Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-22


Mary off alone to the pedestal of the second colossus.
While they bent the SCARED stone absorbed
tourist their party, not noticing their absence, had
remounted their donkeys and ridden to the Nile
ferry.
Looking about to call Abdul Mary saw him some
distance from the statues, with Rameses' bride on
his arm earnestly talking to Zainab, who looked
away to the sunset. The youthful figures of the des
ert lovers were enveloped in the glow of the de-
parting In the midst of the quiet valley,
deserted save by few patient ellahs tending sheep
lingering their labors in the field they seemed
to Mary the central figures of the painting of peas
ant love trySt, for which all this peaceful
but background.
WILL you not sit here with me by Memnon and
w watch the sunset?' said Hamilton. AS Mary
turned to answer, she knew though Hamilton
looked only at her now. that he had seen Abdul and
Zainab, and that he understood. She had meant to
hold her.
Sitting on the sand at Memnon's feet. they
watched the sinking behind the palms on the
bank of the Nile. Above the treetops piled
huge cloud ingots of translucent gold. rich and
lavish evening reckoning of the gods treasure
Golfers. Above the bars of gold. the soft. tieecy
clouds took exquisite pink tnts and,
Elected in the Nile dyed the great river incarnadine.
AS Mary watched in silence the glory in the sky,
there shone another glory greater in her heart The
earth and the air and the sky comminged, fused
into one ecstatc element which enveloped her like
divine ether She felt the thrill of the universal con-
sciousness Her heart beat in unison with divine
breathing of love, came to her from patient, waiting
Memnon
Thus did Old Egypt speak the old message to the
daughter of the New World
KARNAk stood glorifed in the golden splendor of
~ the full that hung low the Nile. It's
piercing obelsks and giant columns shone like
thick white forest stied in deep, dreaming calm.
The two long of sphinXes that lined the avenue
to the massive portal seemed alive and crouchng in
the moonlight ready to spring if any impous
dare TO fernp hey n
vast silence that had fallen the immensely OF the
ruins of karnal stood the beautiful alabaster
statue of the Theban god Ammon, lately walked
from his centuries sleep beneath his temple. His
eyes and medtative his lips smiling and
winning, if his house had never fallen in ruins
about him and buried him beneath the altar where
he had been worshped by Kings and conquerors.
Ammon smiled in the moonlight as If speaking to
friend. 1t good to be freed from the letters of
earth that had held him SO long 1t was good to be
host in his house again and to receive once
the admiration and worship of the world.
Did he miss the incense that had once been burned
within his sanctuary the songs that had been
Chanted to his divinity the procession OF white robed
priests and flower laden maidens the visits OF Kings
with sumptuous retnues, the yearly journeys in his
sacred boat the Nile to the great neighborIng
temple while all Thebes shouted and made holiday
on the banks
If Ammon did, he wise god and made
sign. All things were revealed to his divine vision.
He knew that old orders had passed away while he
slept and new customs and new peoples had arisen.
Since the recent day when the Psychologist had dug
him in his old sanctuary he had looked graciously
these hordes of strange peoples who
thronged his sand foored courts and roofess halls
and fingered long in worshipful admiration before
himself. Beauty is divine, and thought is godke.
Ammon smiled on glorousy for he knew that the
stupendous grandeur of his colonnaded temple and
the sheer loneliness of his alabaster image would pre-
serve his name through the changing ages.
But when the last ardent traveller had closed his
guidebook and cattered away on his donkey, and
the thousand Arab laborers who dug within the
mighty ruins of his temple had ceased to work and
rose in her old majesty and enveloped the Theban
valley in the reflection of her beauty Looking down