EGYPT. Now, it's too bad! and just when I was trying to say the
civillest thing I could!
L. But, Egypt, why did you tell me you disliked sewing so?
EGYPT. Did not I show you how the thread cuts my fingers? and I
always get cramp, somehow, in my neck, if I sew long.
L. Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought everybody got cramp
in their neck, if they sewed long; and that thread always cut
people's fingers. At all events, every kind of manual labor was
despised both by them, and the Greeks; and, while they owned the
real good and fruit of it, they yet held it a degradation to all
who practiced it. Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, they
perceived that the special practice necessary to bring any manual
art to perfection strengthened the body distortedly; 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.
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