The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spell of Egypt, by Robert Hichens

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Title: The Spell of Egypt

Author: Robert Hichens

Release Date: April 6, 2006 [EBook #3407]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPELL OF EGYPT ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

THE SPELL OF EGYPT

by Robert Hichens

PREPARER'S NOTE

This text was prepared from a 1911 edition, published by The
Century Co., New York.

CONTENTS

THE PYRAMIDS
THE SPHINX
SAKKARA
ABYDOS
THE NILE
DENDERAH
KARNAK
LUXOR
COLOSSI OF MEMNON
MEDINET-ABU
THE RAMESSEUM
DEIR-EL-BAHARI
THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS
EDFU
KOM OMBOS
PHILAE
"PHARAOH'S BED"
OLD CAIRO

I

THE PYRAMIDS

Why do you come to Egypt? Do you come to gain a dream, or to regain lost
dreams of old; to gild your life with the drowsy gold of romance,
to lose a creeping sorrow, to forget that too many of your hours are
sullen, grey, bereft? What do you wish of Egypt?

The Sphinx will not ask you, will not care. The Pyramids, lifting their
unnumbered stones to the clear and wonderful skies, have held, still
hold, their secrets; but they do not seek for yours. The terrific
temples, the hot, mysterious tombs, odorous of the dead desires of men,
crouching in and under the immeasurable sands, will muck you with their
brooding silence, with their dim and sombre repose. The brown children
of the Nile, the toilers who sing their antique songs by the shadoof and
the sakieh, the dragomans, the smiling goblin merchants, the Bedouins
who lead your camel into the pale recesses of the dunes--these will not
trouble themselves about your deep desires, your perhaps yearning hunger
of the heart and the imagination.

Yet Egypt is not unresponsive.

I came back to her with dread, after fourteen years of absence--years
filled for me with the rumors of her changes. And on the very day of my
arrival she calmly reassured me. She told me in her supremely magical
way that all was well with her. She taught me once more a lesson I had
not quite forgotten, but that I was glad to learn again