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Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

"The Poet at the Breakfast-Table"

Think of the shaft on Bunker Hill standing in the
sunshine on the morning of January 1st in the year 5872!
It won't be standing,--the Master said.---We are poor bunglers compared
to those old Egyptians. There are no joints in one of their obelisks.
They are our masters in more ways than we know of, and in more ways than
some of us are willing to know. That old Lawgiver wasn't learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians for nothing. It scared people well a couple
of hundred years ago when Sir John Marsham and Dr. John Spencer ventured
to tell their stories about the sacred ceremonies of the Egyptian
priesthood. People are beginning to find out now that you can't study
any religion by itself to any good purpose. You must have comparative
theology as you have comparative anatomy. What would you make of a cat's
foolish little good-for-nothing collar-bone, if you did not know how the
same bone means a good deal in other creatures,--in yourself, for
instance, as you 'll find out if you break it? You can't know too much
of your race and its beliefs, if you want to know anything about your
Maker. I never found but one sect large enough to hold the whole of me.
--And may I ask what that was?--I said.
--The Human sect,--the Master answered. That has about room enough for
me,--at present, I mean to say.


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