The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-07-22

cH1OtlCnly-ClleI aulOlS llleh III.
terious," "unchanging,' formidable"
terrific :" But the single, bigger mem
DRY that should link all these togeThsr
lntelligibly hides from sight the emo
ton too deep for specific recognition,
too vast, somehow, for articulate re-
covery.
The AcropOlis, the wonders of Japan
and India, the mind can grasp-or
thinks so; but this composite enormity
of Ramesseum, Serapeum, Karnak,
Cheops, Sphinx, with n hundred tenn
pies and a thousand miles of sand, 1t
knows 1t cannot. The mind is a blank.
Egypt, it seems, has faded. Memory
certainly fails, and description willis.
There seems nothing precisely to re-
port, no interesting, clear, Ineligible
thing. "What did you see in Egypt2
What did you like best? What impress
sion did Egypt make upon your" seem
questions impossible to answer. Imagi-
nation flickers, stanmers and goes out.
Thought hesitates and stops.
Monstrous to Some.
For some, n rather dominant impress
sion is undoubtedly "the monstrous."
A splendor of awful dream, yet never
quite of nightmare, stalks everywhere,
suggesting an atmosphere of Khubla
Khan. There is nothing lyrical. Even
the silvery river, the slender palms,
the fields of clover and barley and the
acres of flashing peoples convey no
IvriaOI cyVantnaCG nc alcnyvhnrn thnV
might. All moves to q Statelier meas
ure. Stern issues of life and death are
in the air, and in the grandeur of the
tomhS and temples there is a solemnity
of genuine awe that makes the blood
run slow n little.
Those Theban hills, where the kings
and queens lay buried, are forbidding
to the point of discomfort almost. The
listening silence in the grim Valley of
the Tombs of the Kings, the intoler-
able glare of sunshine on the stones,
the naked absence of any sign of ami
NAL or vegetable life, the slow .ap-
proach to the secret hiding place
where the mummy of a once power
full monarch lies CHASTITY now beneath
the glitter of an electric light. the i'm
placable desert, deadly with heat and
distance on every slie-this picture,
once seen, rather coiors ones memory
of the rest of Egypt with its somber
and funereal character.
And with the great deific monoliths
the effect is similar. Proportions and
sheer size strike blow after blow upon
the mind. ~Stupendous figures, shroud-
ed to the eyes, shoulder their way
slowly through the shifting sands,
deathless themselves and half-appal.
ing. Their. attitudes and gestures ex-
press the h~ieroglyphic drawings come
to life. Their towering heads, coiffed
with zodiacal signs, or grotesque with
animal or bird, bend down to watch
you everywhere. There is no hurry in
them; they move with the leisure of
the moon, with the s%tateliness of the
sun, with the slow silence of the con-
stellations. But they move. There is.
between you and them, this effect of a
screen, erected by the ages, yet that
any moment may turn thin and let
them through upon you. A hand of
shadow, but with granite grip, may
steal forth and draw you away into
some region where they dwell among
changeless symbols like themselves, a
region vast, ancient and undlfferenti-
ated as the desert that has produced
them. Their effect in the end is weird,
difficult to describe, but real. Talk
with a mind that has been STEPPED for
years In their atmosphere and pres
ence, and you will appreciate this odd
reality.
) The spell of Egypt is an Other-world
ly spell. Its vagueness, its elusiyeness
its u%ndeniable reality are ingredients
at any rate, in a total result whose de
tailed analysis lies hidden in mystery
and silence-inscrutable.