But An Optimism Almost As
Determined As Emerson's Was Quickly Bred In Me There.
I could not be
sad, though I could be happily thoughtful, in the light of the
Ramesseum.
And even when I left the thinking-place, and, coming down
the central aisle, saw in the immersing sunshine of the Osiride Court
the fallen colossus of the king, I was not struck to sadness.
Imagine the greatest figure in the world - such a figure as this
Rameses was in his day - with all might, all glory, all climbing power,
all vigor, tenacity of purpose, and granite strength of will
concentrated within it, struck suddenly down, and falling backward in
a collapse of which the thunder might shake the vitals of the earth,
and you have this prostrate colossus. Even now one seems to hear it
fall, to feel the warm soil trembling beneath one's feet as one
approaches it. A row of statues of enormous size, with arms crossed as
if in resignation, glowing in the sun, in color not gold or amber, but
a delicate, desert yellow, watch near it like servants of the dead. On
a slightly lower level than there it lies, and a little nearer the
Nile. Only the upper half of the figure is left, but its size is
really terrific. This colossus was fifty-seven feet high. It weighed
eight hundred tons. Eight hundred tons of syenite went to its making,
and across the shoulders its breadth is, or was, over twenty-two feet.
But one does not think of measurements as one looks upon it.
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