d haggard men with little distinction
of individual physiognomy, and recently a great painter has sought to
represent them under this aspect in a modern picture. This is an error;
the Egyptians, in spite of their aversion to foreigners and their strong
attachment to their native soil, were one of the most intellectual and
active people of antiquity; and he who would represent them as they
lived, and to that end copies the forms which remain painted on the
walls of the temples and sepulchres, is the accomplice of those priestly
corrupters of art who compelled the painters and sculptors of the
Pharaonic era to abandon truth to nature in favor of their sacred laws
of proportion.

He who desires to paint the ancient Egyptians with truth and fidelity,
must regard it in some sort as an act of enfranchisement; that is to
say, he must release the conventional forms from those fetters which
were peculiar to their art and altogether foreign to their real life.
Indeed, works of sculpture remain to us of the time of the first
pyramid, which represent men with the truth of nature, unfettered by the
sacred canon. We can recall the so-called "Village Judge" of Bulaq, the
"Scribe" now in Paris, and a few figures in bronze in different museums,
as well as the noble and characteristic busts of all epochs, which amply
prove how great the variety of individual physiognomy, and, with that,
of individual character was among the Egyptians. Alma Tadelna in
London and Gustav Richter in Berlin have, as painters, treated Egyptian
subjects in a manner which the poet recognizes and accepts with delight.

Many earlier witnesses than the late writer Flavius Vopiscus might be
referred to who show us the Egyptians as an industrious and peaceful
people, passionately devoted it is true to all that pertains to the
other world, but also enjoying the gifts of life to the fullest extent,
nay sometimes to excess.

Real men, such as we see around us in actual life, not silhouettes
constructed to the old priestly scale such as the monuments show
us--real living men dwelt by the old Nile-stream; and the poet who would
represent them must courageously seize on types out of the daily life
of modern men that surround him, without fear of deviating too far from
reality, and, placing them in their own long past time, color them only
and clothe them to correspond with it.

I have discussed the authorities for the conception of love which I have
ascribed to the anc