gods that we see here, to
embrace the Christian conception, which, even yesterday, made it live,
is in way of denying everything, and struggles before the enigma
of death in an obscurity more dismal and more fearful than in the
commencement of the ages. (More dismal and more fearful still in this,
that plea of youth is gone.) From all parts of Europe curious and
unquiet spirits, as well as mere idlers, turn their steps towards
Thebes, the ancient mother. Men clear the rubbish from its remains,
devise ways of retarding the enormous fallings of its ruins, and dig in
its old soil, stored with hidden treasure.

And this evening on one of the portals to which I have just
mounted--that which opens at the north-west and terminates the colossal
artery of temples and palaces, many very diverse groups have already
taken their places, after the pilgrimage of the day amongst the ruins.
And others are hastening towards the staircase by which we have just
climbed, so as not to miss the grand spectacle of the sun setting,
always with the same serenity, the same unchanging magnificence, behind
the town which once was consecrated to it.

French, German, English; I see them below, a lot of pygmy figures,
issuing from the hypostyle hall, and making their way towards us. Mean
and pitiful they look in their twentieth-century travellers' costumes,
hurrying along that avenue where once defiled so many processions of
gods and goddesses. And yet this, perhaps, is the only occasion on
which one of these bands of tourists does not seem to me altogether
ridiculous. Amongst these groups of unknown people, there is none who is
not collected and thoughtful, or who does not at least pretend to be
so; and there is some saving quality of grace, even some grandeur of
humility, in the sentiment which has brought them to this town of Amen,
and in the homage of their silence.

We are so high on this portal that we might fancy ourselves upon a
tower, and the defaced stones of which it is built are immeasurably
large. Instinctively each one sits with his face to the glowing sun, and
consequently to the outspread distances of the fields and the desert.

Before us, under our feet, an avenue stretches away, prolonging towards
the fields the pomp of the dead city--an avenue bordered by monstrous
rams, larger than buffaloes, all crouched on their pedestals in two
parallel rows in the traditional hieratic pose. The avenue terminates
beyond at a kind of wharf or