How can one disentangle from their tapestry web the different threads of
a spell? And even if one could, if one could hold them up, and explain,
"The cause of the spell is that this comes in contact with this, and
that this, which I show you, blends with, fades into, this," how could
it advantage any one? Nothing could be made clearer, nothing be really
explained. The ineffable is, and must ever remain, something remote and
mysterious.
And so one may say many things of this painted chamber of Philae, and
yet never convey, perhaps never really know, the innermost cause of its
charm. In it there is obvious beauty of form, and a seizing beauty
of color, beauty of sunlight and shadow, of antique association. This
turquoise blue is enchanting, and Isis was worshipped here. What has the
one to do with the other? Nothing; and yet how much! For is not each of
these facts a thread in the tapestry web of the spell? The eyes see the
rapture of this very perfect blue. The imagination hears, as if very
far off, the solemn chanting of priests and smells the smoke of strange
perfumes, and sees the long, aquiline nose and the thin, haughty lips of
the goddess. And the color becomes strange to the eyes as well as
very lovely, because, perhaps, it was there--it almost certainly was
there--when from Constantinople went forth the decree that all Egypt
should be Christian; when the priests of the sacred brotherhood of Isis
were driven from their temple.
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