t when I see that
almost airy loveliness of stone, so simply elegant, so, somehow,
spring-like in its pale-colored beauty, its happy, daffodil charm, with
its touch of the Greek--the sensitive hand from Attica stretched out
over Nubia--I always think of Shelley. I think of Shelley the youth who
dived down into the pool so deep that it seemed he was lost for ever to
the sun. I think of Shelley the poet, full of a lyric ecstasy, who was
himself like an embodied

"Longing for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow."

Lyrical Philae is like a temple of dreams, and of all poets Shelley
might have dreamed the dream and have told it to the world in a song.

For all its solidity, there are a strange lightness and grace in the
temple of Philae; there is an elegance you will not find in the other
temples of Egypt. But it is an elegance quite undefiled by weakness,
by any sentimentality. (Even a building, like a love-lorn maid, can be
sentimental.) Edward FitzGerald once defined taste as the feminine of
genius. Taste prevails in Philae, a certain delicious femininity that
seduces the eyes and the heart of man. Shall we call it the spirit of
Isis?

I have heard a clever critic and antiquarian declare that he is not very
fond of Philae; that he feels a certain "spuriousness" in the temple due
to the mingling of Greek with Egyptian influences. He may be right. I
am no antiquarian, and, as a mere lover of beauty, I do not feel this
"spuriousness." I can see neither two quarrelling strengths nor any
weakness caused by division. I suppose I see only the beauty, as I might
see only the beauty of a women bred of a handsome father and mother
of different races, and who, not typical of either, combined in her
features and figure distinguishing merits of both. It is true that there
is a particular pleasure which is roused in us only by the absolutely
typical--the completely thoroughbred person or thing. It may be a
pleasure not caused by beauty, and it may be very keen, nevertheless.
When it is combined with the joy roused in us by all beauty, it is a
very pure emotion of exceptional delight. Philae does not, perhaps, give
this emotion. But it certainly has a lovableness that attaches the heart
in a quite singular degree. The Philae-lover is the most faithful of
lovers. The hold of his mistress upon him, once it has been felt, is
never relaxed. And in his affection for Philae there is, I think, nearly
always a rainbow st