ina in the palace at Palermo. And Edfu
I place with them--Edfu utterly different from them, more different,
perhaps, even than they are from each other, but akin to them, as all
great beauty is mysteriously akin. I have spent morning after morning
in the Alhambra, and many and many an hour in the Cappella Palatina; and
never have I been weary of either, or longed to go away. And this same
sweet desire to stay came over me in Edfu. The _Loulia_ was tied up by
the high bank of the Nile. The sailors were glad to rest. There was no
steamer sounding its hideous siren to call me to its crowded deck. So I
yielded to my desire, and for long I stayed in Edfu. And when at last
I left it I said to myself, "This is a supreme thing," and I knew that
within me had suddenly developed the curious passion for buildings that
some people never feel, and that others feel ever growing and growing.

Yes, Edfu is supreme. No alteration could improve it. Any change made in
it, however slight, could only be harmful to it. Pure and perfect is its
design--broad propylon, great open courtyard with pillared galleries,
halls, chambers, sanctuary. Its dignity and its sobriety are matchless.
I know they must be, because they touched me so strangely, with a kind
of reticent enchantment, and I am not by nature enamored of sobriety, of
reticence and calm, but am inclined to delight in almost violent
force, in brilliance, and, especially, in combinations of color. In
the Alhambra one finds both force and fairylike lightness, delicious
proportions, delicate fantasy, a spell as of subtle magicians; in the
Cappella Palatina, a jeweled splendor, combined with a small perfection
of form which simply captivates the whole spirit and leads it to
adoration. In Edfu you are face to face with hugeness and with grandeur;
but soon you are scarcely aware of either--in the sense, at least, that
connects these qualities with a certain overwhelming, almost striking
down, of the spirit and the faculties. What you are aware of is your
own immense and beautiful calm of utter satisfaction--a calm which has
quietly inundated you, like a waveless tide of the sea. How rare it is
to feel this absolute satisfaction, this praising serenity! The critical
spirit goes, like a bird from an opened window. The excited, laudatory,
voluble spirit goes. And this splendid calm is left. If you stay here,
you, as this temple has been, will be molded into a beautiful sobriety.
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