yptian was from the first left without hint
of any system of proportion, whether constructive, or of visible parts.
The cavern--its level roof supported by amorphous piers--might be
extended indefinitely into the interior of the hills, and its outer
facade continued almost without term along their flanks--the solid mass
of cliff above forming one gigantic entablature, poised upon props
instead of columns. Hence the predisposition to attempt in the built
temple the expression of infinite extent, and to heap the ponderous
architrave above the proportionless pier.

33. The less direct influences of external nature in the two countries
were still more opposed. The sense of beauty, which among the Greek
peninsulas was fostered by beating of sea and rush of river, by waving
of forest and passing of cloud, by undulation of hill and poise of
precipice, lay dormant beneath the shadowless sky and on the objectless
plain of the Egyptians; no singing winds nor shaking leaves nor gliding
shadows gave life to the line of their barren mountains--no Goddess of
Beauty rose from the pacing of their silent and foamless Nile. One
continual perception of stability, or changeless revolution, weighed
upon their hearts--their life depended on no casual alternation of cold
and heat--of drought and shower; their gift-Gods were the risen River
and the eternal Sun, and the types of these were forever consecrated in
the lotus decoration of the temple and the wedge of the enduring
Pyramid. Add to these influences, purely physical, those dependent on
the superstitions and political constitution; of the overflowing
multitude of "populous No"; on their condition of prolonged peace--their
simple habits of life--their respect for the dead--their separation by
incommunicable privilege and inherited occupation--and it will be
evident to the reader that Lord Lindsay's broad assertion of the
expression of "the Ideal of Sense or Matter" by their universal style,
must be received with severe modification, and is indeed thus far only
true, that the mass of Life supported upon that fruitful plain could,
when swayed by a despotic ruler in any given direction, accomplish by
mere weight and number what to other nations had been impossible, and
bestow a pre-eminence, owed to mere bulk and evidence of labor, upon
public works which among the Greek republics could be rendered admirable
only by the intelligence of their design.

34. Let us, for the present omitting co