Paths Made
By Bare Feet Run From One Half-Tomb, Half-Mud-Heap To The Next, Not Much
More Distinct Than Snail Smears, But They Have Been Used Since....
Time is a dangerous thing to play with.
That morning the concierge had
toiled for us among steamer-sailings to see if we could save three days.
That evening we sat with folk for whom Time had stood still since the
Ptolemies. I wondered, at first, how it concerned them or any man if
such and such a Pharaoh had used to his own glory the plinths and
columns of such another Pharaoh before or after Melchizedek. Their
whole background was too inconceivably remote for the mind to work on.
But the next morning we were taken to the painted tomb of a noble - a
Minister of Agriculture - who died four or five thousand years ago. He
said to me, in so many words: 'Observe I was very like your friend, the
late Mr. Samuel Pepys, of your Admiralty. I took an enormous interest in
life, which I most thoroughly enjoyed, on its human and on its spiritual
side. I do not think you will find many departments of State better
managed than mine, or a better-kept house, or a nicer set of young
people ... My daughters! The eldest, as you can see, takes after her
mother. The youngest, my favourite, is supposed to favour me. Now I will
show you all the things that I did, and delighted in, till it was time
for me to present my accounts elsewhere.' And he showed me, detail by
detail, in colour and in drawing, his cattle, his horses, his crops, his
tours in the district, his accountants presenting the revenue returns,
and he himself, busiest of the busy, in the good day.
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