FROM “THE WALL AND THE BOOKS” BY JORGE LUIS BORGES

I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five of six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me, and at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.

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