As I Went On Slowly,
The Perfection Of The Plan Of The Dead Architects Was Gradually
Revealed To Me, When
The darkness gave up its secrets; when I saw not
clearly, but dimly, the long way between the columns, the
Noble
columns themselves, the gradual, slight upward slope - graduated by
genius; there is no other word - which led to the sanctuary, seen at
last as a little darkness, in which all the mystery of worship, and of
the silent desires of men, was surely concentrated, and kept by the
stone for ever. Even the succession of the darknesses, like shadows
growing deeper and deeper, seemed planned by some great artist in the
management of light, and so of shadow effects. The perfection of form
is in Edfu, impossible to describe, impossible not to feel. The
tremendous effect it has - an effect upon the soul - is created by a
combination of shapes, of proportions, of different levels, of
different heights, by consummate graduation. And these shapes,
proportions, different levels, and heights, are seen in dimness. Not
that jewelled dimness one loves in Gothic cathedrals, but the heavy
dimness of windowless, mighty chambers lighted only by a rebuked
daylight ever trying to steal in. One is captured by no ornament,
seduced by no lovely colors. Better than any ornament, greater than
any radiant glory of color, is this massive austerity. It is like the
ultimate in an art. Everything has been tried, every strangeness
/bizarrerie/, absurdity, every wild scheme of hues, every preposterous
subject - to take an extreme instance, a camel, wearing a top-hat, and
lighted up by fire-works, which I saw recently in a picture-gallery of
Munich.
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