The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-07-17
CITY OF THE HUNDRED GATES.
rhe Great Tempic of Thebes w'Gld Hole
Four Notre Damga,

rhe Great Teyupic of Thebcs w,Sld Hold
Four Notre DANES.
The ordinary tourist is likely enough to
cmergS from the temple Of KurnaS stupe-
fed by that mere vastncss of scalc-thosc
Titanic proportions of architecture which
anllcd IL ages ago, when II was intact or
nearly so, and which rank it today, when
| II is II ruin, among the wonders Of the
world It Ia not tho mere area of the
mighty building which Expresses one,
though four cathcdrals of Notre Dame
would go, 1t is said, into the Hypostyle
hall Nor IL 1t merely the altitude to which
The towering columns mount, or their enor-
nous glrth, or their forestlike array. Yvu
think Of those huge pillars that lose them
selves in the upper gloom at Seville and
of the cndlcssly intersecting avenues of the
mosque of Cortlova, and you feel that in
these two points, at any rate, Karnak, II
It be not exactly rivalcd, is not SO very far
ahead.
II is tho astonishing successful combi-
nation of all the widely differing architec-
tliral effects which are scvorally produced
by number, by size, by proportion, by dis
position, by the impcrious influence OF
mass and the winning appeal of perspec-
| tive--it is tho combination of these into
phalanx Of forces to be launched irresisti-
| bly, against the senses and the soul of the
beholdcr that makes the great temple what
1t is. Those Atlantean columns which
were built surely to uphold the heavens
| themselves, and which seem to bear up
| their enormous surrounding monollths as
a giant would lift child, have no sugges-
ton of unwiehliness in their colossal size,
leave no sense of excess in their multitu-
dinuus number. The calyx capital into
which each column blossoms would take
| 10 men to span its monstrous girth; yet IL
opens out against the blue Egyptian sky
above Its rooness head us lightly as If 1t
were the finest Gothic tracery above an
English cathedral nave
| Everywhere the feeling of absolute fit
ness, of perfect proportion redeems this
majestic hail of the offcnse of mere Brob-
dingnagcric, and whether the eye dwolls
upon the parts or sweeps the whole whoth-
or 1t travels through the endless alleys of
this forest of stone and rests by turns upon
base and shaft and flowcrlikc capital of its
component columns, or pauses to pcruse
walls deep craven with colossal gods and
kings and still glowing here and there with
the undying colors of 1000 years the ar
tistic taste Is alike satisfied. So admirable
indeed are the proportions Of the whole
that the stupendous bulk of its constltu-
ent parts Is hardly realized. Derange-
ment of their symmetry seems necessary
to enable one to measure it in all its full
awfulness, as we do there, where one OF
these gigantic pillars has fallen and bows
its hundreds of tons of weight and the SUI
pcrincumbcnt burden of its huge plinth,
dislocated and askew, toward one of its
fellows. The cause Of this portentous dis
placement no man knows, but the vague
~ a.
Cambyses may be safely dismissed. No
mortal hands, relying solely on the strength
of human muscles and the only known
forces Of an age that knew not Of gunpow
der, could ever have done the work of in
choate destruction which is above our
heads. Nothing short of an earthquake
could have thrust one of those tremendous
plinths into the position Of that overhang-
ing horror. London Telegraph.