Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

as, "I have been taking from the Princess the dismal history o

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 inh

ficence is confessed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern builders; a

r mounds of earth. My business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of tem

I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient times-with times which can never return, and heroe

ghtly 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

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, i

situdes 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 accou

opy pictures. In this, contemplative life has the advantage. Great actions are seldom seen, but th

rue 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

Prince, "to see all tha

hall rejoice to learn somethin

Imlac, "are the Pyramids: fabrics raised before the time of history, and of which the earliest narratives

ften heard of the Pyramids, and shall not rest till I