Our first wish--to spare the poet Pentaur--he would not respect, and he did not hesitate to break his oath, to betray us, and to sacrifice one of the noblest of God's creatures, as the poet was, to gratify a petty grudge.

It is harder to fight against cunning weakness than against honest enmity.

Shall we reward the man who has deprived the world of Pentaur by giving him a crown?
It is hard to quit the trodden way, and seek a better--to give up a half-executed plan and take a more promising one; it is hard, I say, for the individual man, and makes him seem fickle in the eyes of others; but we cannot see to the right hand and the left, and if we pursue a great end we cannot remain within the narrow limits which are set by law and custom to the actions of private individuals.

We draw back just as we seem to have reached the goal, we let him fall whom we had raised, and lift him, whom we had stricken to the earth, to the pinnacle of glory, in short we profess--and for thousands of years have professed--the doctrine that every path is a right one that leads to the great end of securing to the priesthood the supreme power in the land.

Rameses, saved by a miracle, vowing temples to the Gods, will for the future exhaust his restless spirit not in battle as a warrior, but in building as an architect.