loring, is not that like the fantasy in the temple
of a dream? For those who painted these capitals for the greater glory
of Isis did not fear to depart from nature, and to their patient worship
a blue palm perhaps seemed a rarely sacred thing. And that palm is part
of the spell, and the reliefs upon the walls and even the Coptic crosses
that are cut into the stone.

But at the end, one can only say that this place is indescribable, and
not because it is complex or terrifically grand, like Karnak. Go to it
on a sunlit morning, or stand in it in late afternoon, and perhaps you
will feel that it "suggests" you, and that it carries you away, out of
familiar regions into a land of dreams, where among hidden ways the soul
is lost in magic. Yes, you are gone.

To the right--for one, alas! cannot live in a dream for ever--is a
lovely doorway through which one sees the river. Facing it is another
doorway, showing a fragment of the poor, vivisected island, some ruined
walls, and still another doorway in which, again, is framed the Nile.
Many people have cut their names upon the walls of Philae. Once, as I
sat alone there, I felt strongly attracted to look upward to a wall, as
if some personality, enshrined within the stone, were watching me, or
calling. I looked, and saw written "Balzac."

Philae is the last temple that one visits before he gives himself to the
wildness of the solitudes of Nubia. It stands at the very frontier. As
one goes up the Nile, it is like a smiling adieu from the Egypt one
is leaving. As one comes down, it is like a smiling welcome. In its
delicate charm I feel something of the charm of the Egyptian character.
There are moments, indeed, when I identify Egypt with Philae. For in
Philae one must dream; and on the Nile, too, one must dream. And always
the dream is happy, and shot through with radiant light--light that is
as radiant as the colors in Philae's temple. The pylons of Ptolemy smile
at you as you go up or come down the river. And the people of Egypt
smile as they enter into your dream. A suavity, too, is theirs. I think
of them often as artists, who know their parts in the dream-play, who
know exactly their function, and how to fulfil it rightly. They sing,
while you are dreaming, but it is an under-song, like the murmur of an
Eastern river far off from any sea. It never disturbs, this music, but
it helps you in your dream. And they are softly gay. And in their eyes
there is often the gleam of s