esight,
without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners,
rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment. From these early
marriages proceed the rivalry of parents and children.

"The son is eager to enjoy the world before the father is willing to
forsake it, and there is hardly room at once for two generations. The
daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and
neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the other. Surely all
these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay which prudence
prescribes to irrevocable choice."

"And yet," said Nekayah, "I have been told that late marriages are not
eminently happy. It has generally been determined that it is dangerous
for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when
opinions are fixed and habits are established, when friendships have
been contracted on both sides, and when life has been planned into
method."

At this point Imlac entered, and having refused to talk upon the subject
of their discourse, persuaded them to visit the great pyramid.

"I consider this mighty structure," said he, as they reposed in one of
its chambers, "as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A
king, whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real
and imaginary wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a
pyramid, the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to
amuse the tediousness of declining life by seeing thousands labouring
without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another."

Soon afterwards the prince told Imlac that he intended to devote himself
to science, and to pass the rest of his days in retirement.

"Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac, "you ought to
examine its hazards, and to converse with some of those who are grown
old in the company of themselves."

He then introduced him to a learned astronomer, who had meditated over
his science and over visionary schemes for so long that he believed that
he possessed the regulation of the weather, and the distribution of the
seasons.

A visit made subsequently to the catacombs tended still further to give
a grave and sombre direction to the thoughts of the party.

"How gloomy," said Rasselas, "would be these mansions of the dead to him
who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall
continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever. Those
that