I was exploring my home town recently and discovered “Cleopatra’s Needle” on the western side of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Turns out that it was already a thousand years old during Cleopatra’s reign.
Having a little experience in rigging objects larger than myself, I was curious how something from Egypt wound up in Central Park. In researching, I came across the following text which resonates with my feelings of unease and concern for the future of the United States:
The opening ceremony was held on February 22, 1881, before more than 10,000 jubilant New Yorkers. William Maxwell Evarts, then U.S. Secretary of State, asked to the crowds, “Who indeed can tell what our nation will do if any perversity is possible of realization; and yet this obelisk may ask us, ‘Can you expect to flourish forever? Can you expect wealth to accumulate and man not decay? Can you think that the soft folds of luxury are to wrap themselves closer and closer around this nation and the pith and vigor of its manhood know no decay? Can it creep over you and yet the nation know no decrepitude?’ These are questions that may be answered in the time of the obelisk but not in ours.“
