WWBBD? WHAT WOULD BRUNO BETTELHEIM DO?

Too bad that Bruno Bettelheim has been (posthumously) debunked, dethroned, and defenestrated--metaphorically. Just as "da Bears aren't da same wid'out Ditka" our modern world is missing a font of wisdom as well as the poet laureate of the fairy tale. Bruno's is a long,long story, but I think he would have something to say about a scourge of our present day: the abduction and abuse of little girls. I live in Florida where this is a common place event. Today's child psychologists and educators frown on Grimm Brothers fairy tales. Way too scary for little children. (BB had a different view, clearly and intelligibly laid out in his book Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, ISBN 0-679-72393-5 for the Vintage Books Edition of 1989. This was originally published by Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1976. BB felt that children can mature better if they can address primitive fears, and that socially mature material like fairy tales facilitates this process.)



Let's look closely at the most famous fairy tale of all: Little Red Riding Hood. Does it tell us adults anything? Does it tell children anything? Does it help children in any way? Does it hurt them?


Little Red Riding Hood by the Brothers Grimm: "Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by every one who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else. So she was always called Little Red Riding Hood.

One day her mother said to her, "Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing. And when you go into her room, don't forget to say, good-morning, and don't peep into every corner before you do it."

I will take great care, said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.
The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Little Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.

"Good-day, Little Red Riding Hood," said he.
"Thank you kindly, wolf."
"Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?"
"To my grandmother's."
"What have you got in your apron?"
"Cake and wine. Yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger."
"Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?"
"A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood. Her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below. You surely must know it," replied Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought to himself, "What a tender young creature. What a nice plump mouthful, she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both." So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said, "see Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here. Why do you not look round. I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing. You walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry."

Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought, suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay. That would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time. And so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.

Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door.
"Who is there?"
"Little Red Riding Hood," replied the wolf. "She is bringing cake and wine. Open the door."
"Lift the latch," called out the grandmother, "I am too weak, and cannot get up."
The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.
Little Red Riding Hood, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her

She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself, oh dear, how uneasy I feel to-day, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.
She called out, "Good morning," but received no answer. So she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.

"Oh, grandmother," she said, "what big ears you have."
"The better to hear you with, my child," was the reply.
"But, grandmother, what big eyes you have," she said.
"The better to see you with, my dear."
"But, grandmother, what large hands you have."
"The better to hug you with."
"Oh, but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have."
"The better to eat you with."
And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Little Red Riding Hood.

When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself, how the old woman is snoring. I must just see if she wants anything.
So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. "Do I find you here, you old sinner," said he. "I have long sought you."
Then just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.
When he had made two snips, he saw the Little Red Riding Hood shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl sprang out, crying, "Ah, how frightened I have been. How dark it was inside the wolf."

And after that the aged grandmother came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe. Little Red Riding Hood, however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled the wolf's belly, and when he awoke, he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once, and fell dead.

Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf's skin and went home with it. The grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which Little Red Riding Hood had brought, and revived, but Little Red Riding Hood thought to herself, as long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.
It is also related that once when Little Red Riding Hood was again taking cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the path. Little Red Riding Hood, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he had said good-morning to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would have eaten her up. "Well," said the grandmother, "we will shut the door, that he may not come in."

Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried, "open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red Riding Hood, and am bringing you some cakes."
But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Little Red Riding Hood went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone trough, so she said to the child, take the pail, Little Red Riding Hood. I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the trough. Little Red Riding Hood carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight into the great trough, and was drowned. But Little Red Riding Hood went joyously home, and no one ever did anything to harm her again."

English translation by Margaret Hunt; http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/redridinghood.html.


The sexual predator lives among us and presents a socially acceptable appearance. And, since our politically correct society encourages diversity of all sorts, what is socially acceptable appearance today is broader than in years past. Many sexual predators are so labelled from actions they committed years and years before: Romeo and Juliet crimes. Many live within the household: the rich and beneficent uncle in Monsoon Wedding. Many are locked away for good. But that still leaves enough of these wolves to harm our children on a daily basis. Granted, many victims are not murdered. But all are injured severely. The four legged wolf has been eradicated in most parts of America. In fact, it is being reintroduced as an important part of the ecosystem in some states. (The increasing problem of deer overpopulation and attendant auto accidents, crop damage, landscaping damage, and rising threat of cervid wasting disease calls for some sort of predator. With the popularity of deer hunting on the wane, and the dense populations of humans sharing the deer habitat the human is less able to fill that role. So I suppose it is just a matter of time and we will hear wolves howling in the night.)

But a much more deadly, two legged variety of wolf is out and about. And our children are their prey.


Protecting Kids From Predators: Signs of Abuse, What to Do.
Thursday, August 17, 2006 By Colette Bouchez; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,209058,00.html.

"Now if you're thinking this means cautioning your children about taking candy from strangers and holding their hand extra tight in the shopping mall -- well, you're only partly right. According to BJS (U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics) , assault by a stranger accounts for just 3 percent of molestations in children under the age of 6, and just 5 percent in children aged six to 11.
Since winning the child's trust is part of the abuse pattern, the vast majority of sexual abuse occurs with adults the child knows and comes to trust. And it often occurs right in their home.
"Sexual offenders are not 'dirty old men' or strangers lurking in alleys. More often, they are known and trusted by the children they victimize, and frequently are members of the family," says Esther Deblinger, PhD, a member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and the developer of a treatment for childhood sexual abuse.
Amaranth says the abuser can just as easily be a neighbor, a close family friend, a baby sitter, a soccer coach, a scout leader, or anyone in a position of trust and authority.
While experts caution parents to be vigilant about all those who seek exclusive contact with their children, they also caution against starting a "witch hunt" for anyone who is nice to their kid.
"The message you don't want to give your child is that the world is a bad or scary place -- or that they should be afraid of everyone who is nice to them," says Amaranth.
So how do you strike a balance between protecting your child and encouraging growth and trust?
It begins, say experts, by building awareness and trust into your own relationship with your children."


This article states BJS data that only five per cent of sexual assaults in children age six to eleven are committed by strangers. That does not seem intuitively correct. But I suspect that the data are including a broad range of assaults. If one took abduction for sexual purposes and murder for the subset, I believe the number of such crimes committed by strangers would be much, much higher than five per cent. These numbers are hard to come by, or at least so far it has seemed that way to me. And there is a continual back round noise generated by people who oppose such "panic incitement" on the part of media and concerned parents. Some of the counter talk is at a minimum strange. A paranoid person might think the wolves preying on children have an advocacy group. And indeed, there have been recent cases where family members covered for a sexual predator and likely facilitated murder of a child--right here in Florida.

Predator Panic: A Closer Look: Special Report
Ben Radford
Volume 30.5, September / October 2006; http://www.csicop.org/si/show/predator_panic_a_closer_look/


Recidivism Revisited:

"Much of the concern over sex offenders stems from the perception that if they have committed one sex offense, they are almost certain to commit more. This is the reason given for why sex offenders (instead of, say, murderers or armed robbers) should be monitored and separated from the public once released from prison. While it’s true that serial sex offenders (like serial killers) are by definition likely to strike again, the reality is that very few sex offenders commit further sex crimes.

The high recidivism rate among sex offenders is repeated so often that it is accepted as truth, but in fact recent studies show that the recidivism rates for sex offenses is not unusually high. According to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics study (“Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994”), just five percent of sex offenders followed for three years after their release from prison in 1994 were arrested for another sex crime. A study released in 2003 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that within three years, 3.3 percent of the released child molesters were arrested again for committing another sex crime against a child. Three to five percent is hardly a high repeat offender rate.

In the largest and most comprehensive study ever done of prison recidivism, the Justice Department found that sex offenders were in fact less likely to reoffend than other criminals. The 2003 study of nearly 10,000 men convicted of rape, sexual assault, and child molestation found that sex offenders had a re-arrest rate 25 percent lower than for all other criminals. Part of the reason is that serial sex offenders—those who pose the greatest threat—rarely get released from prison, and the ones who do are unlikely to re-offend. If released sex offenders are in fact no more likely to re-offend than murderers or armed robbers, there seems little justification for the public’s fear and the monitoring laws targeting them. (Studies also suggest that sex offenders living near schools or playgrounds are no more likely to commit a sex crime than those living elsewhere.)

While the abduction, rape, and killing of children by strangers is very, very rare, such incidents receive a lot of media coverage, leading the public to overestimate how common these cases are."

Italics and bold face are mine. Here is a suggestion of a sexual offenders' advocacy. Well, ours is a big country with room for a lot of people. Right.


By now I am sure you want to know more about Bruno Bettelheim, so I include the following discussion of his biographer's slant on the subject. This is courtesy of :

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.boxer.html; Sarah Boxer reviewing Richard Pollak's book, January 27, 1997, for the New York Times.


THE CREATION OF DR. B A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim.By Richard Pollak.Illustrated. 478 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster. $28.


"Bruno BETTELHEIM'S new biographer lays his cards on the table right away: he thinks Bettelheim was a pathological liar. Richard Pollak, the former executive editor and literary editor of The Nation, got interested in the famous psychotherapist and author in order to learn more about his own younger brother, who died on a family vacation in 1948 when he slipped through a hayloft chute during a game of hide-and-seek. The boy had been at the Orthogenic School for emotionally disturbed children at the University of Chicago for five years before he died, so, in 1969, Mr. Pollak figured Bettelheim, the director of the school, could tell him about his dead brother.
Instead, Bettelheim called Mr. Pollak's father a simple-minded ''schlemiel'' and his mother a false martyr. Then he bluntly announced that the child had committed suicide. And, he added, Mr. Pollak's mother was largely to blame, because she had rejected him at birth. ''What is it about these Jewish mothers?'' Bettelheim fumed.
Mr. Pollak left reeling. On reflection, though, something seemed fishy. He recalled that the hayloft his brother died in was so treacherous that he himself had almost fallen, too. And his mother, whatever her quirks, was not the harpy Bettelheim described. Mr. Pollak began exploring other options. What if the great Dr. Bettelheim, the champion of emotionally disturbed children and the author of ''The Uses of Enchantment,'' ''Freud and Man's Soul'' and ''The Empty Fortress,'' was in fact a bitter, sadistic, anti-Semitic, mother-hating liar?
That is the hypothesis Mr. Pollak follows in ''The Creation of Dr. B.'' Although Bettelheim declined to be interviewed for the book, Mr. Pollak interviewed two of Bettelheim's three children, his first wife and a slew of colleagues, editors, students and friends. And many of them agreed that, in the words of Jacquelyn Seevak Sanders, Bettelheim's successor at the Orthogenic School, ''you couldn't believe anything he said.''

One would be well advised to suspend belief when the biographer has so much animus. I am going to ask you beloved readers to read Bruno for yourself. Maybe he was a tortured soul--you might remember the cameo appearance in Woody Allen's mock documentary, Zelig (1983). Bruno Bettelheim accepted Woody Allen's invitation to appear as himself in the film. It presaged his tragic end by suicide March 13, 1990. He suffered the indignity of concentration camp life and later wrote about the experience. At least he was spared the indignity and pain of his biographer's cruelty. He helped a lot of people. His book on fairy tales helped me and my children. I know he would have had something to offer us, were he still here. WWBBD.

Why doesn't everyone have one?

The iPhone camera is good even in low light conditions, and is less intimidating than a standard camera, especially one with flash. One must master the technique of holding the phone steady and actuating the release "button" without shaking the device. Here is a medley of difficult subjects and subject matter shot with a variety of lighting conditions. The pixels can be enhanced to simulate flash but have not been adjusted in these photographs.

The clown and the harlequin are from the Museum of Musical Automata housed in the BarockSchloss, Bruchsal, Germany. "Nothing scarier than a clown after midnight."

Phil loves Babysbreath, and can't get enough of it.

The iPhone is silent and so does good candid camera. Skin tones are the best test of a camera and film/digital system. I have been impressed with the iPhone in this regard. My collection of Leica lenses and bodies pretty much stays home these days.

The lens is surprisingly good and handles distant and near scenes. Sometimes it surprises you with the quality of the image.

I had a Blackberry and loved it. At first I found the iPhone more difficult for typing. In fact, all these tiny informational devices are frustrating if you actually type--as opposed to index finger picking--your messages, notes, other various entries. But after some time passed my "typing" on the iPhone has gotten easier and quicker. Some short cuts and techniques one figures out for himself and others must be learned from documentation or a teacher. As an example, when you want to write "u umlaut" you first select Deutsch, lower center; then Leerzeichen appears, then you press "u" (and the keyboard is no longer Qwerty, but not much different), and hold the "u" key until a range of special character "u's" appear. Slide your finger to the one you want and linger there a while, and magically your "u umlaut" appears in text. I stumbled upon this one myself but could more easily have read how to do the languages.

The camera is good, and one can tweak the pixels so as to simulate flash, picking the version of the image you most like. The photographs move so easily back and forth from iPhone to computer either PC or Mac. And if the iPhone photos are good enough for David Hockney, they are surely more than good enough for the rest of us.

The weather application is terrific for travellers or weather junkies. You get six days and most cities on earth. Notes and Memos are good. Really facile. These Apple geeks are really good. I use the Calendar a lot. Great for a trip.

Stocks application is a must for even the poorest capitalist. And there are hundreds of applications to choose from for spreadsheet effects.

I like the clock application, too. I set all the antique clocks in the house according to this iPhone clock. Of course, clocks from the late 1600's and early and mid 1700's drift a bit for the rest of the week. But they all chime in harmony and synchrony for the first part of the week.

The iPhone is a good phone, too. I like it the best of any I have ever had.

Maps Application is fun and easy to figure out. There is a compass application for the 3GS, and I would like to have had that function but am not willing to buy a new phone just to get that one feature. I have used the navigation in remote parts of Germany and found it helpful. At times and in places my iPhone and I were the only English speakers within hailing distance. The satellite view of things is fun, too.

Of course, there is a calculator. It's pretty basic and will not satisfy the needs of engineers and physicists who have their own equipment anyway.

Mail application serves the purpose. Having a number of e-mail accounts and providers might mean a trip to the ATT store or the Apple store for expert help.

And lastly, there is the APP store providing more than you could ever want in terms of further applications for this little wonder. Two years ago Steve Jobs said there would be no room for amateurs writing applications for the iPhone. The exclusivity of the product mirrors Mac and the way some PC problems just don't happen to Mac users. I don't pretend to understand this but there must be less room for viruses and all other nuisances with Mac. At any rate, that kind of pronouncement just energizes the hacker community. So there are now all kinds of non Apple applications. Of course, there is always the possibility that your hacker app will be working fine until an Apple upgrade arrives and bricks your phone. Enter the iPhone App Store. Apple says it checks each and every game, puzzle, recipe box, and so forth. There must be 100,000 or more apps (applications) by now for this truly astounding piece of engineering.

There is an old joke: the world's leading scientists and engineers gathered in New York City to reach a consensus on what was the greatest invention of the human race. A distinguished guest said the wheel. Another said fire. Others submitted speech, writing, gun powder, domesticated grains and animals, electricity, and so forth. From the back of the room a person said the thermos bottle. The high powered panel guffawed "what's so great about the thermos bottle?" "It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold," replied the man in the back. "What's so great about that?" countered the panel of experts. To which the man answered "how does it know?"

Well, I submit the iPhone as at least one of the seven wonders of the modern age, if not mankind's greatest invention. Bravo, Steve Jobs and crew at Apple.

Built to last . . .

At the Leomuehle:

These two gentlemen are standing in front of the main door to the Leomuehle, built in 1533 by Curth Gottfried von Loewenstein, local heavy weight aristocrat and entrepreneur. Soon to be five hundred years old, the mill still grinds grains into bakers' flours and animal feeds. The only major difference between the mill of today and the one of von Loewenstein's day is the way the great water wheel's work is harnessed. Today it generates hydroelectricity 24/7. When not utilized for grinding grains into bakers' flours or animal feeds, the electricity that is generated is sold back to the grid.

I toured the mill with an old friend (on the left in the picture) who has been helping me with my Nord Hessen family history. Like the mill, he was built to last, too. He is a world war II veteran who was captured by the American forces, thanks to which experience he learned English. And he is pretty much the only person in his little city who speaks English. The day that this picture was taken was the first day that he wore a tie other than black--black to mourn the death of his wife of sixty-one years, the one love of his life, mother of their children, and grandmother and great grandmother.

He is still in grief, but walked me into the ground as we toured his city. Although he is retired from farming he still works hard during the planting and harvesting times. And he lives in the old Hof in his own little suite. (This Hof is separate from the old living quarters of what was once a knight's schloss. The original schloss was the present farm house and the more elaborate house next door--a very large structure. And the present farm house was the animal quarters. Not much gets torn down here, but a lot gets remodeled or refitted. These Hessians built things to last.)

The same aristocrat built the church in Bad Zwesten. This part of Germany went Protestant very early. "As the prince, so his people" was the way one's religion was decided in that time. I was told that late one Sunday morning my grandfather (who died when my mother was only sixteen) left the church services, placed his book of songs on the table of the family's old house, and left the city for Hamburg and America. No explanations given. Since the family's business for generations was wagon making and since he was not mechanically inclined, I think he rejected his future in the Old World and decided to try his luck in the new.

The church in Jesberg, Hessen
:

I like the church in Bad Zwesten, and it is in very good condition, as are the others in this part of Germany. My favorite is is the church in Jesberg, an even smaller city from which my grandfather's fathers came. Europe has a reputation of being post Christian, and a land of no belief (except for its new immigrants' Muslim faith). That is not what one sees in the rural parts of Germany. These churches are attended and attended to. Probably some disconnect between the country mice and the city mice.

The church in Kerstenhausen, from which my mother's father's mother's people came.

The bell tower of the Bad Zwesten church is coming off a renovation for which all the money has been raised. I offered help but was politely told that all the money was in place. At which point you know you are in a special place indeed. You are not in South Florida anymore.

What an incredibly well preserved medieval building: The Guild Hall in Haguenau:

This is the Guild Hall in Haguenau, Bas-Rhin, northern Alsace. Now indisputably French, Alsace has been a part of the German world for most of its history. This magnificent building is only a century old but feels truly ancient. It was built when Alsace was German. It looks to me as though this one was built to last, too. The archives for the Department de Bas-Rhin are housed here. There is also a neat and tidy little museum of the region which includes the Forest of Haguenau. This was a free city in the Empire and rich. The burghers and tradesmen kept more of their hard earned money because they had no intermediate grasping hands of church and state. Haguenau was the lead city of the Decapole (the ten free cities of Alsace). The Battle of Alsace in WWII destroyed most of the city along with surrounding cities including Kaltenhouse from which my paternal immigrant ancestor came to America in 1828. Read Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke if you wonder whether all the death and destruction of WWII was absolutely necessary. Unless you are afraid to think such a thought.

Here is a part of the Roman wall in Barcelona. Now, I always considered the origin of the city's name to be Hamilcar Barca's family (the most well known of them was Hannibal). So, Barca--(l)ona, or Barca's city. But now the official version is that this is a city of and by Romans. And it is hard to argue with the ruins. But etymology makes for a good argument, too. Once again, the old ones, European or North African, built things to last. Barring extreme periods of time or modern weapons of great destruction, the buildings of the Old World tend to last.

Let not a monument give you or me hopes, Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheôps.

--Byron

The quadrilateral pyramids of the Giza plateau: we could not duplicate them today. They are apparently built, against the advice of the Good Book, on sand. Yet their subsidence is negligible forty centuries after their construction. (And, though it appears that the pyramids are built on a sea of sand, they must be on rock since the deep chamber in the Great Pyramid is cut from the living rock one hundred twenty feet below ground level.) Here is the author of the best book ever on the architectural features of the Great Pyramids, James Ferguson:

Come we now to the "Great Pyramid," "which is still," says Lenormant, "at least in respect of its mass, the most prodigious of all human constructions," The "Great Pyramid," or "First Pyramid of Ghizeh," as it is indifferently termed, is situated almost due north-east of the "Second Pyramid," at the distance of about two hundred yards. The length of each side at the base was originally seven hundred and sixty-four feet, or fifty-seven feet more than that of the sides of the "Second Pyramid." Its original perpendicular height was something over four hundred and eighty feet, its cubic contents exceeded eighty-nine million feet, and the weight of its mass 6,840,000 tons. In height it thus exceeded Strasburg Cathedral by above six feet, St. Peter's at Rome by above thirty feet, St. Stephen's at Vienna by fifty feet St. Paul's, London, by a hundred and twenty feet, and the Capitol at Washington by nearly two hundred feet. Its area was thirteen acres, one rood, and twenty-two poles, or nearly two acres more than the area of the "Second Pyramid." which was fourfold that of the "Third Pyramid," which, as we have seen, was that of an ordinary London square. Its cubic contents would build a city of twenty-two thousand such houses as were above described, and laid in a line of cubic squares would reach a distance of nearly seventeen thousand miles, or girdle two-thirds of the earth's circumference at the equator. Herodotus says that its construction required the continuous labour of a hundred thousand men for the space of twenty years, and moderns do not regard the estimate as exaggerated.
The "Great Pyramid" presents, moreover, many other marvels besides its size. First, there is the massiveness of the blocks of which it is composed. The basement stones are in many cases thirty feet long by five feet high, and four or five wide: they must contain from six hundred to seven hundred and fifty cubic feet each, and weigh from forty-six to fifty-seven tons. The granite blocks which roof over the upper sepulchral chamber are nearly nineteen feet long, by two broad and from three to four deep. The relieving stones above the same chamber, and those of the entrance passage, are almost equally massive. Generally the external blocks are of a size with which modern builders scarcely ever venture to deal, though the massiveness diminishes as the pyramid is ascended. The bulk of the interior is, however, of comparatively small stones; but even these are carefully hewn and squared, so as to fit together compactly.
Further, there are the passages, the long gallery, the ventilation shafts, and the sepulchral chambers all of them remarkable, and some of them simply astonishing. The "Great Pyramid" guards three chambers. One lies deep in the rock, about a hundred and twenty feet beneath the natural surface of the ground, and is placed almost directly below the apex of the structure. It measures forty-six feet by twenty-seven, and is eleven feet high. The access to it is by a long and narrow passage which commences in the north side of the pyramid, about seventy feet above the original base, and descends for forty yards through the masonry, and then for seventy more in the same line through the solid rock, when it changes its direction, becoming horizontal for nine yards, and so entering the chamber itself. The two other chambers are reached by an ascending passage, which branches off from the descending one at the distance of about thirty yards from the entrance, and mounts up through the heart of the pyramid for rather more than forty yards, when it divides into two. A low horizontal gallery, a hundred and ten feet long, leads to a chamber which has been called "the Queen's"--a room about nineteen feet long by seventeen broad, roofed in with sloping blocks, and having a height of twenty feet in the centre. Another longer and much loftier gallery continues on for a hundred and fifty feet in the line of the ascending passage, and is then connected by a short horizontal passage with the upper-most or "King's Chamber." Here was found a sarcophagus believed to be that of King Khufu, since the name of Khufu was scrawled in more than one place on the chamber walls.
The construction of this chamber--the very kernel of the whole building--is exceedingly remarkable. It is a room of thirty-four feet in length, with a width of seventeen feet, and a height of nineteen, composed wholly of granite blocks of great size, beautifully polished, and fitted together with great care. The construction of the roof is particularly admirable. First, the chamber is covered in with nine huge blocks, each nearly nineteen feet long and four feet wide, which are laid side by side upon the walls so as to form a complete ceiling. Then above these blocks is a low chamber similarly covered in, and this is repeated four times; after which there is a fifth opening, triangular, and roofed in by a set of huge sloping blocks, which meet at the apex and support each other. The object is to relieve the chamber from any superincumbent weight, and prevent it from being crushed in by the mass of material above it; and this object has been so completely attained that still, at the expiration of above forty centuries, the entire chamber, with its elaborate roof, remains intact, without crack or settlement of any kind.
Further, from the great chamber are carried two ventilation-shafts, or air-passages, northwards and southwards, which open on the outer surface of the pyramid, and are respectively two hundred and thirty-three and one hundred and ninety-four feet long. These passages are square, or nearly so, and have a diameter varying between six and nine inches. They give a continual supply of pure air to the chamber, and keep it dry at all seasons.
The Great Gallery is also of curious construction. Extending for a distance of one hundred and fifty feet, and rising at an angle of 26° 18', it has a width of five feet at the base and a height of above thirty feet. The side walls are formed of seven layers of stone, each projecting a few inches over that below it. The gallery thus gradually contracts towards the top, which has a width of four feet only, and is covered in with stones that reach across it, and rest on the walls at either side. The exact object of so lofty a gallery has not been ascertained; but it must have helped to keep the air of the interior pure and sweet, by increasing the space through which it had to circulate.

(James Ferguson, in his great work, the History of Architecture.)

So, where are we today with respect to building things to last? Need I ask? Check for yourselves the subsidence rates of buildings in New York City, Houston, Beijing, and Shanghai. The magnificent skyline of Pudong is built on river mud. Granted, a million or so piles were driven into the mud. But river city skyscrapers are problematic by nature. And those grew like weeds. Houston is built on alluvial mud and is going the same way of subsidence. Ditto Beijing. New York City is atop hard rock but subsiding nonetheless. The one remaining monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World will likely outlast any and all such wonders of the modern world. I wouldn't say that is a bad thing. But in a world of Kleenex a handkerchief is a welcome sight.

Making that handkerchief: El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. This is the master work of the mad cap genius Antoni Gaudi. There is nothing in the world like this. This is a must see for any and all who possess some spiritual sense, love architecture, need to see something hopeful, or just like the exotic. It won't be completed in our lifetime, just as was the case with the great Gothic cathedrals. It might restore your faith, if not in God, then in mankind. If nothing else, it is folly on a truly monumental scale. It is breathtaking.

A Gothic cathedral without flying buttresses, without straight lines, hand wrought of cut stones, replete with sculptural details from the Good Book and from fantasy, and all of it on a huge scale. See it to believe it.