At times, moving among the tokens of a period that the ravenous years dare not wholly efface in passing, he hears, calling faintly as from afar, innumerable voices--the voices of those who, stretching forth in Sheol eager hands toward Life, greatly desire that some memorial of them, be it but a name, may survive in the world of men.... Ancient Egypt fares perhaps better than other countries of antiquity at the hands of the 'general reader,' and sometimes obtains a hearing when they do not, by reason of its intimate contact at certain periods with the nation that has brought us the _Old Testament_. Because of this the report of it has been with us constantly, and it has nearly become a symbol in religion. The stories of Moses and the magicians, and of the dealings of Abraham and Joseph with Pharaoh, together with the rude woodcuts of Egyptian taskmasters and cupbearers in family Bibles, have invested the venerable land with a dreamy mystery; while every one has heard of 'Rameses, the Pharaoh of the Oppression,' and 'Meneptah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus.' And it is possible that for the sake of such {16} association, if not for his own sake, Ptah-hotep will be considered worthy of notice. But in spite of the fact that the Ancient Egyptians enjoy rather more popularity than their contemporaries, it is evident that the books which they wrote are closed books to those who have not the glamour of vanished peoples, and the fascination of mighty cities now made desolate, strong upon them. Yet in the heterogeneous and pitiful flotsam that reluctant seas have washed to us piecemeal from a remote past, there are, as will be shown later, many things which, although proceeding from a culture and modes of thought as far removed from our own as they may well be,[1] are worth the reading, which do not require any special knowledge for their understanding; and of these are the translations in this book. The following pages, which, although addressed to the 'general reader,' may yet be of some assistance to those especially interested in Egypt, give, among other matters, the place of the Instructions of Ptah-hotep and Ke'gemni in the 'literature' of Egypt; their place--their {17} unique place--in the literature of the world; their value historically; a description of the document in which they were found; what is known of their authors; a discussion of their contents.