stortedly; one energy or member gaining at the expense of the
rest. They especially dreaded and despised any kind of work that had to
be done near fire: yet, feeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as
the basis of all other work, they expressed this mixed reverence and
scorn in the varied types of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah.

SIBYL. But what did you mean by making him say 'everything great I can
make small, and everything small great?'

L. I had my own separate meaning in that. We have seen in modern times
the power of the lower Pthah developed in a separate way, which no Greek
nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the character of pure and
eyeless manual labour to conceive everything as subjected to it: and, in
reality, to disgrace and diminish all that is so subjected; aggrandising
itself, and the thought of itself, at the expense of all noble things. I
heard an orator, and a good one too, at the Working Men's College, the
other day, make a great point in a description of our railroads; saying,
with grandly conducted emphasis, 'They have made man greater, and the
world less.' His working audience were mightily pleased; they thought it
so very fine a thing to be made bigger themselves; and all the rest of
the world less. I should have enjoyed asking them (but it would have
been a pity--they were so pleased), how much less they would like to
have the world made;--and whether, at present, those of them really felt
the biggest men, who lived in the least houses.

SIBYL. But then, why did you make Pthah say that he could make weak
things strong, and small things great?

L. My dear, he is a boaster and self-assertor, by nature; but it is so
far true. For instance, we used to have a fair in our neighbourhood--a
very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such an one; but if you look
at the engraving of Turner's 'St. Catherine's Hill,' you will see what
it was like. There were curious booths, carried on poles; and
peep-shows; and music, with plenty of drums and cymbals; and much
barley-sugar and gingerbread, and the like: and in the alleys of this
fair the London populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion,
very thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day; he
made the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like his own
crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you don't look where
you are going; and he turned all the canvas into panes of glass, and put
it