The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1916-07-21

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 Egypti
What did you like best? What impress
sion did Egypt make upon you?" seem
questions impossible to answer. 1magi-
nation flickers, stainmers and goes out.
| Thought hesitates and stops. A little
shudder, probably. makes itself felt.
There is an important attempt to de-
scribe temple or two, an expedition
on donkeyback into the desert; but it
sounds unreal, the language wrong.
foolish, even affected. The dreadful
post card rises like wall. "Oh,
liked it all immensely. The delight
full dry heat, you know-and one can
always count upon the weather for
picnics arranged ahead, and" until
the conversation can be changed to
theaters or the crops at home.
Yet, behind the words, behind the
post card, one Is aware all the time of
some huge, alluring thing, alive with
pageantry of ages, strangely brilliant.
dignified, magnificent, appealing al
most to tears-something that drifts
past like a ghostly full-rigged vessel
with crowdedsxleeks and sails painted
in an underworld, and yet the whole
too close before the eyes for proper
sight. The spell has become operative!
Having been warned to expect this, l,
personally, had yet remained skeptical
until experienced the truth. !.
And 1t was undeniably disappointing.
After time and money spent, one had
apparently brought back SO little.
Monstrous to Some.
For some, a 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 poppies convey no
lyrical sweetness, as elsewhere they
might. All moves to a stateller meas
ure. Stern issues of life and death are
in the air. and in the grandeur Of the
tombs and temples there is a solemnity
of genuine awe that makes the blood
run slow a 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 q once power
full monarch lies CHASTITY now beneath
the glitter Of an electric light, the i'm
| placab1e desert, deadly with heat and
distance on every side-this picture,
once seen, rather colors 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 hieroglyphic 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 stateliness Of the
sun, with the slow silence of the con-
stellations. But they move. There is,
between you and them, this effect of
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
rerion vast, ancient and undifferenti-
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 elusiveness.
its undenfable reality are Ingredients.
at any rate. in . total result whose de-
tailed analysis lies hidden In mystery
and silence-inscrutable