"The hieroglyphics of Thotmes, of Rameses, of Menephthah, and of the
host of kings gone before these in Egypt's old life, cannot be read;
their language, letters, and traditions, too, sleep beyond the
revelations of time, and yet their tombs, like these, give up their
bones to the curious, who group through the catacombs, or dig at the
base of their monumental pyramids. All besides has passed away and is
lost. Not even the color of the great people who filled these
monuments, and carved from the solid stone these miles of galleries,
now filled to repletion with their mummied dead, and whose capacity is
sufficient to entomb the dead of a nation for thousands of years, is
known now to those who people the fields reclaimed from the forest
beyond the memory of time.
"Nations are born, have their periods of youthful vigor, their manhood
of sturdy strength, the tottering of decrepit age, the imbecility of
superstitious dotage--and their death is final extinction. Such is man,
and such is the world. What we are, we know; what we shall be, we know
not, save that we only leave a pile of bones.
Pages:
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585