tieth century the coquetry of a woman in 1500 B.C.
After the terrific masculinity of Medinet-Abu, after the great freedom
of the Ramesseum, and the grandeur of its colossus, the manhood of all
the ages concentrated in granite, the temple at Deir-el-Bahari came upon
me like a delicate woman, perfumed and arranged, clothed in a creation
of white and blue and orange, standing--ever so knowingly--against
a background of orange and pink, of red and of brown-red, a smiling
coquette of the mountain, a gay and sweet enchantress who knew her
pretty powers and meant to exercise them.

Hatshepsu with a beard! Never will I believe it. Or if she ever seemed
to wear one, I will swear it was only the tattooed ornament with which
all the lovely women of the Fayum decorate their chins to-day, throwing
into relief the smiling, soft lips, the delicate noses, the liquid eyes,
and leading one from it step by step to the beauties it precedes.

Mr. Wallis Budge says in his book on the antiquities of Egypt: "It would
be unjust to the memory of a great man and a loyal servant of Hatshepsu,
if we omitted to mention the name of Senmut, the architect and overseer
of works at Deir-el-Bahari." By all means let Senmut be mentioned, and
then let him be utterly forgotten. A radiant queen reigns here--a
queen of fantasy and splendor, and of that divine shallowness--refined
frivolity literally cut into the mountain--which is the note of
Deir-el-Bahari. And what a clever background! Oh, Hatshepsu knew what
she was doing when she built her temple here. It was not the solemn
Senmut (he wore a beard, I'm sure) who chose that background, if I know
anything of women.

Long before I visited Deir-el-Bahari I had looked at it from afar. My
eyes had been drawn to it merely from its situation right underneath
the mountains. I had asked: "What do those little pillars mean? And are
those little doors?" I had promised myself to go there, as one promises
oneself a _bonne bouche_ to finish a happy banquet. And I had realized
the subtlety, essentially feminine, that had placed a temple there.
And Menu-Hotep's temple, perhaps you say, was it not there before the
queen's? Then he must have possessed a subtlety purely feminine, or have
been advised by one of his wives in his building operations, or by some
favorite female slave. Blundering, unsubtle man would probably think
that the best way to attract and to fix attention on any object was to
make it much bigger than thi