by John Ruskin
LECTURE II.
_THE PYRAMID BUILDERS._
_In the large Schoolroom, to which everybody has been summoned by ringing of the great bell._
L. So you have all actually come to hear about crystallisation! I cannotconceive why, unless the little ones think that the discussion mayinvolve some reference to sugar-candy.
(_Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of council._ ISABEL _frowns severely at L., and shakes her head violently._)
My dear children, if you knew it, you are yourselves, at this moment, asyou sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eye of a mineralogist, but alovely group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by atomic forces. And evenadmitting you to be something more, you have certainly beencrystallising without knowing it. Did I not hear a great hurrying andwhispering, ten minutes ago, when you were late in from the playground;and thought you would not all be quietly seated by the time I wasready:--besides some discussion about places--something about 'it's notbeing fair that the little ones should always be nearest?' Well, youwere then all being crystallised. When you ran in from the garden, andagainst one another in the passages, you were in what mineralogistswould call a state of solution, and gradual confluence; when you gotseated in those orderly rows, each in her proper place, you becamecrystalline. That is just what the atoms of a mineral do, if they can,whenever they get disordered: they get into order again as soon as maybe.
I hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, 'But we know ourplaces; how do the atoms know theirs? And sometimes we dispute aboutour places; do the atoms--(and, besides, we don't like being compared toatoms at all)--never dispute about theirs?' Two wise questions these, ifyou had a mind to put them! it was long before I asked them myself, ofmyself. And I will not call you atoms any more. May I call you--let mesee--'primary molecules?' (_General dissent, indicated in subdued butdecisive murmurs._) No! not even, in familiar Saxon, 'dust?'
(_Pause, with expression on faces of sorrowful doubt_; LILY _gives voice to the general sentiment in a timid 'Please don't._')
No, children, I won't call you that; and mind, as you grow up, that youdo not get into an idle and wicked habit of calling yourselves that. Youare something better than dust, and have other duties to do than everdust can do; and the bonds of affection you will enter into are betterthan merely 'getting into order.' But see to it, on the other hand, thatyou always behave at least as well as 'dust;' remember, it is only oncompulsion, and while it has no free permission to do as it likes, that_it_ ever gets out of order; but sometimes, with some of us, thecompulsion has to be the other way--hasn't it? (_Remonstratory whispers,expressive of opinion that the_ LECTURER _is becoming too personal._)I'm not looking at anybody in particular--indeed I am not. Nay, if youblush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking? We'll go back to theatoms.
'How do they know their places?' you asked, or should have asked. Yes,and they have to do much more than know them: they have to find theirway to them, and that quietly and at once, without running against eachother.
We may, indeed, state it briefly thus:--Suppose you have to build acastle, with towers and roofs and buttresses, out of bricks of a givenshape, and that these bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the bottom,in utter confusion, upset out of carts at random. You would have to drawa great many plans, and count all your bricks, and be sure you hadenough for this and that tower, before you began, and then you wouldhave to lay your foundation, and add layer by layer, in order, slowly.
But how would you be astonished, in these melancholy days, when childrendon't read children's books, nor believe any more in fairies, ifsuddenly a real benevolent fairy, in a bright brick-red gown, were torise in the midst of the red bricks, and to tap the heap of them withher wand, and say: 'Bricks, bricks, to your places!' and then you saw inan instant the whole heap rise in the air, like a swarm of red bees,and--you have been used to see bees make a honeycomb, and to think thatstrange enough, but now you would see the honeycomb make itself!--Youwant to ask something, Florrie, by the look of your eyes.
FLORRIE. Are they turned into real bees, with stings?
L. No, Florrie; you are only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw theslates flying from the roof the other day in the storm; only thoseslates didn't seem to know where they were going, and, besides, weregoing where they had no business: but my spell-bound bricks, though theyhave no wings, and what is worse, no heads and no eyes, yet find theirway in the air just where they should settle, into towers and roofs,each flying to his place and fastening there at the right moment, sothat every other one shall fit to him in his turn.
LILY. But who are the fairies, then, who build the crystals?
L. There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds much more than crystals;but she builds these also. I dreamed that I saw her building a pyramid,the other day, as she used to do, for the Pharaohs.
ISABEL. But that was only a dream?
L. Some dreams are truer than some wakings, Isabel; but I won't tell ityou unless you like.
ISABEL. Oh, please, please.
L. You are all such wise children, there's no talking to you; you won'tbelieve anything.
LILY. No, we are not wise, and we will believe anything, when you say weought.
L. Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you recollect that eveningwhen we had been looking at your old cave by Cumae, and wondering why youdidn't live there still; and then we wondered how old you were; andEgypt said you wouldn't tell, and nobody else could tell but she; andyou laughed--I thought very gaily for a Sibyl--and said you wouldharness a flock of cranes for us, and we might fly over to Egypt if weliked, and see.
SIBYL. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out after all!
L. Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubling that third pyramid ofhers;[146] and making a new entrance into it; and a fine entrance itwas! First, we had to go through an ante-room, which had both its doorsblocked up with stones; and then we had three granite portcullises topull up, one after another; and the moment we had got under them, Egyptsigned to somebody above; and down they came again behind us, with aroar like thunder, only louder; then we got into a passage fit fornobody but rats, and Egypt wouldn't go any further herself, but said wemight go on if we liked; and so we came to a hole in the pavement, andthen to a granite trap-door--and then we thought we had gone quite farenough, and came back, and Egypt laughed at us.
EGYPT. You would not have had me take my crown off, and stoop all theway down a passage fit only for rats?
L. It was not the crown, Egypt--you know that very well. It was theflounces that would not let you go any farther. I suppose, however, youwear them as typical of the inundation of the Nile, so it is all right.
ISABEL. Why didn't you take me with you? Where rats can go, mice can. Iwouldn't have come back.
L. No, mousie; you would have gone on by yourself, and you might havewaked one of Pasht's cats.[147] and it would have eaten you. I was veryglad you were not there. But after all this, I suppose the imaginationof the heavy granite blocks and the underground ways had troubled me,and dreams are often shaped in a strange opposition to the impressionsthat have caused them; and from all that we had been reading in Bunsenabout stones that couldn't be lifted with levers, I began to dream aboutstones that lifted themselves with wings.
SIBYL. Now you must just tell us all about it.
L. I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose clay thebricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis.[148] They had justbeen all finished, and were lying by the lake margin, in long ridges,like waves. It was near evening; and as I looked towards the sunset, Isaw a thing like a dark pillar standing where the rock of the desertstoops to the Nile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, andwondered at it; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like theform of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided like apillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance past it,towards the sun; and saw a silver cloud, which was of all the cloudsclosest to the s
un (and in one place crossed it), draw itself back fromthe sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot towards the dark pillar;leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of a bow. And I thought it waslightning; but when it came near the shadowy pillar, it sank slowly downbeside it, and changed into the shape of a woman, very beautiful, andwith a strength of deep calm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feetwith a white robe; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which Ihad seen across the sun; but all the golden ripples of it had becomeplumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of avulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a weaver'sshuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it, and in her lefthand, arrows, tipped with fire.
ISABEL (_clapping her hands_). Oh! it was Neith, it was Neith! I knownow.
L. Yes; it was Neith herself; and as the two great spirits came nearerto me, I saw they were the Brother and Sister--the pillared shadow wasthe Greater Pthah.[149] And I heard them speak, and the sound of theirwords was like a distant singing. I could not understand the words oneby one; yet their sense came to me; and so I knew that Neith had comedown to see her brother's work, and the work that he had put into themind of the king to make his servants do. And she was displeased at it;because she saw only pieces of dark clay: and no porphyry, nor marble,nor any fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon.And she blamed her brother, and said, 'Oh, Lord of truth! is this thenthy will, that men should mould only four-square pieces of clay: and theforms of the gods no more?' Then the Lord of truth sighed, and said,'Oh! sister, in truth they do not love us; why should they set up ourimages? Let them do what they may, and not lie--let them make their clayfour-square; and labour; and perish.'
Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, 'Oh, Lord oftruth! why should they love us? their love is vain; or fear us? fortheir fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we livedfor ever.'
But the Lord of truth answered, 'They know, and yet they know not. Letthem keep silence; for their silence only is truth.'
But Neith answered, 'Brother, wilt thou also make league with Death,because Death is true? Oh! thou potter, who hast cast these human thingsfrom thy wheel, many to dishonour, and few to honour; wilt thou not letthem so much as see my face; but slay them in slavery?'
But Pthah only answered, 'Let them build, sister, let them build.'
And Neith answered, 'What shall they build, if I build not with them?'
And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw suddenly,drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, anddomes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater than obelisks,covered with black clouds. And the wind blew ripples of sand amidst thelines that Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the marching of men.But I saw that wherever Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and wereeffaced.
'Oh, Brother!' she said at last, 'what is this vanity? If I, who amLady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst thou mockthem, who art Lord of truth?' But Pthah answered, 'They thought to bindme; and they shall be bound. They shall labour in the fire for vanity.'
And Neith said, looking at the sand, 'Brother, there is no true labourhere--there is only weary life and wasteful death.'
And Pthah answered, 'Is it not truer labour, sister, than thy sculptureof dreams?'
Then Neith smiled; and stopped suddenly.
She looked to the sun; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the desert.Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that lay, each withits blue shadow, by the lake shore.
'Brother,' she said, 'how long will this pyramid of thine be inbuilding?'
'Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before thesummit is laid.'
'Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy children to labour,'answered Neith. 'Look! I must follow Phre beyond Atlas; shall I buildyour pyramid for you before he goes down?' And Pthah answered, 'Yea,sister, if thou canst put thy winged shoulders to such work.' And Neithdrew herself to her height; and I heard a clashing pass through theplumes of her wings, and the asp stood up on her helmet, and firegathered in her eyes. And she took one of the flaming arrows out of thesheaf in her left hand, and stretched it out over the heaps of clay. Andthey rose up like flights of locusts, and spread themselves in the air,so that it grew dark in a moment. Then Neith designed them places withher arrow point; and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid levelat morning. Then Neith pointed with her arrow to the north, and to thesouth, and to the east, and to the west, and the flying motes of earthdrew asunder into four great ranked crowds; and stood, one in the north,and one in the south, and one in the east, and one in the west--oneagainst another. Then Neith spread her wings wide for an instant, andclosed them with a sound like the sound of a rushing sea; and waved herhand towards the foundation of the pyramid, where it was laid on thebrow of the desert. And the four flocks drew together and sank down,like sea-birds settling to a level rock; and when they met, there was asudden flame, as broad as the pyramid, and as high as the clouds; and itdazzled me; and I closed my eyes for an instant; and when I lookedagain, the pyramid stood on its rock, perfect; and purple with the lightfrom the edge of the sinking sun.
THE YOUNGER CHILDREN (_variously pleased_). I'm so glad! How nice! Butwhat did Pthah say?
L. Neith did not wait to hear what he would say. When I turned back tolook at her, she was gone; and I only saw the level white cloud formitself again, close to the arch of the sun as it sank. And as the lastedge of the sun disappeared, the form of Pthah faded into a mightyshadow, and so passed away.
EGYPT. And was Neith's pyramid left?
L. Yes; but you could not think, Egypt, what a strange feeling of utterloneliness came over me when the presence of the two gods passed away.It seemed as if I had never known what it was to be alone before; andthe unbroken line of the desert was terrible.
EGYPT. I used to feel that, when I was queen: sometimes I had to carvegods, for company, all over my palace. I would fain have seen real ones,if I could.
L. But listen a moment yet, for that was not quite all my dream. Thetwilight drew swiftly to the dark, and I could hardly see the greatpyramid; when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the air; and ahorned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on the sand at my feet, with ablow like the beat of a hammer. Then it stood up on its hind claws, andwaved its pincers at me: and its fore claws became strong arms, andhands; one grasping real iron pincers, and the other a huge hammer; andit had a helmet on its head, without any eyelet holes, that I could see.And its two hind claws became strong crooked legs, with feet bentinwards. And so there stood by me a dwarf, in glossy black armour,ribbed and embossed like a beetle's back, leaning on his hammer. And Icould not speak for wonder; but he spoke with a murmur like the dyingaway of a beat upon a bell. He said, 'I will make Neith's great pyramidsmall. I am the lower Pthah; and have power over fire. I can wither thestrong things, and strengthen the weak; and everything that is great Ican make small, and everything that is little I can make great.' Then heturned to the angle of the pyramid and limped towards it. And thepyramid grew deep purple; and then red like blood, and then palerose-colour, like fire. And I saw that it glowed with fire from within.And the lower Pthah touched it with the hand that held the pincers; andit sank down like the sand in an hour-glass,--then drew itself together,and sank, still, and became nothing, it seemed to me; but the armeddwarf stooped down, and took it into his hand, and brought it to me,saying, 'Everything that is great I can make like this pyramid; and giveinto men's hands to destroy.' And I saw that he had a little pyramid inhis hand, with as many courses in it as the large one; and built likethat, only so small. And because it glowed still, I was afraid to touchit; but Pthah said, 'Touch it--for I have bound the fire within it, sothat it cannot burn.' So I touched it, and took it into my own hand; andit was cold; only red, like a ruby. And Pthah laughed, and became like abeetle again, and buried himself in the sand, fiercely; throwing it backover his shoulders. And it seemed to me as if he w
ould draw me down withhim into the sand; and I started back, and woke, holding the littlepyramid so fast in my hand that it hurt me.
EGYPT. Holding WHAT in your hand?
L. The little pyramid.
EGYPT. Neith's pyramid?
L. Neith's, I believe; though not built for Asychis. I know only that itis a little rosy transparent pyramid, built of more courses of bricksthan I can count, it being made so small. You don't believe me, ofcourse, Egyptian infidel; but there it is. (_Giving crystal of roseFluor._)
(_Confused examination by crowded audience, over each other's shoulders and under each other's arms. Disappointment begins to manifest itself._)
SIBYL (_not quite knowing why she and others are disappointed_). But youshowed us this the other day!
L. Yes; but you would not look at it the other day.
SIBYL. But was all that fine dream only about this?
L. What finer thing could a dream be about than this! It is small, ifyou will; but when you begin to think of things rightly, the ideas ofsmallness and largeness pass away. The making of this pyramid was inreality just as wonderful as the dream I have been telling you, and justas incomprehensible. It was not, I suppose, as swift, but quite as grandthings are done as swiftly. When Neith makes crystals of snow, it needsa great deal more marshalling of the atoms, by her flaming arrows, thanit does to make crystals like this one; and that is done in a moment.
EGYPT. But how you _do_ puzzle us! Why do you say Neith does it? Youdon't mean that she is a real spirit, do you?
L. What _I_ mean, is of little consequence. What the Egyptians meant,who called her 'Neith,'--or Homer, who called her 'Athena,'--or Solomon,who called her by a word which the Greeks render as 'Sophia,' you mustjudge for yourselves. But her testimony is always the same, and allnations have received it: 'I was by Him as one brought up with Him, andI was daily His delight; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth,and my delights were with the sons of men.'
MARY. But is not that only a personification?
L. If it be, what will you gain by unpersonifying it, or what right haveyou to do so? Cannot you accept the image given you, in its life; andlisten, like children, to the words which chiefly belong to you aschildren: 'I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shallfind me?'
(_They are all quiet for a minute or two; questions begin to appear in their eyes._)
I cannot talk to you any more to-day. Take that rose-crystal away withyou and think.
FOOTNOTES:
[146] Note i.
[147] Note iii.
[148] Note ii.
[149] Note iii.