[42] Georges Perrot and Charles Chipiez, A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. II, p. 239: "The true originality of the Egyptian style consists in its deliberately epitomizing that upon which the artists of other countries have elaborately dwelt—in its lavishing all its executive powers upon chief masses and leading lines, and in the marvellous judgment with which it seizes their real meaning, their proportion, and the sources of their artistic effect."
[43] A History of Egypt, by Dr. Henry Brugsch-Bey, Vol. I, p. 7: "Although in so long a space of time as sixty centuries, events and revolutions of great historical importance must of necessity have altered the political state of Egypt, yet, notwithstanding all, the old Egyptian race has undergone but little change; for it still preserves to this day those distinctive features of physiognomy, and those peculiarities of manners and customs, which have been handed down to us by the united testimony of the monuments and the accounts of the ancient classical writers, as the hereditary characteristics of this people."
[44] The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, Vol. I, p. 293.
[45] A History of Egypt, p. 40: "It is said that a hundred thousand men were levied for three months at a time (i.e. during the three months of the inundation, when ordinary labour would be at a standstill); and on this scale the pyramid building occupied twenty years." [He is speaking of the Great Pyramid built by Kheops, Khephrën's predecessor; but this does not affect my contention.] "On reckoning number and weight of the stones, this labour would fully suffice for the work. The skilled masons had large barracks, now behind the second pyramid, which might hold even four thousand men; but perhaps a thousand would quite suffice to do all the fine work in the time. Hence there was no impossibility in the task, and no detriment to the country in employing a small proportion of the population at a season when they were all idle by the compulsion of natural causes. The training and skill which they would acquire by such work would be a great benefit to the national character."
And the same writer says in The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, p. 211: "Thus we see that the traditional accounts that we have of the means employed in building the great Pyramid, require conditions of labour supply which are quite practicable in such a land, which would not be ruinous to the prosperity of the country, or oppressive to the people, and which would amply and easily suffice for the execution of their work."
[46] History of Civilization in England (Ed. 1871), Vol. I, pp. 90, 91, 92, 93. And Herbert Spencer's Autobiography, Vol. II, pp. 341-343.
[47] Quite typical of Western inability to understand the basis of a patriarchal government, and of the misinterpretation of such a form, which writers like Buckle did their best to increase and spread, was the first Act of the play Fallen Idols, recently presented at His Majesty's Theatre, London, in which Egyptian slaves were seen cringing and crawling before an inhuman taskmaster, who continually lashed out at them with a big whip.
[48] Fergusson, History of Architecture, Vol. I, p. 95: "Nor is our wonder less when we ask ourselves how it happened that such a people became so strongly organized at that early age as to be willing to undertake the greatest architectural works the world has since seen in honour of one man from among themselves. A king without an army, and with no claim, so far as we can see, to such an honour, beyond the common consent of all, which could hardly have been attained except by the title of long-inherited services acknowledged by the community at large." And on p. 94, speaking of the pictures in the Great Pyramid, the author says: "On these walls the owner of the tomb is usually represented seated, offering first-fruits on a simple table-altar to an unseen god. He is generally accompanied by his wife, and surrounded by his stewards, who enumerate his wealth in horned cattle, in oxen, in sheep and goats, in geese and ducks. In other pictures some are ploughing and sowing, some reaping or thrashing out corn, while others are tending his tame monkeys or cranes, and other domesticated pets. Music and dancing add to the circle of domestic enjoyments, and fowling and fishing occupy his days of leisure. No sign of soldiers or of warlike strife appears in any of these pictures, no arms, no chariots or horses. No camels suggest foreign travel."
[49] I should like to reproduce here Fergusson's enthusiastic account of the work in the interior of the Great Pyramid. I have not space, however, and earnestly recommend readers to refer to it on pp. 93, 94 of Vol. I in his History of Architecture.
[50] Dr. Henry Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, Vol. I, pp. 444-445.