Note 2 — LETTER LXIV.
Reading edition
The Egyptian is therefore the scribe of scribes,—the supremely literary person of earth. The banks of Nile give him his rock volume: the reeds of Nile his paper roll. With cleaving chisel, and cloven reed, he writes thereon, exemplarily: the ark which his princess found among the paper reeds, is the true beginning of libraries,—Alexandrian, and all other. What you call Scripture, in special, coming out of it; the first portion written in Egyptian manner, (it is said,) with the finger of God. Scribe and lawyer alike have too long forgotten the lesson,—come now and learn it again, of Theuth, with the ibis beak.2