Identifier: egyptitsmonument00hich (find matches)
Title: Egypt and its monuments
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Century Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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people of Egypt smile as they enter into yourdream. A suavity, too, is theirs. I think of them oftenas artists, who know their parts in the dream-play, whoknow exactly their function, and how to fulfil it rightly.They sing, while you are dreaming, but it is an under-song, like the murrnur of an Eastern river far off fromany sea. It never disturbs, this music, but it helps youin your dream. And they are softly gay. And intheir eyes there is often the gleam of sunshine, for theyare the children—but not grown men — of the sun.That, indeed, is one of the many strange things inEgypt — the youthfulness of its age, the childlikenessof its almost terrible antiquity. One goes there to lookat the oldest things in the world and to feel perpetuallyyoung—young as Philse is young, as a lyric of Shel-leys is young, as all of our day-dreams are young, asthe people of Egypt are young. Oh, that Egypt could be kept as it is, even as it isnow; that Philae could be preserved even as it is now! 248
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PHARAOHS BED The spoilers are there, those bhthe modern spirits, sofrightfully clever and capable, so industrious, so de-termined, so unsparing of themselves and—of others!Already they are at work benefiting Egypt. Tallchimneys begin to vomit smoke along the Nile. Adamnable tram-line for little trolleys leads one towardthe wonderful Colossi of Memnon. Close to Kom Om-bos some soul imbued with romance has had the inspi-ration to set up—a factory. And Philas—is it to go? Is beauty, then, of no value in the world? Is it al-ways to be the prey of modern progress? Is nothingto be considered sacred; nothing to be left untouched,unsmirched by the grimy fingers of improvement ? Isuppose nothing. Then let those who still care to dream go now toPhilass painted chamber by the long reaches of theNile; go on, if they will, to the giant forms of Abu-Simbel among the Nubian sands. And perhaps theywill think with me, that in some dreams there is a valuegreater than the value that is entered in

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