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The Egyptians had always been described as detestable enemies and oppressors, yet how enchanting everything seemed in the house of the first Egyptian warrior he had entered. And Kasana! What must she think of him, if he left Tanis without a word of greeting, of farewell. Must it not grieve and wound him to remain in her memory a clumsy peasant shepherd?
"Chebron is clever and learned in many things, and I do not think that he lacks courage; but these Egyptians seem to have no iron in their composition when a pinch comes. Chebron walks as if all his bones had turned to jelly. Of course he is in a horrible scrape; still, if he would but face it out with sense and pluck it would be easier for us all.
They pay taxes as well as the rest of the Alexandrians; nay more, for there are many wealthy men among them who are honorably prominent in trade, in professions, learning and art, and I therefore mete to them the same measure as to the other inhabitants of this city. Their superstition offends me no more than that of the Egyptians." "But it really is above all measure.
They also call them anthophilai, which means lovers of flowers." "Your new friends, in particular the domestic bees, were among the Egyptians the emblem of royalty. Are you not pleased with that, Piccolissima? The ancient kings of France had them on their arms; bees were embroidered on their shields, and on their standards; and it was very proper that they adopted them.
The Israelites quitted Egypt carrying away with them the gold and silver of their oppressors. They then entered the desert. The magic art of Moses enabled them to pass dry-footed through the Red Sea, whereas the Pharaoh who was pursuing them was engulfed with his whole army. Again the Chosen People are liberated by means of the death of multitudes of Egyptians.
Here you’d soon have the violent party-man of either side, oblivious of everything but his chance of gain; and what an energy would it give to the great Daniel to think that, while filling his pockets, he was also spoiling the Egyptians!
While the rest of Christendom were clothed in woollen, linen, the common dress of the Egyptians, was universally adopted by the clergy as more becoming to the purity of their manners. At the same time the clergy copied the Egyptian priests in the custom of shaving the crown of the head bald.
The Shepherd Kings were warlike, and led their armies from Scythia, that land of roving and emigrant warriors, or, as Ewald thinks, from the land of Canaan: Aramaean chieftains, who sought the spoil of the richest monarchy in the world. Hence there was more affinity between these people and the Hebrews than between them and the ancient Egyptians, who were the descendants of Ham.
The Romans learnt the arts from the Greeks, whom they imitated, at a wide distance, in poetry as well as in sculpture and architecture. The remnants of art found in the valley of the Nile prove the Egyptians to have had the germ without the vitality to unfold it. In the literature of the Hindoos there are currents of pure poetry and of biblical depth.
We shall grow, along with the schools, and by and by our party politics will be clean enough to sit in the school seats too. And oh! by the way, as to those seats, is there any special virtue in the "dead-line" of straight rows that have come down to us from the time of the Egyptians or farther back still? No. I would not lay impious hand on any hallowed tradition, educational or otherwise.
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