It is, as it were, cut in two by
the intrusion into it of this hideous, mottled complexion left by the
receded water.
Everywhere one sees disease on the walls and columns,
almost blotting out bas-reliefs, giving to their active figures a
morbid, a sickly look. The effect is specially distressing in the open
court that precedes the temple dedicated to the Lady of Philae. In
this court, which is at the southern end of the island, the Nile at
certain seasons is now forced to rise very nearly as high as the
capitals of many of the columns. The consequence of this is that here
the disease seems making rapid strides. One feels it is drawing near
to the heart, and that the poor, doomed invalid may collapse at any
moment.
Yes, there is much to make one sad at Philae. But how much of pure
beauty there is left - of beauty that merely protests against any
further outrage!
As there is something epic in the grandeur of the Lotus Hall at
Karnak, so there is something lyrical in the soft charm of the Philae
temple. Certain things or places, certain things in certain places,
always suggest to my mind certain people in whose genius I take
delight - who have won me, and moved me by their art. Whenever I go to
Philae, the name of Shelley comes to me. I scarcely could tell why. I
have no special reason to connect Shelley with Philae. But when I see
that almost airy loveliness of stone, so simply elegant, so, somehow,
spring-like in its pale-colored beauty, its happy, daffodil charm,
with its touch of the Greek - the sensitive hand from Attica stretched
out over Nubia - I always think of Shelley. I think of Shelley the
youth who dived down into the pool so deep that it seemed he was lost
for ever to the sun. I think of Shelley the poet, full of a lyric
ecstasy, who was himself like an embodied
"Longing for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow."
Lyrical Philae is like a temple of dreams, and of all poets Shelley
might have dreamed the dream and have told it to the world in a song.
For all its solidity, there are a strange lightness and grace in the
temple of Philae; there is an elegance you will not find in the other
temples of Egypt. But it is an elegance quite undefiled by weakness,
by any sentimentality. (Even a building, like a love-lorn maid, can be
sentimental.) Edward FitzGerald once defined taste as the feminine of
genius. Taste prevails in Philae, a certain delicious femininity that
seduces the eyes and the heart of man. Shall we call it the spirit of
Isis?
I have heard a clever critic and antiquarian declare that he is not
very fond of Philae; that he feels a certain "spuriousness" in the
temple due to the mingling of Greek with Egyptian influences. He may
be right. I am no antiquarian, and, as a mere lover of beauty, I do
not feel this "spuriousness." I can see neither two quarrelling
strengths nor any weakness caused by division. I suppose I see only
the beauty, as I might see only the beauty of a women bred of a
handsome father and mother of different races, and who, not typical of
either, combined in her features and figure distinguishing merits of
both. It is true that there is a particular pleasure which is roused
in us only by the absolutely typical - the completely thoroughbred
person or thing. It may be a pleasure not caused by beauty, and it may
be very keen, nevertheless. When it is combined with the joy roused in
us by all beauty, it is a very pure emotion of exceptional delight.
Philae does not, perhaps, give this emotion. But it certainly has a
lovableness that attaches the heart in a quite singular degree. The
Philae-lover is the most faithful of lovers. The hold of his mistress
upon him, once it has been felt, is never relaxed. And in his
affection for Philae there is, I think, nearly always a rainbow strain
of romance.
When we love anything, we love to be able to say of the object of our
devotion, "There is nothing like it." Now, in all Egypt, and I suppose
in all the world there is nothing just like Philae. There are temples,
yes; but where else is there a bouquet of gracious buildings such as
these gathered in such a holder as this tiny, raft-like isle? And
where else are just such delicate and, as I have said, light and
almost feminine elegance and charm set in the midst of such severe
sterility? Once, beyond Philae, the great Cataract roared down from
the wastes of Nubia into the green fertility of Upper Egypt. It roars
no longer. But still the masses of the rocks, and still the amber and
the yellow sands, and still the iron-colored hills, keep guard round
Philae. And still, despite the vulgar desecration that has turned
Shellal into a workmen's suburb and dowered it with a railway-station,
there is a mystery in Philae, and the sense of isolation that only an
island gives. Even now one can forget in Philae - forget, after a
while, and in certain parts of its buildings, the presence of the grey
disease; forget the threatening of the altruists, who desire to
benefit humanity by clearing as much beauty out of humanity's abiding-
place as possible; forget the fact of the railway, except when the
shriek of the engine floats over the water to one's ears; forget
economic problems, and the destruction that their solving brings upon
the silent world of things whose "use," denied, unrecognized, or
laughed at, to man is in their holy beauty, whose mission lies not
upon the broad highways where tramps the hungry body, but upon the
secret, shadowy byways where glides the hungry soul.
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