very moderate. Imagine a plinth of flawless marble, 313 feet square, and
rising eighteen feet from the ground--that is the foundation of the
wondrous structure. The Taj is 186 feet square, with dome rising to an
extreme height of 220 feet; that is all. At each corner of the plinth
stands a tapering minaret rearing its crown 137 feet;

"--four tall court ladies
tending their princess."

[Illustration: ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL]

No building carries the idea of personality further than the Taj, a
feminine personality, as it should be, for it contains no suggestion of
the rugged grandeur of a tomb for a great man. The Taj is the antithesis
of Akbar's mausoleum, of the Parthenon, of Napoleon's resting-place,
of Grant's robust mausoleum on the Hudson. A sepulcher fashioned after
ordinary architectural canons can only be conventional: the Taj is
different from all other buildings in the world; it is symbolical of
womanly grace and purity--is the jewel, the ideal itself; is India's
noble tribute to the grace of Indian womanhood, a tribute perhaps to the
Venus de Milo of the East.

The grace of the Taj, as do the achievements of every form of perfect
art, rests in its simplicity. A spectator marvels that so much beauty
can come from so little apparent effort. Yet nothing is wanting, there
is nothing in excess; we cannot alter a single stone and claim that the
result would be better. And Oriental designers, working for an Eastern
despot, might easily have struck a jarring note and rendered the Taj
garish--the wonder is that they did not. The Taj consequently is the
objective of most travelers making the pilgrimage to India.

It is easier to tell what the Taj is than to speculate upon the ideals
and motives of its builders, and it should be a brave writer who
attempts to describe it. Kipling, who saw the structure first from the
window of a train nearing Agra, called it "an opal tinted cloud on the
horizon"; and after studying the building at close range he wrote, "Let
those who scoff at overmuch enthusiasm look at the Taj and thenceforward
be dumb; ... each must view it for himself with his own eyes, working
out his own interpretation of the sight." Another great English writer
has said, "Words are worthless in describing a building which is
absolutely faultless." And it taxed the talents of Sir Edwin Arnold,
critic and poet, to frame in language an adequate picture of Arjamand's
death