The Spell of Egypt

s sometimes called, though she was usually worshipped as the Egyptian Aphrodite, goddess of joy, goddess of love and loveliness. It was early morning when

e-identifies it happily with the happiness and beauty of its presiding deity, and as I rode toward it on the canal-bank in the young freshness of the morning, I thought of the goddess Safekh and of the sacred Persea-tree. When Safekh inscribed upon a leaf of the Persea-tree the name of king or conqueror, he gained everlast

tretched out in supplication. There was a hush upon this place. The loud and vehement cry of the shadoof-man died away. The sakieh droned in my ears no more like distant Sicilian pipes playing at Natale. I felt a breath from the desert. And, indeed, the desert was near-that realistic desert which suggests to the traveller approaches to the sea, so that beyond each pallid dune, as he draws near it, he half expects to hear the lapping of the waves. Presently, when, having ascended that marvellous staircase of the New Year, walking in procession w

ough which flow rivulets. They shall be for ever

dess of chance, in whom the modern Egyptian so implicitly believes. In shape it was a delicate oval. In the long eyes, about the brow, the cheeks, there was a strained expression that suggested to me more than a gravity-almost an anguish-of spirit. As I looked at it, I thought of Eleanora Duse. Was this the ideal of joy in the time of the Ptolemies? Joy may be raptu

worship her, with the purity of white, with the sweet gaiety of turquoise. Or so it seems to-day, when the passion of Christianity against Hathor has spent itself and died. Now Christians come to seek what Christian Copts destroyed; wander through the deserted courts, desirous of l

iness. 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 someti

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 fancie

tting enough that Cleopatra's form should be graven upon the temple of Hathor; fitting, also, that though I found her in the presence of deities, and in the company of her son, Caesarion, her face, which is in profile, should have nothing of Hathor's sad impressiveness. This, no doubt, is not the rea

d by the face of the goddess of Denderah, and I remembered the legend of the lovely Lais, who, when she began to age, covered herself from the eyes of men with a veil, and went every day at evening to look upon her statue, in which the g

ror: no longer able to see there what she was

s hung hers, at the foot of the pedestal of the Egyptian Aphrodite; had she a veil, would surely cover the face that, solit

pped, but I am wor