...words: I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount...art, that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite...

...The king who erected the pyramids, in other words, duplicated Rasselas's initial situation. He was "compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid,...and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another" (145). This account elucidates the opposition between imagination and boredom. If one can, like the...

...says, 'I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount...without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another.'13 Imlac is not Johnson, nor is the Great Pyramid a monument in the Abbey, yet Johnson's desire...

...regretting the past or laying plans for the future, and that is even true of the Pharaohs: A king, whose power is unlimited and whose treasures surmount...end, and one stone, for no purpose laid upon another. And thus the pyramids stand as timeless monuments to the futility of absolute power. Finally the prince...

...labyrinths" cursed by ancient tyrannies. The Great Pyramid at Giza in particular seemed merely to have served "the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of [the pharaoh's] declining life, by seeing thousands labouring without end, and one stone, for no purpose...