Familiar to one from the days of early childhood are the forms of
the Egyptian Pyramids, and now, as I approached them from the banks
of the Nile, I had no print, no picture before me, and yet the old
shapes were there; there was no change; they were just as I had
always known them. I straightened myself in my stirrups, and
strived to persuade my understanding that this was real Egypt, and
that those angles which stood up between me and the West were of
harder stuff, and more ancient than the paper pyramids of the green
portfolio. Yet it was not till I came to the base of the great
Pyramid that reality began to weigh upon my mind. Strange to say,
the bigness of the distinct blocks of stones was the first sign by
which I attained to feel the immensity of the whole pile. When I
came, and trod, and touched with my hands, and climbed, in order
that by climbing I might come to the top of one single stone, then,
and almost suddenly, a cold sense and understanding of the
Pyramid's enormity came down, overcasting my brain.
Now try to endure this homely, sick-nursish illustration of the
effect produced upon one's mind by the mere vastness of the great
Pyramid.
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