The Ethics of the Dust

by John Ruskin

SIBYL. Now you must just tell us all about it.

L. I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose clay the bricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis. [Footnote: Note ii] They had just been all finished, and were lying by the lake margin, in long ridges, like waves. It was near evening; and as I looked towards the sunset, I saw a thing like a dark pillar standing where the rock of the desert stoops to the Nile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, and wondered at it; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like the form of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided, like a pillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance past it, towards the sun; and saw a silver cloud, which was of all the clouds closest to the sun (and in one place crossed it), draw itself back from the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot towards the dark pillar; leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of a bow. And I thought it was lightning; but when it came near the shadowy pillar, it sank slowly down beside it, and changed into the shape of a woman, very beautiful, and with a strength of deep calm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feet with a white robe; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which I had seen across the sun; but all the golden ripples of it had become plumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of a vulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a weaver's shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it, and in her left hand, arrows, tipped with fire.

ISABEL (clapping her hands). Oh! it was Neith, it was Neith! I know now.

L. Yes; it was Neith herself; and as the two great spirits came nearer to me, I saw they were the Brother and Sister—the pillared shadow was the Greater Pthah.[Footnote: Note iii] And I heard them speak, and the sound of their words was like a distant singing. I could not understand the words one by one; yet their sense came to me; and so I knew that Neith had come down to see her brother's work, and the work that he had put into the mind of the king to make his servants do. And she was displeased at it; because she saw only pieces of dark clay; and no porphyry, nor marble, nor any fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon. And she blamed her brother, and said, "Oh, Lord of truth! is this then thy will, that men should mold only foursquare pieces of clay: and the forms of the gods no more?" Then the Lord of truth sighed, and said, "Oh! sister, in truth they do not love us; why should they set up our images? Let them do what they may, and not lie—let them make their clay foursquare; and labor; and perish."

Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, "Oh, Lord of truth! why should they love us? their love is vain; or fear us? for their fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we lived forever."

But the Lord of truth answered, "They know, and yet they know not. Let them keep silence; for their silence only is truth."

But Neith answered, "Brother, wilt thou also make league with Death, because Death is true? Oh! thou potter, who hast cast these human things from thy wheel, many to dishonor, and few to honor; wilt thou not let them so much as see my face; but slay them in slavery?"

But Pthah only answered, "Let them build, sister, let them build."

And Neith answered, "What shall they build, if I build not with them?"

And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw suddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced.