name.

The huge pillars of this arcade are striped and ugly, but between them
shone, with an ineffable lustre, a wall of purple and blue, of purple
and blue so strong and yet so delicate that it held the eyes and drew
the body forward. If ever color calls, it calls in the blue mosque of
Ibrahim Aga. And when I had crossed the court, when I stood beside the
pulpit, with its delicious, wooden folding-doors, and studied the tiles
of which this wonderful wall is composed, I found them as lovely near as
they are lovely far off. From a distance they resemble a Nature effect,
are almost like a bit of Southern sea or of sky, a fragment of gleaming
Mediterranean seen through the pillars of a loggia, or of Sicilian blue
watching over Etna in the long summer days. When one is close to them,
they are a miracle of art. The background of them is a milky white upon
which is an elaborate pattern of purple and blue, generally conventional
and representative of no known object, but occasionally showing tall
trees somewhat resembling cypresses. But it is impossible in words
adequately to describe the effect of these tiles, and of the tiles that
line to the very roof the tomb-house on the right of the court. They
are like a cry of ecstasy going up in this otherwise not very beautiful
mosque; they make it unforgettable, they draw you back to it again and
yet again. On the darkest day of winter they set something of summer
there. In the saddest moment they proclaim the fact that there is joy
in the world, that there was joy in the hearts of creative artists years
upon years ago. If you are ever in Cairo, and sink into depression, go
to the "Blue Mosque" and see if it does not have upon you an uplifting
moral effect. And then, if you like go on from it to the Gamia El
Movayad, sometimes called El Ahmar, "The Red," where you will find
greater glories, though no greater fascination; for the tiles hold their
own among all the wonders of Cairo.

Outside the "Red Mosque," by its imposing and lofty wall, there is
always an assemblage of people, for prayers go up in this mosque,
ablutions are made there, and the floor of the arcade is often
covered with men studying the Koran, calmly meditating, or prostrating
themselves in prayer. And so there is a great coming and going up the
outside stairs and through the wonderful doorway: beggars crouch
under the wall of the terrace; the sellers of cakes, of syrups and
lemon-water, and of the big and luscious