The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1891-05-02
ALONE WITH PHARAOH.


woman.
One of our earlier poets has attempted
to resolve happiness into few very
simple elements, Of which the chief are
the possession of beloved object, a
pursuit Of absorbing interest, and exer-
else in the open air.
Miriam Won Meyer combined these
three constituents in the fullest measure;
she was united to the only man she had
ever wished to marry, and, identifying
her interests with his scientific re-
searches in archaeology, she accompanied
him over those par of Asia and Africa
which comprised his field of study,
milking extensive pilgrimages with him
TO the shrines of forgotten races, the
sites ofod civilizations, unearthing their
potteries and mutilated statues, puzzling
out their mysterious hieroglyphics, and
regarding her husbands share in the iu-
terpretation of each new find" as the
great debt par eminence owed by science
to that painstaking explorer.
The frau herself did not look like an
antiquity. She was young and beauti-
full Jewess, from celebrated Hamburg
family; one of the luckiest "finds"
Professor friedrich Won Meyer ever
made, for she endowed him not only
with the devotion of an ardent soul, but
with tile treasures of an ample bank ac-
count, Which last insured him the inde-
pendencs so delightful to q man who
studies for the sake of knowledge, and
longs to work untrammelled by the
pressing need of public approval as
represented in q good salary
The Won Meyers were advanced nine
teenth century lovers, coming together
with congenal tastes, both of them fred
with an intense desire to accomplish
something in the kingdom Of mind, and
resolved to prove to themselves and
their friends that such an end can be
made perfectly consistent with the
sweeter and more subtle relations Of
life.
1t was not long before this couple
were drawn into the magic sphere of
old Egypt, with it spectral indefinite
past--who can doubt that Egyptology
would offer the most adequate field for
their dual energy-an immortality in
ilselfH
When q standing mystery of over
600 years was solved at last by the dis
covery, at Dier ell Bahari, of Rameses
the Great-the Pharaoh of the Oppres.
Opp, ession, the Sesostris of the Greek
and Sc other serene mummied high
nesses, the exultation Of the Won Meyers
was quite equal to any body else's; they
talked Of "dynaslies," cartouches, :"
"scaral @i, "papyriI " from morning
until night
The climax of their excitement was
reached when, later on, the unfolding
took place, and Pharaoh, released from
his haudages in the presence of the
Khedive and other lesser dignitaries,
was indubitably proven to the modern
world to be himself, all that was left of
him.
Late one afternoon, soon after the un-
folding, the Won Meyers visited him in
his last res ing place, the Museum of
Antiquities at Bulak, the port of Cairo.
After standing long time before the
glass case which protected this most
noble Pharoah from the profane touch
of the curious, the professor remarked
TO his wife that he had some business
with a native outside the museum.
Would she go with him, or remain here?
Il will stay alone with Pharaoh, she
saidi tllen as he left her, she glanced
around the hall, and observed that not
another person shared her solitude with
the mighty dead of Egypt to whom il
was consecrated-even the ubiquitous
guard was nowhere to be seen.
aThere is a sort of silent contempt for
us all in this hard, dry, old face,
thought the lady, as she scanned the
monarch closely. Robbed of all the
illusions of flesh and blood, there is yet
a soul showing through these features.
I can read you, old Pharaohl Ahl now
a moclling light shines through the
mask, as if you understood my boast
Why did you oppress my people, you
tyrant of the bricSyardsl History may
vote you the most illustrious of tile
Pharaohs, novelists picture you as a de-
voted husband and parent, a generous
friend; ! shall believe only this face
before me. You had any amount Of
obsinacy. inordinate vanity, and am
bition. see all these, but did yoJ
have a hearth Could you ever soften