Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; No pyramids set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness,-- To which I leave him.
Men and pyramids are not made to stand on their head.
Prayer must be based upon promise, but, thank God, His promises are always broader than our prayers! No fear of building inverted pyramids here, for Jesus Christ is the foundation.--_Frances Ridley Havergal._
Du haut de ces pyramides quarante siecles nous contemplent=--From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on us.
Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.
"From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on you."
The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
When industry builds upon nature, we may expect pyramids.
The pyramids, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids; / Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.
Death, the dry pedant, spares neither the rose nor the thistle, nor does he forget the solitary blade of grass in the distant waste. He destroys thoroughly and unceasingly. Everywhere we may see how he crushes to dust plants and beasts, men and their works. Even the Egyptian pyramids, that would seem to defy him, are trophies of his power,--monuments of decay, graves of primeval kings.--_Heinrich Heine._
Pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps; / And pyramids are pyramids in vales.
They are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. They date beyond the Pyramids.--_Lamb._
The Great Movie Posters: The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms! -- Bwana Devil (1952) OVERWHELMING! ELECTRIFYING! BAFFLING! Fire Can't Burn Them! Bullets Can't Kill Them! See the Unfolding of the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the Earth! You've Never Seen Anything Like It! Neither Has the World! SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!! -- Robot Monster (1953) 1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes, 802 scared bulls! -- The Egyptian (1954)
In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species.
One day, in 1805, during one of the rare apparitions which the Emperor made in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, some Decres or Cretet or other, came to the master's intimate levee. In the Carrousel there was audible the clanking of swords of all those extraordinary soldiers of the great Republic, and of the great Empire; then Napoleon's door was blocked with heroes; men from the Rhine, from the Escaut, from the Adige, and from the Nile; companions of Joubert, of Desaix, of Marceau, of Hoche, of Kleber; the aerostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of Mayence, the pontoon-builders of Genoa, hussars whom the Pyramids had looked down upon, artillerists whom Junot's cannon-ball had spattered with mud, cuirassiers who had taken by assault the fleet lying at anchor in the Zuyderzee; some had followed Bonaparte upon the bridge of Lodi, others had accompanied Murat in the trenches of Mantua, others had preceded Lannes in the hollow road of Montebello. The whole army of that day was present there, in the court-yard of the Tuileries, represented by a squadron or a platoon, and guarding Napoleon in repose; and that was the splendid epoch when the grand army had Marengo behind it and Austerlitz before it.--"Sire," said the Minister of the Interior to Napoleon, "yesterday I saw the most intrepid man in your Empire."--"What man is that?" said the Emperor brusquely, "and what has he done?"--"He wants to do something, Sire."--"What is it?"--"To visit the sewers of Paris."
Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be the simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall not abandon Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was just saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the contrary. What did it matter to him--who then alone amid a senseless crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was happening--what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to him who was appointed chief of the artillery.
The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party--for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.
Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through, with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been useless still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could not have squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had only hacked that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass the weary time--in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was "news."
The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du Don. *
"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it."
The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they had paid two conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this abundant supply of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone, who seizes upon you directly you set foot in your hotel, and never quits you while you remain in the city, there is also a special cicerone belonging to each monument--nay, almost to each part of a monument. It may, therefore, be easily imagined there is no scarcity of guides at the Colosseum, that wonder of all ages, which Martial thus eulogizes: "Let Memphis cease to boast the barbarous miracles of her pyramids, and the wonders of Babylon be talked of no more among us; all must bow to the superiority of the gigantic labor of the Caesars, and the many voices of Fame spread far and wide the surpassing merits of this incomparable monument."
He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls was assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on the right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were two large beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was a lighted candle on a small deal table in the corner. The small man and Mitya sat down to this table, facing each other, while the huge Vrublevsky stood beside them, his hands behind his back. The Poles looked severe but were evidently inquisitive.
"So rich, dear sir, that your fortune resembles the pyramids; if you wished to demolish them you could not, and if it were possible, you would not dare!" Danglars smiled at the good-natured pleasantry of the count. "That reminds me," he said, "that when you entered I was on the point of signing five little bonds; I have already signed two: will you allow me to do the same to the others?"
I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwards hired a mule, as the more sure-footed and least liable to receive injury on these rugged roads. The weather was fine; it was about the middle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death of Justine, that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe. The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in the ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence--and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, the valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character. Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings.
13:28. And he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father, and his mother, and his four brethren:
"Well, then, Signor Aladdin," replied the singular amphitryon, "you heard our repast announced, will you now take the trouble to enter the dining-room, your humble servant going first to show the way?" At these words, moving aside the tapestry, Sinbad preceded his guest. Franz now looked upon another scene of enchantment; the table was splendidly covered, and once convinced of this important point he cast his eyes around him. The dining-room was scarcely less striking than the room he had just left; it was entirely of marble, with antique bas-reliefs of priceless value; and at the four corners of this apartment, which was oblong, were four magnificent statues, having baskets in their hands. These baskets contained four pyramids of most splendid fruit; there were Sicily pine-apples, pomegranates from Malaga, oranges from the Balearic Isles, peaches from France, and dates from Tunis. The supper consisted of a roast pheasant garnished with Corsican blackbirds; a boar's ham with jelly, a quarter of a kid with tartar sauce, a glorious turbot, and a gigantic lobster. Between these large dishes were smaller ones containing various dainties. The dishes were of silver, and the plates of Japanese china.
_The Great Wall._--Along the northern provinces of Chih-li, Shan-si, Shen-si and Kan-suh, over 22° of longitude (98° to 120° E.), stretches the Great Wall of China, built to defend the country against foreign aggression. It was begun in the 3rd century B.C., was repaired in the 15th century, and in the 16th century was extended by 300 m. Following the windings the wall is 1500 m. long. Starting near the seashore[5] at Shan-hai-kwan on the gulf of Liao-tung, where the Chinese and Manchurian frontiers meet, it goes eastward past Peking (which is about 35 m. to the south) and then trends S. and E. across Shan-si to the Hwang-ho. From the neighbourhood of Peking to the Hwang-ho there is an inner and an outer wall. The outer (northern) wall passes through Kalgan, thus guarding the pass into Mongolia. A branch wall separates the greater part of the western frontier of Chih-li from Shan-si. West of the Hwang-ho the Great Wall forms the northern frontier of Shen-si, and west of Shen-si it keeps near the northern frontier of Kan-suh, following for some distance in that province the north bank of the Hwang-ho. It ends at Kiayu-kwan (98° 14'E.) just west of Su-chow. This part of the wall was built to protect the one main artery leading from central Asia to China through Kan-suh and Shen-si by the valley of the Wei-ho, tributary of the Hwang-ho. There is a branch wall in Kan-suh running west and south to protect the Tibetan frontier. The height of the wall is generally from 20 to 30 ft., and at intervals of some 200 yds. are towers about 40 ft. high. Its base is from 15 to 25 ft. thick and its summit 12 ft. wide. The wall is carried over valleys and mountains, and in places is over 4000 ft. above sea-level. Military posts are still maintained at the chief gates or passes--at Shan-hai-kwan, the Kalgan pass, the Yenmun pass (at the N. of Shan-si) and the Kaiyu pass in the extreme west, through which runs the caravan route to Barkal in Turkestan. Colonel A.W.S. Wingate, who in the opening years of the 20th century visited the Great Wall at over twenty places widely apart and gathered many descriptions of it in other places, states that its position is wrongly shown "on the maps of the day" (1907) in a number of places; while in others it had ceased to exist, "the only places where it forms a substantial boundary being in the valley bottoms, on the passes and where it crosses main routes. These remarks apply with particular force to the branch running south-west from the Nan-k'ow pass and forming the boundary of Chih-li and Shan-si provinces." In Colonel Wingate's opinion the wall was originally built by degrees and in sections, not of hewn stone, but of round boulders and earth, the different sections being repaired as they fell into ruin. "Only in the valley bottoms and on the passes was it composed of masonry or brickwork. The Mings rebuilt of solid masonry all those sections through which led a likely road for invading Tatars to follow, or where it could be seen at a distance from the sky-line." The building of the wall "was a sufficiently simple affair," not to be compared with the task of building the pyramids of Egypt.[6] Entry: I
_Snooker Pool._--This is a game of many and elaborate rules. In principle it is a combination of pyramids and pool. The white ball is the cue-ball for all players. The pyramid balls, set up as in pyramids, count one point each, the yellow ball two points, green ball three, and so on. The black is put on the billiard-spot, the pink on the centre-spot, blue below the apex ball of the pyramid; brown, green and yellow on the diameter of the semicircle, brown on the middle spot, green on the right corner spot of the D, yellow on the left. The players, having decided the order of play, generally by distributing the pool balls from the basket, and playing in the order of colours as shown on the marking board, are obliged to strike a red ball first. If it is pocketed, the player scores one and is at liberty to play on any of the coloured balls; though in some clubs he is compelled to play on the yellow. If he pockets a coloured ball he scores the number of points which that ball is worth, and plays again on a red ball, the coloured ball being replaced on its spot, and so on; but a red ball must always be pocketed before a more valuable ball can be played at. When all the red balls have been pocketed--none are put back on the table as at pyramids--the remaining balls _must_ be pocketed in the pool order and are not replaced. The penalties for missing a ball, running into a pocket, &c., are deducted from the player's score; they correspond to the values of the balls, one point if the red be missed, two if the yellow be missed, &c. If, before hitting the proper ball, the player hits one of a higher value, the value of that ball is deducted from his score, but there is no further penalty. A player is "snookered" if his ball is so placed that he cannot hit a ball on which he is compelled to play. In this case he is allowed in some rooms to give a miss, but in such a way that the next player is not snookered; in others he must make a _bona fide_ attempt to hit the proper ball off the cushion, being liable to the usual penalty if in so doing he hits a ball of higher value. In some rooms it is considered fair and part of the game to snooker an opponent deliberately; in others the practice is condemned. The rules are so variable in different places that even the printed rules are not of much value, owing to local by-laws. Entry: 20
2. _The Layer of small Pyramidal Cells._--The typical cells of this layer are pyramid-shaped, the apices of the pyramids being directed towards the surface. The apex terminates in a dendron which reaches into the molecular layer, giving off several collateral horizontal branches in its course. The final branches in the molecular layer take a direction parallel to the surface. Smaller dendrites arise from the lateral and basal surfaces of these cells, but do not extend far from the body of the cell. The neuraxon always arises from the base of the cell and passes towards the central white matter, thus forming one of the nerve-fibres of that substance. In its path it gives off a number of collaterals at right angles, which are distributed to the adjacent grey matter. Entry: 2
Even in that part of the book which might be supposed to represent some genuine experience there are the plainest traces that another work has been made use of, more or less--we might almost say as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight Wilhelm von Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord.[7] A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt that the latter has followed its thread, though digressing on every side, and too often eliminating the singular good sense of the German traveller. We may indicate as examples Boldensele's account of Cyprus (Mandeville, p. 28 and p. 10), of Tyre and the coast of Palestine (Mandeville, 29, 30, 33, 34), of the journey from Gaza to Egypt (34), passages about Babylon of Egypt (40), about Mecca (42), the general account of Egypt (45), the pyramids (52), some of the wonders of Cairo, such as the slave-market, the chicken-hatching stoves, and the apples of paradise, i.e. plantains (49), the Red Sea (57), the convent on Sinai (58, 60), the account of the church of the Holy Sepulchre (74-76), &c. There is, indeed, only a small residuum of the book to which genuine character, as containing the experiences of the author, can possibly be attributed. Yet, as has been intimated, the borrowed stories are frequently claimed as such experiences. In addition to those already mentioned, he alleges that he had witnessed the curious exhibition of the garden of transmigrated souls (described by Odoric) at Cansay, i.e. Hangchow-fu (211). He and his fellows with their valets had remained fifteen months in service with the emperor of Cathay in his wars against the king of Manzi--Manzi, or Southern China, having ceased to be a separate kingdom some seventy years before the time referred to. But the most notable of these false statements occurs in his adoption from Odoric of the story of the Valley Perilous (282). This is, in its original form, apparently founded on real experiences of Odoric viewed through a haze of excitement and superstition. Mandeville, whilst swelling the wonders of the tale with a variety of extravagant touches, appears to safeguard himself from the reader's possible discovery that it was stolen by the interpolation: "And some of our fellows accorded to enter, and some not. So there were with us two worthy men, Friars Minor, that were of Lombardy, who said that if any man would enter they would go in with us. And when they had said so, upon the gracious trust of God and of them, we caused mass to be sung, and made every man to be shriven and houselled; and then we entered, fourteen persons; but at our going out we were but nine," &c. Entry: A