four thousand five
hundred years; and it looks good to last as long again, if only it be
not examined over-much nor brought out into the light too often. {26}
It is as fresh and readable as in the year after it was written. Will
the books of our time last one-tenth so long? It is not without a
feeling of awe, even of sadness, that one with any sense of the wonder
of things gazes for the first time on the old book, and thinks of all
it has survived. So many empires have arisen and gone down since those
words were penned, so many great and terrible things have been.

And we are fortunate indeed in having such a book as this of Ptah-hotep
for the most ancient complete literary work extant. For not by any
magical texts, or hymns and prayers, should we be so well shown the
conditions of that early time; but our moralist, by advancing counsels
of perfection for every contingency, has left us a faithful record of
his age. The veil of five-and-a-half thousand years is rent, and we
are met with a vivid and a fascinating picture of the domestic and
social life of the 'Old Kingdom.' We read of the wife, who must be
treated kindly at all costs; the genial generosity of the rich man, and
the scowling boor, a thorn in the side of his friends and relations,
the laughing-stock of all men; the unquenchable talkers of every
station in life, who argue high, who argue low, who also argue round
about them, as common as now in the East, and the trusted councillor,
weighing every word; the obstinate _ignoramus_ who sees {27} everything
inverted, listening open-mouthed to the disjointed gossip of those near
him, and the scholar, conversing freely with learned and unlearned
alike, recognising that, measured against the infinite possibilities of
knowledge and skill, we are all much of the same stature; the master of
the estate or province, treated with infinite respect by his
subordinates in rank and wealth, and the paid servants that are never
satisfied, who leave after presents have been made them; the
hard-working clerk who casts accounts all day, and the tradesmen who
will perhaps give you credit when money is dear, if you have previously
made friends of them; the well-bred diner-out, lightly passing on his
favourite dish, contenting himself with plain fare, and the _gourmand_
who visits his friends at meal-times, departing only when the larder is
entirely exhausted.

Not only do we find such characters as these in Ptah-hotep's han