i, the far-off,
dreamy mountains beyond Karnak and the Nile. And again, when I have
entered and walked a little distance, I have looked back at the almost
magical picture framed in the doorway; at the bottom of the picture
a layer of brown earth, then a strip of sharp green--the cultivated
ground--then a blur of pale yellow, then a darkness of trees, and just
the hint of a hill far, very far away. And always, in looking, I have
thought of the "Sposalizio" of Raphael in the Brera at Milan, of the
tiny dream of blue country framed by the temple doorway beyond the
Virgin and Saint Joseph. The doorways of the temples of Egypt are very
noble, and nowhere have I been more struck by their nobility than in
Medinet-Abu. Set in huge walls of massive masonry, which rise slightly
above them on each side, with a projecting cornice, in their simplicity
they look extraordinarily classical, in their sobriety mysterious,
and in their great solidity quite wonderfully elegant. And they always
suggest to me that they are giving access to courts and chambers which
still, even in our times, are dedicated to secret cults--to the cults of
Isis, of Hathor, and of Osiris.

Close to the right of the front of Medinet-Abu there are trees covered
with yellow flowers; beyond are fields of doura. Behind the temple is
a sterility which makes one think of metal. A great calm enfolds the
place. The buildings are of the same color as the Colossi. When I speak
of the buildings, I include the great temple, the pavilion of Rameses
III., and the little temple, which together may be said to form
Medinet-Abu. Whereas the temple of Luxor seems to open its arms to
life, and the great fascination of the Ramesseum comes partly from its
invasion by every traveling air and happy sun-ray, its openness and
freedom, Medinet-Abu impresses by its colossal air of secrecy, by its
fortress-like seclusion. Its walls are immensely thick, and are covered
with figures the same color as the walls, some of them very tall.
Thick-set, massive, heavy, almost warlike it is. Two seated statues
within, statues with animals' faces, steel-colored, or perhaps a little
darker than that, look like savage warders ready to repel intrusion.

Passing between them, delicately as Agag, one enters an open space with
ruins, upon the right of which is a low, small temple, grey in hue, and
covered with inscriptions, which looks almost bowed under its tremendous
weight of years. From this dignified, t