near a roof ominous as a storm-cloud, my spirit was
haunted by the sad eyes of Hathor, which gaze for ever from that column
in the first hall. Were they always like that? Once that face dwelt with
a crowd of worship. And all the other faces have gone, and all the glory
has passed. And, like so many of the living, the goddess has paid for
her splendors. The pendulum swung, and where men adored, men hated
her--her the goddess of love and loveliness. And as the human face
changes when terror and sorrow come, I felt as if Hathor's face of stone
had changed upon its column, looking toward the Nile, in obedience to
the anguish in her heart; I felt as if Denderah were a majestic house
of grief. So I must always think of it, dark, tragic, and superb. The
Egyptians once believed that when death came to a man, the soul of him,
which they called the Ba, winged its way to the gods, but that, moved
by a sweet unselfishness, it returned sometimes to his tomb, to give
comfort to the poor, deserted mummy. Upon the lids of sarcophagi it is
sometimes represented as a bird, flying down to, or resting upon, the
mummy. As I went onward in the darkness, among the columns, over the
blocks of stone that form the pavements, seeing vaguely the sacred boats
upon the walls, Horus and Thoth, the king before Osiris; as I mounted
and descended with the priests to roof and floor, I longed, instead of
the clamour of the bats, to hear the light flutter of the soft wings of
the Ba of Hathor, flying from Paradise to this sad temple of the desert
to bring her comfort in the gloom. I thought of her as a poor woman,
suffering as only women can in loneliness.

In the museum of Cairo there is the mummy of "the lady Amanit, priestess
of Hathor." She lies there upon her back, with her thin body slightly
turned toward the left side, as if in an effort to change her position.
Her head is completely turned to the same side. Her mouth is wide open,
showing all the teeth. The tongue is lolling out. Upon the head the
thin, brown hair makes a line above the little ear, and is mingled at
the back of the head with false tresses. Round the neck is a mass of
ornaments, of amulets and beads. The right arm and hand lie along the
body. The expression of "the lady Amanit" is very strange, and very
subtle; for it combines horror--which implies activity--with a profound,
an impenetrable repose, far beyond the reach of all disturbance. In the
temple of Denderah I fancied the lady