The Ethics of the Dust

NOTE II.

Page 27.

"Pyramid of Asychis?"

THIS pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the shame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously, and first among great edifices, built with "brick for stone." This was the inscription on it, according to Herodotus:

"Despise me not, in comparing me with the pyramids of stone; for I have the pre-eminence over them, as far as Jupiter has pre- eminence over the gods. For, striking with staves into the pool, men gathered the clay which fastened itself to the staff, and kneaded bricks out of it, and so made me."

The word I have translated "kneaded" is literally "drew;" in the sense of drawing, for which the Latins used "duco;" and thus gave us our "ductile" in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or leader, in speaking of living clay. As the asserted pre-eminence of the edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest merely on the quantity of labor consumed in it, this pyramid is considered, in the text, as the type, at once, of the base building, and of the lost labor, of future ages, so far at least as the spirits of measured and mechanical effort deal with it; but Neith, inspired builders.