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 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 the husband."
"Every hour," answered the Princess, "confirms my prejudice in

favour 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 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 fate of long consideration; he does nothing who
endeavours 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 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.

HERE Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac," said Rasselas,
"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 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 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 ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern

builders; and from the wonders which time has spared we may
conjecture, though uncertainly" target="_blank" title="ad.不明确地；怀疑地">uncertainly, what it has destroyed."

"My curiosity," said Rasselas, "does not very 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."
"The things that are now before us," said the Princess, "require

attention, and deserve it. What have I to do with the heroes or
the monuments of ancient times - with times which can never return,

and heroes whose form of life was different from all that the
present condition of mankind requires 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 excited, and find what are the most
powerful 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 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.
"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 the evils that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves,

to neglect the study of history is not prudent. If we are
entrusted 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 that which
relates to 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 the
revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts 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. 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 labours of art are always at hand for those who
desire to know what art has been able to perform.

"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 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."

"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 greatness, 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."
"Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah. "I have often heard

of the Pyramids, and shall not rest 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 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 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 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 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 enter its interior apartments, and
having hired the common guides, climbed up to the first passage;

when the favourite of the Princess, looking into the cavity,
stepped back and trembled. "Pekuah," said the Princess, "of what

art thou afraid?"
"Of the narrow entrance," answered the lady, "and of the dreadful

gloom. I dare not enter a place which must surely be inhabited by
unquiet souls. The original possessors of these dreadful vaults

will start up before us, and perhaps shut us in for ever." She
spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her mistress.

"If all your fear be of apparitions," said the Prince, "I will
promise you safety. There is no danger from the dead: he that is

once buried will be seen no more."
"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake

to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all
ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned,

among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed.
This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is

diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that
never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which

nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by
single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and