Temples and palaces,
statues and columns appear everywhere in motley confusion. Each one,
if you separate it from the whole and give it a careful examination,
is worthy of inspection, nay, of admiration. Here are light, graceful
creations of Hellenic, yonder heavy, sombre ones of Egyptian art, and
in the background the exquisite azure of the eternal sea, which the
marvellous structure of the heptastadium unites to the land; while on
the island of Pharos the lighthouse of Sostratus towers aloft almost to
the sky, and with a flood of light points out the way to mariners who
approach the great harbour at night. Countless vessels are also at
anchor in the Eunostus. The riches of the whole earth flow into both
havens. And the life and movement there and in the inland harbour on
Lake Mareotis, where the Nile boats land! From early until late, what
a busy throng, what an abundance of wares--and how many of the most
valuable goods are made in our own city! for whatever useful, fine, and
costly articles industrial art produces are manufactured here. The roof
has not yet been put on many a factory in which busy workers are already
making beautiful things. Here the weaver's shuttle flies, yonder gold
is spun around slender threads of sheep guts, elsewhere costly materials
are embroidered by women's nimble fingers with the prepared gold thread.
There glass is blown, or weapons and iron utensils are forged. Finely
polished knives split the pith of the papyrus, and long rows of workmen
and workwomen gum the strips together. No hand, no head is permitted to
rest. In the Museum the brains of the great thinkers and investigators
are toiling. Here, too, reality asserts its rights. The time for
chimeras and wretched polemics is over. Now it is observing, fathoming,
turning to account, nothing more!"
"Gently, my young friend," Proclus interrupted the artist. "I know that
you, too, sat at the feet of some of the philosophers in the Museum,
and still uphold the teachings of Straton, which your fellow-pupil, King
Ptolemy, outgrew long ago. Yet he, also, recognised in philosophy, first
of all, the bond which unites the widely sundered acquisitions of the
intellect, the vital breath which pervades them, the touchstone which
proves each true or false. If the praise of Alexandria is to be sung,
we must not forget the library to which the most precious treasures of
knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which feeds those who
thirst for
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