess, "confirms my prejudice in favor of the position so often uttered by the mouth of Imlac, that nature sets her gifts on the right hand and on the left. Those conditions which 15 flatter hope and attract desire are so constituted, that as we approach one we recede from another. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but by too much prudence may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the 20 fate of long consideration; he does nothing who endeavors to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you, make your choice and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn 25 while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring; no man can at the same time fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile."

CHAPTER XXX.

IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.

His

HERE Imlac entered, and interrupted them. look was clouded with thought. "Imlac," said Ras5 selas, "I have been taking from the princess the dismal history of private life, and am almost discouraged from further search.

"It seems to me," said Imlac, "that while you are making the choice of life you neglect to live. You to wander about a single city, which, however large and diversified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants; a country where the sciences first dawned that illuminate 15 the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil society or domestic life.

"The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of industry and power before which all European magnificence is confessed to fade away. The 20 ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern builders, and from the wonders which time has spared we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has destroyed."

"My curiosity," said Rasselas, "does not very 25 strongly lead me to survey piles of stone or mounds of earth; my business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of temples or trace choked aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the present world."

30

"The things that are now before us," said the

princess, "necessarily require attention and sufficiently deserve it. What have I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient times? with times which never can return, and heroes whose form of life was different from all that the present condition of mankind requires 5 or allows?"

"To know anything," returned the poet, "we must know its effects. To see men, we must see their works, that we may learn what reason has dictated, or passion has incited, and find what are the most powerful 10 motives of action. To judge rightly of the present, we must oppose it to the past; for all judgment is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is that no mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost 15 all our moments. Our passions are joy and grief, love and hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief the past is the object, and the future, of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have been before the effect.

20

"The present state of things is the consequence of the former, and it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the good that we enjoy, or of the evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent; if we are entrusted 25 with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil, who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

"There is no part of history so generally useful as 30 that which relates the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive

advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and all the revolutions of the intellectual world. If ac

5 counts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who have kingdoms to govern have understandings to cultivate.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept. 10 A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this, contemplative life has the advantage; great actions are seldom seen, but the labors of art are always at hand for those who desire to know what art has been able to perform.

15

"When the eye or the imagination is struck with any uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed. Here begins the true use of such contemplation; we enlarge our comprehension by new ideas, and perhaps 20 recover some art lost to mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known in our own country. At least we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our improvements, or, what is the first motion towards good, discover our defects."

25

"I am willing," said the prince, “to see all that can deserve my search." "And I," said the princess, "shall rejoice to learn something of the manners of antiquity."

"The most pompous monument of Egyptian great30 ness, and one of the most bulky works of manual industry," said Imlac, "are the pyramids-fabrics raised before the time of history, and of which the

earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these the greatest is still standing, very little injured by time."'

“I

"Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah. have often heard of the pyramids, and shall not rest 5 till I have seen them, within and without, with my own eyes."

CHAPTER XXXI.

THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.

THE resolution being thus taken, they set out the 10 next day. They laid tents upon their camels, being resolved to stay among the pyramids till their curiosity was fully satisfied. They travelled gently, turned aside to everything remarkable, stopped from time to time and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed 15 the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated nature.

When they came to the great pyramid, they were astonished at the extent of the base and the height of the top. Imlac explained to them the principles upon 20 which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabric intended to co-extend its duration with that of the world; he showed that its gradual diminution gave it such stability as defeated all the common attacks of the elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by 25 earthquakes themselves, the least resistible of natural violence. A concussion that should shatter the pyramid would threaten the dissolution of the continent.

They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents at its foot. Next day, they prepared to 30