The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit (important books to read txt) 📕
Description
In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian future in search of the missing other half.
Perhaps one of E. Nesbit’s most personal works, The Story of the Amulet benefited from her interest in the ancient world, particularly Egypt. With the help of A. E. Wallis Budge, to whom the book is dedicated—then Head of the Assyrian Departments of the British Museum and translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead—she conducted extensive research on the topic and is thus able to bring an exquisite attention to detail. For example, the titular amulet is shaped after the tyet, an Egyptian symbol also known as the “knot of Isis.” Likewise, the inscription at the back of the amulet is written in authentic Egyptian hieroglyphs.
A staunch supporter of democratic socialism and a founding member of the Fabian Society, E. Nesbit cultivated friendships with other like-minded writers, such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, whose influence on this book is easy to notice. She practiced what she preached, so much so that despite her literary successes, her acts of charity brought her close to bankruptcy.
These political beliefs are prominently displayed in the book. The children encounter memorable characters during their adventures, chief among them the Queen of Babylon, who causes quite a stir when she later pays them a call in their contemporary London. When the visiting Queen witnesses the squalid living conditions of the London working class, she’s amazed at how poorly they’re treated compared to the slaves of her own Babylon. Likewise, the utopian future—which features a wink to her friend H. G. Wells, the “great reformer”—is a striking contrast in terms of the happiness, care, and education of the general populace.
The book’s legacy can be found in the works of other writers. Most notably, C. S. Lewis incorporated several elements in his Chronicles of Narnia: the Calormene civilization of The Horse and His Boy draws heavily from The Amulet’s Babylon, and the episode in The Magician’s Nephew where Jadis, the White Witch, causes chaos during her short stay in London is also a direct homage to the aforementioned visit from the Queen. The format of these stories, where a group of people take their audience on adventures through time and space to learn about distant cultures, is an uncanny precursor to the popular British TV series Doctor Who.
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- Author: E. Nesbit
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It was Cyril who said at last—
“Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.”
“The part of the Amulet which is lost,” said the beautiful voice, “was broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. It and the pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, and the dust is scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.”
“Oh, I say!” murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell.
“Then it’s all up?” said Cyril at last; “it’s no use our looking for a thing that’s smashed into dust, and the dust scattered all over the place.”
“If you would find it,” said the voice, “You must seek it where it still is, perfect as ever.”
“I don’t understand,” said Cyril.
“In the Past you may find it,” said the voice.
“I wish we may find it,” said Cyril.
The Psammead whispered crossly, “Don’t you understand? The thing existed in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could find it. It’s very difficult to make you understand things. Time and space are only forms of thought.”
“I see,” said Cyril.
“No, you don’t,” said the Psammead, “and it doesn’t matter if you don’t, either. What I mean is that if you were only made the right way, you could see everything happening in the same place at the same time. Now do you see?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Anthea; “I’m sorry I’m so stupid.”
“Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet is in the Past. Therefore it’s in the Past we must look for it. I mustn’t speak to the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!”
“Where can we find the other part of you?” asked Cyril obediently.
“In the Past,” said the voice.
“What part of the Past?”
“I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.”
“When did you see it last?” asked Anthea—“I mean, when was it taken away from you?”
The beautiful voice answered—
“That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, and lay in a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked wonders. Then came strange men with strange weapons and destroyed my shrine, and the Amulet they bore away with many captives. But of these, one, my priest, knew the word of power, and spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became invisible, and thus returned to my shrine, but the shrine was broken down, and ere any magic could rebuild it one spoke a word before which my power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay there, still perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild the shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one half was sundered from the other. I had no power to seek for that which was lost. And there being none to speak the word of power, I could not rejoin it. So the Amulet lay in the dust of the desert many thousand years, and at last came a small man, a conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd of men who sought to seem wise, and one of these found half the Amulet and brought it to this land. But none could read the name. So I lay still. And this man dying and his son after him, the Amulet was sold by those who came after to a merchant, and from him you bought it, and it is here, and now, the name of power having been spoken, I also am here.”
This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon by the small man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told that he took an army to Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise people went grubbing in the sand, and fished up all sorts of wonderful things, older than you would think possible. And of these I believe this charm to have been one, and the most wonderful one of all.
Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do this clearly when you have been listening to the kind of talk I have told you about.
At last Robert said—
“Can you take us into the Past—to the shrine where you and the other thing were together. If you could take us there, we might find the other part still there after all these thousands of years.”
“Still there? silly!” said Cyril. “Don’t you see, if we go back into the Past it won’t be thousands of years ago. It will be now for us—won’t it?” He appealed to the Psammead, who said—
“You’re not so far off the idea as you usually are!”
“Well,” said Anthea, “will you take us back to when there was a shrine and you were safe in it—all of you?”
“Yes,” said the voice. “You must hold me up, and speak the word of power, and one by one, beginning with the firstborn, you shall pass through me into the Past. But let the last that passes be the one that holds me, and let him not lose his hold, lest you lose me, and so remain in the Past forever.”
“That’s a nasty idea,” said Robert.
“When you desire to return,” the beautiful voice went on, “hold me up towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing through me, you shall return to this time and it shall be the present to you.”
“But how—”
A bell rang loudly.
“Oh crikey!” exclaimed Robert, “that’s tea! Will you please make it proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you so much for all your kindness.”
“We’ve enjoyed ourselves very
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