Evening star., 1935-02-17

A LONE, about O'Clock, went to the court
yard before the mosque and found it cool
and calm at this late hour. All the glitter and
pomp of IL years before had utterly gone. There
was hardly any light but the moon and only
handful of worshipers inside saying their last
prayers Of the day. But the guard let me pass
I took my shoes in my hand, plunged into the
dark emptiness and felt my way down a cor
ridor that led to the dim vaStness of the
interior.
This temple Of divine wisdom had been
marvellous enough the first time I entered it,
with its glittering lights and praying thou
sands. But now, in the darkness and the
silence of this appalling expanse of space, with
the moon shafts streaming down from the most
audaciOus dome in history, made me feel even
more than on the first visit, that I beheld
vision of temple too aspiring, too vast to be
the handiwork of man.
Once my eyes became used to the obscure
light began to move across the carpets around
the edge of the vault, past row of marble
columns moving softly in order not to disturb
the small group of Moslems bowed down toward
Mecca. The quiet services were over and the
building would now be closed. The worshipers
treading silently in their Stockinged feet across
the carpets, flowed past my dark recess and out
into the deep-shadowed corridor. The priest
alone remained, tiny and unreal in the presence
of such soaring space such huge dimensions.
And then he, too, without sound, without effort,
in his long robes, seemed to float over the
temple floor and in slow and solitary dignity
fade into the outer dark.
The guard came in to extinguish the lamp
and disappeared, leaving only the beams of
moonlight for illumination.
So utterly entranced had been by the dim
glory Of my surroundings had not given q
thought to my own departure, and the realza-
ton that I was utterly alone within this
haunted vaStneSs strangely did not drive me out
Of it. Rather was held by my nocturnal ex-
cursion into this moonit and mysterious realm.
There was no profanation here, no mock-heroic
escapade, but reverence and wonder-reverence
for the passion and the genius that built the
temple, for the centuries that have consecrated
1t, for the Christians and MoslemS who have
worshiped in it and approached nearer to their
God. I was possessed by a desire to rest
peacefully in the dark shadows to enjoy the
dream Of 400 years Of history, to possess, for
myself alone, these carpeted floors these noun
famous marble walls, these columns torn from
pagan temples, this soaring sensational canopy
nearly two hundred feet above me. through
which the moonlight streamed.
For three enchanted hours roamed about
my marvellous domain, touching, through the
shadow veil, the pillars and the walls, the
rostrum and the urnS I leaned back against a
marble column and looked up at the incredible
DOME dome such as no man ever dared to
build before or has been able to build since.
The master architect who designed 1t defed
every structural law. Gravity is apparently
dismissed. It should have fallen before 1t was
half built, so ethereal it is so fiat, so fearless
And yet the innumerable earthquakes that
have shaken the city to pieces have not SO
much as cracked this earth-scorning canopy.
How still the great mosque had become with
the midnight hour; how peaceful its deep
gloom. My lodging was far away and the
carpets in my secluded corner deep and very
soft I made pillow of my coat and stretched
upon q carpet bed. The moon continued to
ride in the heavens, drifting around the circle
of windows upon which the great dome spread