But at the end, one can only say that this place is indescribable, and
not because it is complex or terrifically grand, like Karnak. Go to it
on a sunlit morning, or stand in it in late afternoon, and perhaps you
will feel that it "suggests" you, and that it carries you away, out of
familiar regions into a land of dreams, where among hidden ways the soul
is lost in magic. Yes, you are gone.
To the right--for one, alas! cannot live in a dream for ever--is a
lovely doorway through which one sees the river. Facing it is another
doorway, showing a fragment of the poor, vivisected island, some ruined
walls, and still another doorway in which, again, is framed the Nile.
Many people have cut their names upon the walls of Philae. Once, as I
sat alone there, I felt strongly attracted to look upward to a wall, as
if some personality, enshrined within the stone, were watching me, or
calling. I looked, and saw written "Balzac."
Philae is the last temple that one visits before he gives himself to the
wildness of the solitudes of Nubia. It stands at the very frontier. As
one goes up the Nile, it is like a smiling adieu from the Egypt one
is leaving. As one comes down, it is like a smiling welcome. In its
delicate charm I feel something of the charm of the Egyptian character.
There are moments, indeed, when I identify Egypt with Philae. For in
Philae one must dream; and on the Nile, too, one must dream.
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