The pale brown of walls and columns, almost yellow in the
sunshine, is delicate and soothing, and inclines the heart to calm.
Delicious, suggestive of a beautiful tapestry, rich and ornate, yet
always quiet, are the brown reliefs upon the stone. What are they? Does
it matter? They soften the walls, make them more personal, more tender.
That surely is their mission. This temple holds for me a spell. As soon
as I enter it, I feel the touch of the lotus, as if an invisible and
kindly hand swept a blossom lightly across my face and downward to my
heart. This courtyard, these small chambers beyond it, that last doorway
framing a lovely darkness, soothe me even more than the terra-cotta
hermitages of the Certosa of Pavia. And all the statues here are calm
with an irrevocable calmness, faithful through passing years with a
very sober faithfulness to the temple they adorn. In no other place, one
feels it, could they be thus at peace, with hands crossed for ever upon
their breasts, which are torn by no anxieties, thrilled by no joys. As
one stands among them or sitting on the base of a column in the chamber
that lies beyond them, looks on them from a little distance, their
attitude is like a summons to men to contend no more, to be still, to
enter into rest.
Come to this temple when you leave the hall of Seti. There you are in
a place of triumph. Scarlet, some say, is the color of a great note
sounded on a bugle.
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