In No Other Temple, When The Sanctuary
Is Reached, Has One Such A Strong Consciousness Of Being Indeed Within
A Sacred Heart.
The color of Edfu is a pale and delicate brown, warm in the strong
sunshine, but seldom glowing.
Its first doorway is extraordinarily
high, and is narrow, but very deep, with a roof showing traces of that
delicious clear blue-green which is like a thin cry of joy rising up
in the solemn temples of Egypt. A small sphinx keeps watch on the
right, just where the guardian stands; this guardian, the gift of the
past, squat, even fat, with a very perfect face of a determined and
handsome man. In the court, upon a pedestal, stands a big bird, and
near it is another bird, or rather half of a bird, leaning forward,
and very much defaced. And in this great courtyard there are swarms of
living birds, twittering in the sunshine. Through the doorway between
the towers one sees a glimpse of a native village with the cupolas of
a mosque.
I stood and looked at the cupolas for a moment. Then I turned, and
forgot for a time the life of the world without - that men, perhaps,
were praying beneath those cupolas, or praising the Moslem's God. For
when I turned, I felt, as I have said, as if all the worship of the
world must be concentrated here. Standing far down the open court, in
the full sunshine, I could see into the first hypostyle hall, but
beyond only a darkness - a darkness which led me on, in which the
further chambers of the house divine were hidden.
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