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diff --git a/old/61116-0.txt b/old/61116-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index de678ef..0000000 --- a/old/61116-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2879 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pharos and Pharillon, by Edward Morgan Forster - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Pharos and Pharillon - -Author: Edward Morgan Forster - -Contributor: Constantine Peter Cavafy - -Translator: George Valassopoulo - -Release Date: January 6, 2020 [EBook #61116] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHAROS AND PHARILLON *** - - - - -Produced by Mary Glenn Krause, Barry Abrahamsen, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - - ALEXANDRIA: A HISTORY AND GUIDE - AGENTS, MESSRS. WHITEHEAD MORRIS - 9 FENCHURCH STREET E.C. - - HOWARDS END - EDWARD ARNOLD - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - PHAROS AND PHARILLON - - - E. M. FORSTER - - - - - Second Edition - - - - -PUBLISHED BY LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF AT THE HOGARTH PRESS HOGARTH -HOUSE PARADISE ROAD RICHMOND SURREY - - 1923 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - First published May 1923 - - Reprinted June 1923 - - - - - Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Ἑρμῇ ψυχοπομπῷ - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -Five of the following chapters are reprinted by the courtesy of _The -Nation and the Athenæum_; the remainder have not been previously -published in this country. - -I am indebted to Mr. C. P. Cavafy for permission to publish his poems, -and to Mr. George Valassopoulo for his translation of them. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - INTRODUCTION 9 - - PHAROS: - PHAROS 13 - THE RETURN FROM SIWA 24 - EPIPHANY 28 - PHILO’S LITTLE TRIP 32 - CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 37 - ST. ATHANASIUS 43 - TIMOTHY THE CAT & TIMOTHY WHITEBONNET 52 - THE GOD ABANDONS ANTONY 56 - - PHARILLON: - ELIZA IN EGYPT 59 - COTTON FROM THE OUTSIDE 73 - THE DEN 79 - BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE MOON 82 - THE SOLITARY PLACE 86 - THE POETRY OF C. P. CAVAFY 91 - - CONCLUSION 98 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -Before there was civilization in Egypt, or the delta of the Nile had -been formed, the whole country as far south as modern Cairo lay under -the sea. The shores of this sea were a limestone desert. The coast line -was smooth usually, but at the north-west corner a remarkable spur -jutted out from the main mass. It was less than a mile wide, but thirty -miles long. Its base is not far from Bahig, Alexandria is built half-way -down it, its tip is the headland of Aboukir. On either side of it there -was once deep salt water. - -Centuries passed, and the Nile, issuing out of its crack above Cairo, -kept carrying down the muds of Upper Egypt and dropping them as soon as -its current slackened. In the north-west corner they were arrested by -this spur and began to silt up against it. It was a shelter not only -from the outer sea, but from the prevalent wind. Alluvial land appeared; -the large shallow lake of Mariout was formed; and the current of the -Nile, unable to escape through the limestone barrier, rounded the -headland of Aboukir and entered the outer sea by what was known in -historical times as the “Canopic” mouth. - -To the north of the spur and more or less parallel to it runs a second -range of limestone. It is much shorter, also much lower, lying mainly -below the surface of the sea in the form of reefs, but without it there -would have been no harbours (and consequently no Alexandria), because it -breaks the force of the waves. Starting at Agame, it continues as a -series of rocks across the entrance of the modern harbour. Then it -re-emerges to form the promontory of Ras el Tin, disappears into a -second series of rocks that close the entrance of the Eastern Harbour, -and makes its final appearance as the promontory of Silsileh, after -which it rejoins the big spur. - -Such is the scene where the following actions and meditations take -place; that limestone ridge, with alluvial country on one side of it and -harbours on the other, jutting from the desert, pointing towards the -Nile; a scene unique in Egypt, nor have the Alexandrians ever been truly -Egyptian. Here Africans, Greeks and Jews combined to make a city; here a -thousand years later the Arabs set faintly but durably the impress of -the Orient; here after secular decay rose another city, still visible, -where I worked or appeared to work during a recent war. Pharos, the vast -and heroic lighthouse that dominated the first city—under Pharos I have -grouped a few antique events; to modern events and to personal -impressions I have given the name of Pharillon, the obscure successor of -Pharos, which clung for a time to the low rock of Silsileh and then slid -unobserved into the Mediterranean. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PHAROS - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PHAROS - - - I - -The career of Menelaus was a series of small mishaps. It was after he -had lost Helen, and indeed after he had recovered her and was returning -from Troy, that a breeze arose from the north-west and obliged him to -take refuge upon a desert island. It was of limestone, close to the -African coast, and to the estuary though not to the exit of the Nile, -and it was protected from the Mediterranean by an outer barrier of -reefs. Here he remained for twenty days, in no danger, but in high -discomfort, for the accommodation was insufficient for the Queen. Helen -had been to Egypt ten years before, under the larger guidance of Paris, -and she could not but remark that there was nothing to see upon the -island and nothing to eat and that its beaches were infested with seals. -Action must be taken, Menelaus decided. He sought the sky and sea, and -chancing at last to apprehend an old man he addressed to him the -following wingèd word: - -“What island is this?” - -“Pharaoh’s,” the old man replied. - -“Pharos?” - -“Yes, Pharaoh’s, Prouti’s”—Prouti being another title (it occurs in the -hieroglyphs) for the Egyptian king. - -“Proteus?” - -“Yes.” - -As soon as Menelaus had got everything wrong, the wind changed and he -returned to Greece with news of an island named Pharos whose old man was -called Proteus and whose beaches were infested with nymphs. Under such -misapprehensions did it enter our geography. - -Pharos was hammer-headed, and long before Menelaus landed some unknown -power—Cretan—Atlantean—had fastened a harbour against its western -promontory. To the golden-haired king, as to us, the works of that -harbour showed only as ochreous patches and lines beneath the dancing -waves, for the island has always been sinking, and the quays, jetties, -and double breakwater of its pre-historic port can only be touched by -the swimmer now. Already was their existence forgotten, and it was on -the other promontory—the eastern—that the sun of history arose, never to -set. Alexander the Great came here. Philhellene, he proposed to build a -Greek city upon Pharos. But the ridge of an island proved too narrow a -site for his ambition, and the new city was finally built upon the -opposing coast—Alexandria. Pharos, tethered to Alexandria by a long -causeway, became part of a larger scheme and only once re-entered -Alexander’s mind: he thought of it at the death of Hephæstion, as he -thought of all holy or delectable spots, and he arranged that upon its -distant shore a shrine should commemorate his friend, and reverberate -the grief that had convulsed Ecbatana and Babylon. - -Meanwhile the Jews had been attentive. They, too, liked delectable -spots. Deeply as they were devoted to Jehovah, they had ever felt it -their duty to leave his city when they could, and as soon as Alexandria -began to develop they descended upon her markets with polite cries. They -found so much to do that they decided against returning to Jerusalem, -and met so many Greeks that they forgot how to speak Hebrew. They -speculated in theology and grain, they lent money to Ptolemy the second -king, and filled him (they tell us) with such enthusiasm for their -religion that he commanded them to translate their Scriptures for their -own benefit. He himself selected the translators, and assigned for their -labours the island of Pharos because it was less noisy than the -mainland. Here he shut up seventy rabbis in seventy huts, whence in an -incredibly short time they emerged with seventy identical translations -of the Bible. Everything corresponded. Even when they slipped they made -seventy slips, and Greek literature was at last enriched by the -possession of an inspired book. It was left to later generations to pry -into Jehovah’s scholarship and to deduce that the Septuagint translation -must have extended over a long period and not have reached completion -till 100 B.C. The Jews of Alexandria knew no such doubts. Every year -they made holiday on Pharos in remembrance of the miracle, and built -little booths along the beaches where Helen had once shuddered at the -seals. The island became a second Sinai whose moderate thunders thrilled -the philosophic world. A translation, even when it is the work of God, -is never as intimidating as an original; and the unknown author of the -“Wisdom of Solomon” shows, in his delicious but dubious numbers, how -unalarming even an original could be when it was composed at Alexandria: - - Let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us - speedily use the creatures like as in youth. - - Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let no - flower of the spring pass by us. - - Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds before they are withered. - - Let none of us go without his part in our voluptuousness, let us - leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place, for this is our - portion and our lot is this. - -It is true that, pulling himself together, the writer goes on to remind -us that the above remarks are no elegy on Alexander and Hephæstion, but -an indictment of the ungodly, and must be read sarcastically. - - Such things they did imagine and were deceived, for their own - wickedness hath blinded them. - - As for the mysteries of God they knew them not, neither hoped - they for the wages of righteousness nor discerned a reward for - blameless souls. - - For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be the image - of his own eternity. - -But it is too late. And all racial and religious effort was too late. -Though Pharos was not to be Greek it was not to be Hebrew either. A more -impartial power dominated it. Five hundred feet above all shrines and -huts, Science had already raised her throne. - - - II - -A lighthouse was a necessity. The coast of Egypt is, in its western -section, both flat and rocky, and ships needed a landmark to show them -where Alexandria lay, and a guide through the reefs that block her -harbours. Pharos was the obvious site, because it stood in front of the -city; and on Pharos the eastern promontory, because it commanded the -more important of the two harbours—the Royal. But it is not clear -whether a divine madness also seized the builders, whether they -deliberately winged engineering with poetry, and tried to add a wonder -to the world. At all events they succeeded, and the arts combined with -science to praise their triumph. Just as the Parthenon had been -identified with Athens, and St. Peter’s was to be identified with Rome, -so, to the imagination of contemporaries, “The Pharos” became Alexandria -and Alexandria the Pharos. Never, in the history of architecture, has a -secular building been thus worshipped and taken on a spiritual life of -its own. It beaconed to the imagination, not only to ships, and long -after its light was extinguished memories of it glowed in the minds of -men. Perhaps it was merely very large; reconstructions strike a chill, -and the minaret, its modern descendant, is not supremely beautiful. -Something very large to which people got used—a Liberty Statue, an -Eiffel Tower? The possibility must be faced, and is not excluded by the -ecstasies of the poets. - -The lighthouse was made of local limestone, of marble, and of -reddish-purple granite from Assouan. It stood in a colonnaded court that -covered most of the promontory. There were four stories. The bottom -story was over two hundred feet high, square, pierced with many windows. -In it were the rooms (estimated at three hundred) where the mechanics -and keepers were housed, and its mass was threaded by a spiral ascent, -probably by a double spiral. There may have been hydraulic machinery in -the central well for raising the fuel to the top; otherwise we must -imagine a procession of donkeys who cease not night and day to -circumambulate the spirals with loads of wood upon their backs. The -story ended in a cornice and in statues of Tritons: here too, in great -letters of lead, was a Greek inscription mentioning the architect: -“Sostratus of Cnidus, son of Dexiphanes, to the Saviour Gods: for -sailors”—an inscription which, despite its simplicity, bore a double -meaning. The Saviour Gods were the Dioscuri, but a courtly observer -could refer them to Ptolemy Soter and his wife, whose worship their son -was then promoting. For the building of the lighthouse (279 B.C.) was -connected with an elaborate dynastic propaganda known as the -“As-good-as-Olympic Games,” and with a mammoth pageant which passed -through the streets of Alexandria, regardless of imagination and -expense. Nothing could be seen in the pageant, neither elephants nor -camels nor dances of wild men, nor allegorical females upon a car, nor -eggs that opened and disclosed the Dioscuri; and the inscription on the -first story of the Pharos was a subtle echo of its appeal. - -The second story was octagonal and entirely filled by the ascending -spirals. The third story was circular. Then came the lantern. The -lantern is a puzzle, because a bonfire and delicate scientific -instruments appear to have shared its narrow area. Visitors speak, for -instance, of a mysterious “mirror” up there, which was even more -wonderful than the building itself. Why didn’t this mirror crack, and -what was it? A polished steel reflector for the fire at night or for -heliography by day? Some writers describe it as made of finely wrought -glass or transparent stone, and declare that when they sat under it they -could see ships at sea that were invisible to the naked eye. A -telescope? Is it conceivable that the Alexandrian school of mathematics -and mechanics discovered the lens and that their discovery was lost and -forgotten when the Pharos fell? It is possible: the discoveries of -Aristarchus were forgotten, and Galileo persecuted for reviving them. It -is certain that the lighthouse was equipped with every scientific -improvement known to the age, that it was the outward expression of the -studies pursued in the Museum across the straits, and that its architect -could have consulted not only Aristarchus, but Eratosthenes, Apollonius -of Perga, and Euclid. - -Standing on the lantern, at the height of five hundred feet above the -ground, a statue of Poseidon struck the pious note, and gave a Greek air -to Africa seen from the sea. Other works of art are also reported: for -example, a statue whose finger followed the diurnal course of the sun, a -second statue who gave out with varying and melodious voices the various -hours of the day, and a third who shouted an alarm as soon as a hostile -flotilla set sail from any foreign port. This last must belong to an -even more remarkable building, the Pharos of legend, which we will -measure in a moment. The lighthouse was the key of the Alexandrian -defences, and Cæsar occupied it before attacking the city. It was also -the pivot of a signalling system that stretched along the coast. Fifteen -miles to the west, on a ridge among masses of marigolds, the little -watch-tower of Abousir is still standing, and it reproduces, in its -three stories, the arrangements of Sostratus. - - - III - -“I have taken a city,” wrote the Arab conqueror of Alexandria, “of which -I can only say that it contains 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres, -12,000 greengrocers, and 40,000 Jews.” It contained a lighthouse, too, -for the Pharos was still perfect and functioned for a few years more, -lighting the retreating fleets of Europe with its beams. Then a slow -dissolution began, and it shrinks, looms through the mists of legend, -disappears. The first, and the irreparable, disaster was the fall of the -lantern in the eighth century, carrying with it scientific apparatus -that could not be replaced. Annoyed (say the Arabs) with the magic -mirror that detected or scorched their ships, the Christians made a -plot, and sent a messenger to Islam with news of a treasure in Syria. -The treasure was found, whereupon the messenger reported something -supreme—the whole wealth of Alexander and other Pharaohs which lay in -the foundations of the lighthouse. Demolition began, and before the -Alexandrians, who knew better, could intervene, the mirror had fallen -and was smashed on the rocks beneath. Henceforward the Pharos is only a -stump with a bonfire on the top. The Arabs made some restorations, but -they were unsubstantial additions to the octagon, which the wind could -blow away. Structural repairs were neglected, and in the twelfth century -the second disaster occurred—the fall of the octagon through an -earthquake. The square bottom story survived as a watch-tower. Two -hundred years later it vanished in a final earthquake, and the very -island where it had stood modified its shape and became a peninsula, -joined to the mainland by a strip of sand. - -Though unable to maintain the lighthouse on earth, the Arabs did much -for it in the realms of fancy, increasing its height to seven hundred -feet, and endowing it with various magical objects, of which the most -remarkable was a glass crab. There really were crabs at Alexandria, but -of copper, quite small, and standing under Cleopatra’s Needle; America -possesses one to-day. Oriental imagination mixed two monuments into one, -and caused a Moorish army to invade the Pharos and to ride through its -three hundred rooms. The entrance gate vanished, and they could not find -their way out, but ever descending the spirals came at last to the glass -crab, slipped through a crack in its back and were drowned. Happier, -though equally obscure, was the fate of another visitor, the poet El -Deraoui. Who sings: - - A lofty platform guides the voyager by night, guides him with - its light when the darkness of evening falls. - - Thither have I borne a garment of perfect pleasure among my - friends, a garment adorned with the memory of beloved - companions. - - On its height a dome enshadowed me, and there I saw my friends - like stars. - - I thought that the sea below me was a cloud, and that I had set - up my tent in the midst of the heavens. - -Only occasionally does the note of disillusionment and bitterness creep -in. Jelaled Din ibn Mokram complains that: - - The visitor to Alexandria receives nothing in the way of - hospitality except some water and a description of Pompey’s - Pillar. - - Those who make a special effort sometimes give him a little - fresh air too, and tell him where the Pharos is, adding a sketch - of the sea and its waves and an account of the large Greek - ships. - - The visitor need not aspire to receive any bread, for to an - application of this type there is no reply. - -As a rule, life in its shadow is an earthly ecstasy that may even touch -heaven. Hark to Ibn Dukmak: - - According to the law of Moses, if a man make a pilgrimage round - Alexandria in the morning, God will make for him a golden crown - set with pearls, perfumed with musk and camphor and shining from - the east to the west. - -Nor were the Arabs content with praising the lighthouse: they even -looked at it. “El Manarah,” as they called it, gave the name to, and -became the model for, the minaret, and one can still find minarets in -Egypt that exactly reproduce the design of Sostratus—the bottom story -square, second octagonal, third round. - -The Fort of Kait Bey, built in the fifteenth century and itself now a -ruin, stands to-day where the Pharos once stood. Its area covers part of -the ancient enclosure—the rest is awash with the sea—and in its -containing wall are embedded a few granite columns. Inside the area is a -mosque, exactly occupying the site of the lighthouse, and built upon its -foundations: here, too, are some granite blocks standing with druidical -effect at the mosque’s entrance. Nothing else can be attributed to the -past, its stones have vanished and its spirit also. Again and again, -looking at the mosque, have I tried to multiply its height by five, and -thus build up its predecessor. The effort always failed: it did not seem -reasonable that so large an edifice should have existed. The dominant -memory in the chaos is now British, for here are some large holes, made -by Admiral Seymour when he bombarded the Fort in 1882 and laid the basis -of our intercourse with modern Egypt. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE RETURN FROM SIWA - - -Alexander the Great founded Alexandria. He came with Dinocrates, his -architect, and ordered him to build, between the sea and the lake, a -magnificent Greek town. Alexander still conceived of civilization as an -extended Greece, and of himself as a Hellene. He had taken over -Hellenism with the ardour that only a proselyte knows. A Balkan -barbarian by birth, he had pushed himself into the enchanted but -enfeebled circle of little city states. He had flattered Athens and -spared Thebes, and preached a crusade against Persia, which should -repeat upon a vaster scale the victories of Marathon and Salamis. He -would even repeat the Trojan war. At the Dardanelles his archæological -zeal was such that he ran naked round the tomb of Achilles. He cut the -knot of Gordius. He appeased the soul of Priam. - -Having annexed Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt from the -Persians, and having given his orders to Dinocrates, he left the city he -was building, and rode with a few friends into the western desert. It -was summer. The waters of Lake Mariout, more copious then than now, -spread fertility for a space. Leaving their zone, he struck south, over -the limestone hills, and lost sight of civilization whether of the -Hellenic or non-Hellenic type. Around him little flat pebbles shimmered -and danced in the heat, gazelles stared, and pieces of sky slopped into -the sand. Over him was the pale blue dome of heaven, darkened, if we are -to believe his historian, by flocks of obsequious birds, who sheltered -the King with their shadows and screamed when he rode the wrong way. -Alexander went on till he saw below him, in the fall of the ground, the -canals and hot springs and olives and palms of the Oasis of Siwa. - -Sekhet-Amit the Egyptians called it, and worshipped their god Amen -there, whom the Greeks call Ammon, worshipped him in the form of an -emerald that lay in a sacred boat, worshipped him as a ram also. Instead -of the twin mud-cities of Siwa and Aghurmi, Alexander saw pylons and -colonnades, and descending into the steamy heat of the Oasis approached -a lonely and mysterious shrine. For what was it mysterious? Perhaps -merely for its loneliness. The distance, the solitude of the desert, -touch travellers even to-day, and sharpen the imaginations of men who -have crossed in armoured cars, and whom no god awaits, only a tract of -green. Alexander rode, remembering how, two hundred years before him, -the Persians had ridden to loot the temple, and how on them as they were -eating in the desert a sandstorm had descended, burying diners and -dinner in company. Herein lay the magic of Siwa. It was difficult to -reach. He, being the greatest man of his epoch, had of course succeeded. -He, the Philhellene, had come. His age was twenty-five. Then took place -that celebrated and extraordinary episode. According to the official -account the Priest came out of the temple and saluted the young tourist -as Son of God. Alexander acquiesced and asked whether he would become -King of this World. The reply was in the affirmative. Then his friends -asked whether they should worship him. They were told that they should, -and the episode closed. Some say that it is to be explained by the -Priest’s bad Greek. He meant to say Paidion (“my child”) and said -Paidios (“O Son of God”) instead. Others say that it never took place, -and Walter Savage Landor has imagined a conversation in the course of -which the Priest scares the King by a snake. A scare he did get—a -fright, a psychic experience, a vision, a “turn.” His development proves -it. After his return from Siwa his aspirations alter. Never again does -he regard Greece as the centre of the world. - -The building of Alexandria proceeded, and copied or magnified forms from -the perishing peninsula overseas. Dinocrates planned Greek temples and -market-places, and they were constructed not slavishly but with -intelligence, for the Greek spirit still lived. But it lived -consciously, not unconsciously as in the past. It had a mission, and no -missionary shall ever create. And Alexander, the heroic chaos of whose -heart surged with desire for all that can and can not be, turned away -from his Hellenic town-planning and his narrow little antiquarian -crusade, and flung himself again, but in a new spirit, against the might -of Persia. He fought her as a lover now. He wanted not to convert but to -harmonize, and conceived himself as the divine and impartial ruler -beneath whom harmony shall proceed. That way lies madness. Persia fell. -Then it was the turn of India. Then the turn of Rome would have come and -then he could have sailed westward (such was his expressed intention) -until he had conquered the Night and eastward until he had conquered the -Day. He was never—despite the tuition of Aristotle—a balanced young man, -and his old friends complained that in this latter period he sometimes -killed them. But to us, who cannot have the perilous honour of his -acquaintance, he grows more lovable now than before. He has caught, by -the unintellectual way, a glimpse of something great, if dangerous, and -that glimpse came to him first in the recesses of the Siwan Oasis. When -at the age of thirty-three he died, when the expedition that he did not -seek stole towards him in the summer-house at Babylon, did it seem to -him as after all but the crown of his smaller quests? He had tried to -lead Greece, then he had tried to lead mankind. He had succeeded in -both. But was the universe also friendly, was it also in trouble, was it -calling on him, on him, for his help and his love? The priest of Amen -had addressed him as “Son of God.” What exactly did the compliment mean? -Was it explicable this side of the grave? - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - EPIPHANY - - -During the last years of their lives the old King and Queen had seldom -left the Palace. They sought seclusion, though for different reasons. -The King, who was gay and shy, did not wish his pleasures to be -observed. He had gathered a suitable circle of friends round him, and -was content. There was Agathocles—who, by the way, was Prime Minister; -there was Agathoclea—who, by the way, was the little prince’s nurse; -there was Œnanthe, the mother of the two A.’s, an elderly but -accomplished woman who knew how to shampoo. And there were one or two -more, for instance the wife of a forage contractor who would say to the -King, “Here, Daddy, drink this.” The King liked young women who called -him Daddy; and he drank, and when he had drunk enough he would get up -and dance, the others danced too, he would fall down, it was all -delightful. But it was not a delight he desired his subjects to witness. - -The Queen employed herself otherwise. Shut up in her own apartments, she -meditated on the past. She thought of all the years when she had been on -trial: the King had never cared for her, and, though negotiating for the -marriage, had kept her waiting. Then came the Battle of Rafa. The -Syrians were invading Egypt, and just as the Egyptian army was breaking -she had ridden forth among the elephants, her hair streaming, her colour -high, and had turned defeat into victory. She became the popular -heroine, and he married her. But for nine years they had had no child. -She could see no hope anywhere. The child had come, but the situation -had not changed. Months passed, and still she sat in the Palace -enclosure—the Fortress inside the fortress of the Royal City—and looked -from the promontory that we now call Silsileh across the harbour to -Pharos, and over the unvarying expanse of the sea. - -Change came at last. One night, when the King fell down, he failed to -get up again. Agathoclea paid him every attention, but he passed into a -stupor and died in her arms. His friends were in despair. He had been -such a jolly old King. And besides, what were they to do? The Queen, on -the other hand, came forward in an unexpected light. There was no -occasion for anxiety, she told them. She knew what to do quite well. She -was now Regent, and her first act was to dismiss the ministry. Moreover, -since he was now four years old, her son no longer required a nurse. The -old heroic feelings came back to her. Life seemed worth living again; -She returned to her apartments full of exaltation. She entered them. As -she did so, the curtains, which had been soaked with inflammable oil in -her absence, burst into flame. She tried to retire. The doors had been -locked behind her, and she was burnt to death. - -And the life of Alexandria went on as before. Œnanthe and her progeny -still drove about in the state carriages. The King and Queen still -failed to appear in public, and the Palace still rose inviolate inside -the walls of the Royal City. Months passed, fourteen months. - -When rumours began, the A.’s neglected to act. Inertia had served them -so well that they did not know how to relinquish it. But rumours -continued, and after many consultations they devised a pageant that had -the feeblest effect. It was not true, they said, that the old King and -Queen had died a year ago. But it was true that they were dead. They had -died that very minute. Alas! Woe, oh woe! Here were their urns. Their -little son was now King. Here he was. Agathocles had been appointed -Regent. Here was the will. Agathoclea—here she was—would continue to be -nurse. The people, sceptical and sullen, watched the display, which took -place in a high gallery of the Palace, overhanging the town. The actors -made their bow, and gathering up the exhibits retired. All went on as -usual for a little longer. - -It was the misgovernment of Agathocles that brought things to a crisis: -that, and the report that of the two urns only one contained human -remains: the other, which was supposed to hold the Queen, was a dummy. -Perhaps the little boy would vanish next. They must see him, touch him. -And they stormed the Palace. It was in vain that the Regent parleyed, -threatened, or that Agathoclea repeated that she was the royal nurse. -The soldiers joined the people, and they broke gate after gate. At last -the Regent cried, “Take him!” and, flinging their King at them, fled. -The child was already in tears. They put him on a horse, and led it -outside to the racecourse, where were assembled more human beings than -he had ever dreamt of, who shouted Epiphany! Epiphany! and pulled him -off the horse and made him sit on a large seat. This was the world and -he did not like it. He preferred his own little circle. Someone cried, -“Shall we not punish your mother’s murderers?” He sobbed, “Oh yes—oh -anything,” and it was so. The Regent and his sister had hidden in the -Palace. Œnanthe had driven two miles away to the Thesmophorion, a -sanctuary near the present Nouzha Gardens. All were dragged from their -retreats, tortured, and killed, the women being stripped naked first. - -Such were the circumstances of the accession of Ptolemy V., surnamed -Epiphanes, 204 B.C. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PHILO’S LITTLE TRIP - - -It was nearly a serious tumble—more serious than he anticipated. There -were six in his party, all Hebrew gentlemen of position and -intelligence, such as may be seen in these days filling a first-class -carriage in the Cairo express on their way up to interview the -Government. In those days the Government was not at Cairo but at Rome, -and the six gentlemen were on their way to interview the Emperor -Caligula. Observe them in their well-appointed little yacht, slipping -out of the Mohammed Ali Square, which was then under water and part of -the Eastern Harbour. Their faces are pale, partly from fasting, partly -from anticipation, for the passage can be rough in February. And their -mission was even more poignant than cotton. It concerned their faith. -Jews at Alexandria had been killed and teased, and some Gentiles had, -with the connivance of the Governor, erected a bronze chariot in their -principal synagogue—not even a new chariot, for the horses had no tails -or feet. It was a chariot once dedicated to—O Pollution!—Cleopatra. -There it stood, and the Jews did not like to throw it down. And into -their smaller synagogues, smaller objects, such as portraits of the -Emperor, had been thrust. It is a delicate matter to complain to an -Emperor about his own portrait, but Caligula was known to be a charming -and reasonable young man, and the deputation had been selected for its -tact. - -As they crossed the harbour, the Temple of Cæsar stood out on the right, -so impressive, so brilliant, that Philo could not repress his enthusiasm -and recalled the view in after years. - - It is a piece incomparably above all others (he writes). It - stands by a most commodious harbour, wonderfully high and large - in proportion; an eminent sea mark: full of choice paintings and - statues with donatives and oblatives in abundance; and then it - is beautiful all over with gold and silver: the model curious - and regular in the disposition of the parts, as galleries, - libraries, porches, courts, halls, walks, and consecrated - groves, as glorious as expense and art could make them, and - everything in its proper place; besides that, the hope and - comfort of seafaring men, either coming in or going out. - -When would he see this temple as he came in? Although Cleopatra had -begun it for Antony, and Augustus finished it for himself, it filled him -with love, and he turned from it with reluctance to the coast on the -left, really more important, because Jehovah had translated the entire -Bible into Greek there. There stood those seventy huts! O wonder! It was -one of the anecdotes with which he hoped to rivet the attention of -Caligula, when they arrived at Rome. - -That charming and reasonable young man had lately recovered from a -severe illness, at which the whole civilized world rejoiced, and the -Eternal City was full of embassies waiting to congratulate him. Among -these, ominously enough, was a counter-deputation from Alexandria, -strongly anti-Semite in tone. Philo watched it narrowly. The imperial -invalid did not arrive till August, and at first things went pleasantly -enough. He caught sight of the Jews one day as he was calling on his -mother, seemed transported with delight and waved his hand to them, also -sent a message that he would see them at once, but immediately left for -Naples, and they had to follow him thither. - -It was somewhere between Naples and Baiæ that the little trip came to -its end. We cannot say where exactly, for the reason that the Emperor -received the deputation over a considerable space of ground. He was -continually on the trot throughout the audience, and they had to trot -after him. He passed from room to room and from villa to villa, all of -which, he told them, he had thrown open for their pleasure. They thanked -him and tried to say more. He trotted on. With him ran the -counter-deputation, and also a mob of concierges, housekeepers, -glaziers, plumbers, upholsterers and decorators, to whom he kept -flinging orders. At last he stopped. The Jews of Alexandria approached. -And with a voice of thunder he cried, “So you are the criminals who say -I am not a god.” It was shattering, it was appalling, it was the very -point they had hoped would not be raised. For they worshipped Jehovah -only. The counter-deputation shouted with delight, and the six Hebrew -gentlemen cried in unison, “Caligula! Caligula! do not be angry with us. -We have sacrificed for you not once but three times—first at your -accession, secondly when you were ill, thirdly when——” But the Emperor -interrupted them with merciless logic. “Exactly. For me and not to me,” -and dashed off to inspect the ladies’ apartments. After him they ran, -hopeless of removing Cleopatra’s chariot or of interesting him in the -Septuagint. They would be lucky if they secured their lives. He climbed -up to look at a ceiling. They climbed too. He ran along a plank; so did -the Jews. They did not speak, partly from lack of breath, partly because -they were afraid of his reply. At last, turning in their faces, he -asked, “Why don’t you eat pork?” The counter-deputation shouted again. -The Jews replied that different races ate different things, and one of -them, to carry off the situation, said some people didn’t eat lamb. “Of -course they don’t,” said the Emperor, “lamb is beastly.” The situation -grew worse. A fit of fury had seized Caligula at the thought of lamb and -he yelled, “What are your laws? I wish to know what your laws are!” They -began to tell him and he cried out, “Shut those windows,” and ran away -down a corridor. Then he turned with extraordinary gentleness and said, -“I beg your pardon, what were you saying?” They began to tell him of -their laws, and he said, “We’ll have all the old pictures hung together -here, I think.” Stopping anew, he looked round at his shattered train of -ambassadors and artisans, and smiling, remarked, “And these are the -people who think I am not a god. I don’t blame them. I merely pity them. -They can go.” Philo led his party back to Alexandria, there to meditate -on the accident that had so spoilt their little trip: Caligula was mad. - -Yet did it signify—signify in the long run? The history of the Chosen -People is full of such contretemps, but they survive and thrive. Six -hundred years later, when Amr took the city, he found 40,000 Jews there. -And look at them in the railway carriage now. Their faces are anxious -and eloquent of past rebuffs. But they are travelling First. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA - - -When the assertions that were made at one time and another in the -uplands of Palestine descended from their home, and, taking the ancient -caravan route, crossed the River of Egypt and approached Alexandria, -they entered into a new spiritual atmosphere where they were obliged to -transform themselves or to perish. The atmosphere was not hostile to the -assertions, indeed it welcomed them, but it insisted that, however -unphilosophic they might be, they should wear the philosophic dress, -that they should take some account of the assertions that had arrived -previously, should recognize the existence of libraries and museums, -should approach with circumspection the souls of the rich. Under these -conditions they might remain. And exactly the same thing happened on two -distinct occasions. We are here concerned with the second of the -occasions, but it is convenient to glance at the first; it was soon -after Alexandria had been founded, and Jews were flocking to her -markets. An unexpected problem confronted them. Jehovah had said, “I Am -that I Am,” and so long as they remained in Palestine this seemed -enough. But now they had to face disquieting comments, such as “This -statement predicates existence merely,” or “This statement, while -professing merely to predicate existence, assumes the attribute of -speech,” and they grew aware of the inaccessibility and illogicality of -their national God. The result was a series of attempts on their part to -explain and recommend Jehovah to the Greeks—culminating in the great -system of Philo, who, by the doctrine of the Mediating Logos, ensured -that the deity should be at the same time accessible and inaccessible: -“The Logos,” he writes, “dwells on the margin between the Created and -the Increate, and delights to serve them both.” And there, for a little, -the matter rested. - -But in Philo’s own lifetime a second assertion had been made among the -Judæan hills. We do not know its original form—too many minds have -worked over it since—but we know that it was unphilosophic and -anti-social. For it was addressed to the uneducated and it promised them -a kingdom. Following the usual route, it reached Alexandria, where the -same fate overtook it: it had to face comments, and in so doing was -transformed. It too evolved a system which, though not logical, paid the -lip service to logic that a great city demands, and interspersed bridges -of argument among the flights of faith. All Greek thinkers, except -Socrates, had done the same, so that, on its intellectual side, the new -religion did not break with the past; it consisted of an assertion in a -philosophic dress, and Clement of Alexandria, its first theologian, used -methods that were familiar to Philo two hundred years before. Not only -did he bring allegory to bear upon the more intractable passages of -Scripture, but he adapted the Philonian Logos and identified it with the -Founder of the new religion. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word -was with God.” Philo might have written this. St. John had added to it -two statements distinctly Christian, namely, “The Word was God” and “The -Word was made flesh.” And now Clement, taking over the completed -conception, raised upon it a storied fabric such as the Alexandrians -loved, and ensured that the deity should be at the same time accessible -and inaccessible, merciful and just, human and divine. The fabric would -have bewildered the fishermen of Galilee, and it had in it a flaw which -became evident in the fourth century and produced the Arian schism. But -it impressed the passing age; Clement, working in and through -Alexandria, did more than even St. Paul to recommend Christianity to the -Gentiles. - -He was probably born in Greece about A.D. 150 and initiated into -Mysteries there. Then he was converted and became head of the -theological college in Alexandria, where he remained until his exile in -202. But little is known of his life and nothing of his character, -though one may assume it was conciliatory: Christianity was not yet -official, and thus in no position to fulminate. Of his treatises the -“Exhortation to the Greeks” acknowledges several merits in pagan -thought, while “The Rich Man’s Salvation” handles with delicacy a -problem on which business men are naturally sensitive, and arrives at -the comforting conclusion that Christ did not mean what He said. One -recognizes the wary resident. And when he attacks Paganism he seldom -denounces: he mocks, knowing this to be the better way. For the age is -literal. It had lost resilience and spring, and if one pointed out to it -that Zeus had behaved absurdly in Homer, it could summon no rush of -instinct or of poetry with which to defend his worship. Demeter too! And -shrines to the sneezing Apollo and to the gouty and to the coughing -Artemis! Ha! Ha! Fancy believing in a goddess with the gout. Clement -makes great play with such nonsense. For a new religion has, as far as -persiflage is concerned, an advantage over an old one: it has not had -time itself to evolve a mythology, and his adversaries could not retort -with references to St. Simeon Stylites, or to the plague spot of St. -Roch, or to St. Fina who allowed a devil to throw her mother down the -stairs. They could only hang their heads and assent, and when Clement -derided the priests in the idol-temples for their dirt, they could not -foresee that in the following century dirt would be recommended as holy -by the Church. They were caught by his genial air and by his “logic”; -there is nothing morose about the treatises, and even to-day they are -readable, though not quite in the way that the author intended. - - A solemn assembly of Greeks, held in honour of a dead serpent, - was gathering at Pytho, and Eunomus sang a funeral ode for the - reptile. Whether his song was a hymn in praise of the snake or a - lamentation over it, I cannot say; but there was a competition - and Eunomus was playing the lyre in the heat of the day, at the - time when the grasshoppers, warmed by the sun, were singing - under the leaves along the hills. They were singing, you see, - not to the dead serpent of Pytho, but to the all-wise God, a - spontaneous song, better than the measured strains of Eunomus. A - string breaks in the Locrian’s hands; the grasshopper settles - upon the neck of the lyre and begins to twitter there as if upon - a branch: whereupon the minstrel, by adapting his music to the - grasshopper’s lay, supplied the place of the missing string. So - it was not Eunomus that drew the grasshopper by his song, as the - legend would have it, when it set up the bronze figure at Pytho, - showing Eunomus with his lyre and his ally in the contest. No, - the grasshopper flew of its own accord, and sang of its own - accord, although the Greeks thought it to have been responsive - to music. - - How in the world is it that you have given credence to worthless - legends, imagining.... - -and blasts of theology ensue. But how grateful one is to Clement for -mentioning the grasshopper, and how probable it seems, from the way he -tells the story, that he had a faint consciousness of its beauty—just as -his risqué passages emanate a furtive consciousness of their riskiness. -His learning is immense: he is said to allude to three hundred Greek -writers of whom we should not otherwise have heard, and one gladly -follows him through the back-yards of the Classical world. The results -of his ramble are most fully stated in two other of his treatises, the -“Rug roll” and the “Tutor.” His verdict is that, though the poetry of -Hellas is false and its cults absurd or vile, yet its philosophers and -grasshoppers possessed a certain measure of divine truth; some of the -speculations of Plato, for instance, had been inspired by the Psalms. It -is not much of a verdict in the light of modern research; but it is a -moderate verdict for a Father; he spares his thunders, he does not exalt -asceticism, he is never anti-social. - - Till the ground if you are a husbandman; but recognize God in - your husbandry. Sail the sea, you who love sea-faring; but ever - call upon the heavenly pilot. Were you a soldier on campaign - when the knowledge of God laid hold of you? Then listen to the - commander who signals righteousness. - -Here he shows his respect for the existing fabric and his hope that it -may pass without catastrophe from Pagan to Christian, a hope that could -have found expression only at Alexandria, where contending assertions -have so often been harmonized, and whose own god, Serapis, had expressed -the union of Egypt and Greece. - -Looking back—it is so easy now to look back!—one can see that the hope -was vain. Christianity, though she contained little that was fresh -doctrinally, yet descended with a double-edged sword that hacked the -ancient world to pieces. For she had declared war against two great -forces—Sex and the State—and during her complicated contest with them -the old order was bound to disappear. The contest had not really begun -in Clement’s day. Sex disquieted him, but he did not revolt against it -like his successor Origen. The State exiled him, but it had not yet put -forth, as it did under Diocletian, its full claims to divinity. He lived -in a period of transition, and in Alexandria. And in that curious city, -which had never been young and hoped never to grow old, conciliation -must have seemed more possible than elsewhere, and the graciousness of -Greece not quite incompatible with the Grace of God. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ST. ATHANASIUS - - - I - -That afternoon was one of comparative calm for the infant Church. She -was three hundred and ten years old. The pagan persecutions had ceased, -and disputes about the Nature of Christ, over which blood was more -freely to flow, had not yet matured. It still seemed that under her -inspired guidance the old world would pass without disaster into the -new. What lovely weather! The month was June, and the beacon of smoke -that rose from the summit of the Pharos was inclined over Alexandria by -a northerly wind. Both harbours were filled with ships; the Eastern -Harbour was lined with palaces. The Western Harbour—and to it we must -turn—was indeed less splendid. Then, as now, it washed the business -quarter, the warehouses, the slums where the dock hands lived. Hardness -and poverty edged it as they do to-day, and Christianity had settled -here early, as she settled on all spots where the antique civilization -had failed to make men dignified. Issuing out of the Gate of the Moon, -the great Canopic Way here lost its straightness and split into ignoble -lanes. There was only one redeeming feature—a house in which a real -bishop was sitting. His name was Alexander. He has invited some -clergymen to lunch, and they are late. - -Bishops existed then in a profusion we can scarcely conceive. Every -large village produced one, and they even went so far as to disorganize -the postal service by galloping about in troops upon the government -horses. But he of Alexandria was a bishop of no ordinary brand. He bore -the title of “Patriarch of all the Preaching of St. Mark,” and a -prestige that only Rome challenged. If he lived in these slums, it was -because historical associations detained him. The sainted shoemaker -Annianus had plied his trade hard by. A church to the right—St. -Theonas’—had been built by another local saint. Here were the origins of -his power, but its field lay elsewhere—eastward among the splendours of -the town; southward, hundreds of miles southward, up the valley of the -Nile. The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. A magnificent prize! - -The waters of the harbour, placid and slightly stale, came almost up to -his house. He gazed at them, and at the grubby beach where some little -boys were playing. They were playing at going to church. They were poor, -they had no toys, and, since railway trains did not exist, going to -church was the only game they could command. Indeed, it is a fascinating -game. Even Anglican nurseries have succumbed to it. Scantily robed, they -processed and inclined, and the Bishop, being not Anglican, but African, -only smiled. Boys will be boys! He was specially diverted by their -leader, a skinny but sportive youth, who would take his flock for a swim -and, diving, reappear when and where they least expected. Then more -solemn thoughts returned. - -The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. Ah, but for what kind of -Christianity? That was the trouble. Fancy if, with Arius, it adopted the -heresy of “Time was when He was not”! Fancy if it paltered with -Gnosticism, and believed that creation, with its palaces and slums, is -the result of a muddle! Fancy if it Judaized with Meletius, the -disobedient Bishop of Assiout! Alexander had written to Meletius, asking -him to Judaize less, but had had no reply. That was the disadvantage of -a copious episcopy. You could never be sure that all the bishops would -do the same thing. And there were dreadful examples in which flighty -laymen had lost their heads, and, exclaiming, “Me be bishop too!” had -run away into the desert before any one could stop them. The Emperor -Constantine (that lion-hearted warrior!) was a further anxiety. -Constantine so easily got mixed. Immersed in his town-planning, he might -stamp some heresy as official and then the provinces would take it up. -How difficult everything was! What was to be done? Perhaps the -clergymen, when they arrived for lunch, would know. There used to be too -little Christianity. Now there almost seemed too much. Alexander sighed, -and looked over the harbour to the Temple of Neptune that stood on the -promontory. He was growing old. Where was his successor?—someone who ... -not exactly saintliness and scholarship, but someone who would codify, -would define? - -Stop! stop! Boys will be boys, but there are limits. They were playing -at Baptism now, and the sportive youth was in the act of pouring some of -the harbour water over two other Gippoes. To enter into the Bishop’s -alarm we must remember the difference between Northern and Southern -conceptions of impiety. To the Northerner impiety is bad taste. To the -Southerner it is magic—the illicit and accurate performance of certain -acts, and especially of sacramental acts. If the youth had made any -mistake in his baptismal ritual it would not have mattered, it would -have remained play. But he was performing accurately what he had no -right to perform; he was saying, “Me be bishop too,” and Heaven alone -knew the theological consequences. “Stop! stop!” the genuine article -cried. It was too late. The water fell, the trick was done ... and at -the same moment the clergymen arrived, offering such apologies for their -unpunctuality as are usual among Egyptians. - -It was long before lunch was served. The culprits were summoned, and in -terrific conclave their conduct was discussed. There was some hope that -the two converts were Christians already, in which case nothing would -have been affected. But no. They had bowed the knee to Neptune hitherto. -Then were they Christians now? Or were they horrid little demons who, -outside or inside the Church, would harm her equally? The sportive youth -prevailed. He won over the Bishop, and calmed the clergymen’s fears, and -before evening fell and the smoke on the Pharos turned to a column of -fire, it was settled that he had by his play rendered two souls eligible -for immortal bliss. And his action had a more immediate consequence: he -never washed again. Taken into the Bishop’s house, he became his pupil, -his deacon, his coadjutor, his successor in the see, and finally a saint -and a doctor of the Church: he is St. Athanasius. - - - II - -At the other end of the city there lived another clergyman. His name was -Arius, and it was a very long time indeed since the Bishop had asked him -to lunch. He took duty at St. Mark’s, a small church that stood on the -brink of the Mediterranean. The neighbourhood was of the best—palaces, -zoological gardens, lecture-rooms, etc.—and over some trees rose the -long back of the temple that Cleopatra had built to Antony. That temple -would make a seemly cathedral, Arius often thought, and the obelisks in -its forecourt—Cleopatra’s Needles—would be improved if they supported -statues of God the Father. The whole of Egypt was ripe for -Christianity—for the right kind of Christianity, that is to say: not for -the kind that was preached at the western end of the town. - -Arius was elderly by now. Learned and sincere, tall, simple in his -dress, persuasive in his manner, he was accused by his enemies of -looking like a snake and of seducing, in the theological sense, seven -hundred virgins. The accusation amazed him. He had only preached what is -obviously true. Since Christ is the Son of God, it follows that Christ -is younger than God, and that there must have been a condition—no doubt -before time began—when the first Person of the Trinity existed, and the -Second did not. This has only to be stated to be believed, and only -those who were entirely possessed by the devil, like doddering Alexander -and slippery Athanasius, would state the contrary. The Emperor -Constantine (that lion-hearted warrior!) would certainly see the point, -provided it was explained to him. But Constantine so easily got mixed, -and there was indeed a danger that he would stamp the wrong type of -Christianity as official, and plunge the world into heresy for thousands -of years. How difficult everything was! One’s immediate duty was to -testify, so day after day Arius preached Arianism to the seven hundred -virgins, to the corpse of the Evangelist St. Mark who lay buried beneath -the church, and to the bright blue waves of the sea that in their -ceaseless advance have now covered the whole scene. - -The quarrel between him and his bishop grew so fierce and spread so far -that Constantine was obliged to intervene and to beg his -fellow-Christians to imitate the Greek philosophers, who could differ -without shedding one another’s blood. It was just the sort of appeal -that everyone had been fearing that the Emperor would make. He was -insufficiently alive to eternal truth. No one obeyed, and in desperation -he summoned them to meet him at Nicæa on the Black Sea, and spent the -interval in trying to find out what their quarrel turned on. Two hundred -and fifty bishops attended, many priests, deacons innumerable. Among the -last named was Athanasius, who, thundering against Arius in full -conclave, procured his overthrow. Amid scenes of incredible violence the -Nicene Creed was passed, containing clauses (since omitted) in which -Arianism was anathematized. Arius was banished. Athanasius led his -tottering but triumphant bishop back to Alexandria, and the Emperor -returned to the town-planning and to the wardrobes of wigs and false -hair that sometimes solace the maturity of a military man. - -The powers of Athanasius were remarkable. Like Arius, he knew what truth -is, but, being a politician, he knew how truth can best be enforced; his -career blends subtlety with vigour, self-abnegation with craft. -Physically he was blackish, but active and strong. One recognizes a -modern street type. Not one single generous action by him is recorded, -but he knew how to inspire enthusiasm, and before he died had become a -popular hero and set the pace to his century. Soon after his return from -Nicæa he was made Patriarch of Alexandria, but he had scarcely sat down -before Arius was back there too. The Emperor wished it. Could not -Christians imitate, etc...? No; Christians could not and would not; and -Athanasius testified with such vigour that he was banished in his turn, -and his dusty theological Odyssey begins. He was banished in all five -times. Sometimes he hid in a cistern, or in pious ladies’ houses, or in -the recesses of the Libyan desert; at other times, going farther afield, -he popped up in Palestine or France. Roused by his passage from older -visions, the soul of the world began to stir, and to what activity! -Heavy Romans, dreamy Orientals and quick Greeks all turned to theology, -and scrambled for the machinery of the Pagan State, wrenching this way -and that until their common heritage was smashed. Cleopatra’s temple to -Antony first felt the killing glare of truth. Arians and Orthodox -competed for its consecration, and in the space of six years its back -was broken and its ribs cracked by fire. St. Theonas’—the episcopal -church—was gutted, and Athanasius nearly killed by some soldiers on its -altar. And all the time everyone was writing—encyclicals as to the date -of Easter, animadversions against washing, accusations of sorcery, -complaints that Athanasius had broken a chalice in a church in a village -near Lake Mariout, replies that there was no chalice to break, because -there was no church, because there was no village—reams and reams of -paper on this subject travelling over the empire for years, and being -perused by bishops in Mesopotamia and Spain. Constantine died; but his -successors, whatever their faith, were drawn into the dance of theology, -none more so than Julian, who dreamed of Olympus. Arius died, falling -down in the streets of Alexandria one evening while he was talking to a -friend; but Arianism survived. Athanasius died too; but not before he -had weaned the Church from her traditions of scholarship and tolerance, -the tradition of Clement and Origen. Few divines have done more for her, -and her gratitude has been both profound and characteristic; she has -coupled his name to a Creed with which he had nothing to do—the -Athanasian. - -Were his activities all about nothing? No! The Arian controversy -enshrined a real emotion. By declaring that Christ was younger than God -Arius tended to make him lower than God, and consequently to bring him -nearer to man—indeed, to level him into a mere good man and to forestall -Unitarianism. This appealed to the untheologically-minded—to Emperors, -and particularly to Empresses. It made them feel less lonely. But -Athanasius, who viewed the innovation with an expert eye, saw that while -it popularized Christ it isolated God, and raised man no nearer to -heaven in the long run. Therefore he fought it. Of the theatre of this -ancient strife no trace remains in Alexandria. Not even Cleopatra’s -Needle stands there now. But the strife still continues in the heart of -men, ever prone to substitute the human for the divine, and it is -probable that many an individual Christian to-day is an Arian without -knowing it. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TIMOTHY THE CAT - AND TIMOTHY WHITEBONNET - - -“Miaou!” - -Such was the terrible sound which, half way through the fifth century, -disturbed the slumbers of certain Monophysite monks. Their flesh crept. -Moved by a common impulse, each stole from his cell, and saw, in the -dimly lighted corridor, a figure even more mysterious than -pussy’s—something that gibbered and bowed and said, in hollow and -sepulchral tones, “Consecrate Timothy.” They stood motionless until the -figure disappeared, then ran this way and that in search of it. There -was nothing to be seen. They opened the convent doors. Nothing to be -seen except Alexandria glimmering, still entirely marble; nothing except -the Pharos, still working and sending out from the height of five -hundred feet a beam visible over a radius of seventy miles. The streets -were quiet, owing to the absence of the Greek garrison in Upper Egypt. -Having looked at the tedious prospect, the monks withdrew, for much had -to be done before morning: they had to decide whether it was an angel or -a devil who had said “Miaou.” If the former, they must do penance for -their lack of faith; if the latter, they were in danger of hell-fire. -While they argued over a point that has puzzled the sharpest of saints, -the attention of some of them began to wander, and to dwell on one who -was beyond doubt a devil—Proterius, whom the Emperor had imposed on them -as their Patriarch, and who slept in a convent hard by. They cursed -Proterius. They reflected too that in the absence of the garrison he no -longer slept safely, that they were Egyptians and numerous, he a Greek -and alone. They cursed him again, and the apparition reappeared -repeating, “Consecrate Timothy.” Timothy was one of their own number and -the holiest of men. When, after an interval, they ran to his cell, they -found him upon his knees in prayer. They told him of the ghostly -message, and he seemed dazed, but on collecting himself implored that it -might never be mentioned again. Asked whether it was infernal, he -refused to reply. Asked whether it was supernal, he replied, “You, not -I, have said so.” All doubts disappeared, and away they ran to find some -bishops. Melchite or Arian or Sabæan or Nestorian or Donatist or -Manichæan bishops would not do: they must be Monophysite. Fortunately -two had occurred, and on the following day Timothy, struggling piously, -was carried between Cleopatra’s Needles into the cathedral and -consecrated Patriarch of Alexandria and of all the Preaching of St. -Mark. For he held the correct opinion as to the Nature of Christ—the -only possible opinion: Christ has a single Nature, divine, which has -absorbed the human: how could it be otherwise? The leading residential -officials, the municipal authorities, and the business community thought -the same; so, attacking Proterius, who thought the contrary, they -murdered him in the Baptistery, and hanged him over the city wall. The -Greek garrison hurried back, but it was too late. Proterius had gone, -nor did the soldiers regret him, for he had made more work than most -bishops, having passed the seven years of his episcopate in a constant -state of siege. Timothy, for whom no guards need be set, was a great -improvement. Diffident and colloquial, he won everyone’s heart, and -obtained, for some reason or other, the surname of the Cat. - -Thus the _coup d’église_ had succeeded for the moment. But it had to -reckon with another monk, a second Timothy, of whom, as events proved, -the angel had really been thinking. He was Timothy Whitebonnet, so -called from his headgear, and his life was more notable than the Cat’s, -for he lived at Canopus, where the air is so thick with demons that only -the most robust of Christians can breathe. Canopus stood on a promontory -ten miles east of Alexandria, overlooking the exit of the Nile. Foul -influences had haunted it from the first. Helen, a thousand years ago, -had come here with Paris on their flight towards Troy, and though the -local authorities had expelled her for vagabondage, the ship that -carried her might still be seen, upon summer nights, ploughing the waves -into fire. In her train had followed Herodotus, asking idle questions of -idle men; Alexander, called the Great from his enormous horns; and -Serapis, a devil worse than any, who, liking the situation, had summoned -his wife and child and established them on a cliff to the north, within -sound of the sea. The child never spoke. The wife wore the moon. In -their honour the Alexandrians used to come out along the canal in barges -and punts, crowned with flowers, robed in gold, and singing spells of -such potency that the words remained, though the singers were dead, and -would slide into Timothy Whitebonnet’s ear, when the air seemed -stillest, and pretend to him that they came from God. Often, just as a -sentence was completed, he would realize its origin, and have to -expectorate it in the form of a toad—a dangerous exercise, but it taught -him discernment, and fitted him to play his part in the world. He -learned with horror of the riots in the metropolis, and of the elevation -of the heretical Cat. For he knew that Christ has two Natures, one -human, the other divine: how can it be otherwise? - -At Constantinople there seems to have been a little doubt. Leo, the -reigning emperor, was anxious not to drive Egypt into revolt, and -disposed to let Alexandria follow the faith she preferred. But his -theologians took a higher line, and insisted on his sending a new -garrison. This was done, the Cat was captured, and Whitebonnet dragged -from Canopus and consecrated in his place. There matters rested until -the accession of Basiliscus, who sent a new garrison to expel -Whitebonnet. Once more the Cat ruled bloodily until the Emperor Zeno -took the other view, and sending a—— - -However, the curtain may drop now. The controversy blazed for two -hundred years, and is smouldering yet. The Copts still believe, with -Timothy the Cat, in the single Nature of Christ; the double Nature, -upheld by Timothy Whitebonnet, is still maintained by the rest of -Christendom and by the reader. The Pharos, the Temple of Serapis—these -have perished, being only stones, and sharing the impermanence of -material things. It is ideas that live. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE GOD ABANDONS ANTONY - - - When at the hour of midnight - an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing - with exquisite music, with voices— - Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides, - your life’s work that has failed, your schemes that have proved - illusions. - But like a man prepared, like a brave man, - bid farewell to her, to Alexandria who is departing. - Above all, do not delude yourself, do not say that it is a dream, - that your ear was mistaken. - Do not condescend to such empty hopes. - Like a man for long prepared, like a brave man, - like the man who was worthy of such a city, - go to the window firmly, - and listen with emotion - but not with the prayers and complaints of the coward - (Ah! supreme rapture!) - listen to the notes, to the exquisite instruments of the mystic choir, - and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing. - - C. P. CAVAFY.[1] - -Footnote 1: - - For a study of Cavafy’s work see p. 91. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PHARILLON - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ELIZA IN EGYPT - - - I - -When the lively and somewhat spiteful Mrs. Eliza Fay landed at -Alexandria in the summer of 1779 that city was at her lowest ebb. The -glories of the antique had gone, the comforts of the modern had not -arrived. Gone were the temples and statues, gone the palace of Cleopatra -and the library of Callimachus, the Pharos had fallen and been succeeded -by the feeble Pharillon, the Heptastadion had silted up; while the -successors to these—the hotels, the clubs, the drainage system, the -exquisite Municipal buildings—still slept in the unastonished womb of -time. - -Attached to Mrs. Fay was her husband, an incompetent advocate, who was -to make their fortunes in the East. Since the boat that had brought them -was owned by a Christian, they were forbidden to enter the Western -Harbour, and had to disembark not far from the place where, in more -enlightened days, the Ramleh Tramway was to terminate. All was barbarism -then, save for two great obelisks, one prone, one erect—“Cleopatra’s -Needles,” not yet transferred to New York and London respectively. They -were met in this lonely spot by the Prussian Consul, a certain Mr. -Brandy, who found them rooms, but had bad news for them: “a melancholy -story,” as Mrs. Fay calls it when writing to her sister. Between Cairo -and Suez, on the very route they proposed to take, a caravan had been -held up and some of its passengers murdered. She was pitiably agitated. -But she did not give up her sight-seeing; she had got to Alexandria and -meant to enjoy it. Cleopatra’s Needles in the first place. What did the -hieroglyphics on them signify? She applied to Mr. Brandy; but the -Consul, following the best traditions of the residential Levant, “seemed -to know no more than ourselves.” His kindness was unfailing. Next day he -produced donkeys—being Christians they were not allowed to ride -horses—and the party trotted over three miles of desert to Pompey’s -Pillar, preceded by a janissary with a drawn sword. Pompey’s Pillar -arouses few emotions in the modern breast. The environs are squalid, the -turnstile depressing, and one knows that it dates not from Pompey but -from Diocletian. Mrs. Fay approached it in a nobler mood. - - Although quite unadorned, the proportions are so exquisite that - it must strike every beholder with a kind of awe, which softens - into melancholy when one reflects that the renowned hero, whose - name it bears, was treacherously murdered on this very coast by - the boatmen who were conveying him to Alexandria. His wretched - wife stood on the vessel he had just left, watching his - departure, as we may very naturally suppose, with inexpressible - anxiety. What must have been her agonies at the dreadful event! - -The time was to come when Mrs. Fay herself would have watched with very -little anxiety the murder of Mr. Fay. Her Anthony—for such was his -name—led her from mess to mess, and in the end she had to divorce him. -Let us turn from these serious themes to a “ludicrous accident” that -befell Mr. Brandy on the way to “Cleopatra’s Palace.” He was very large -and stout, and his donkey, seizing its opportunity, stole away from -under the consular seat and left him astride on the sand! As for -“Cleopatra’s Palace,” it was not the genuine palace, but it was as -genuine as the emotion it inspired. - - Never do I remember being so affected by a like object. I stood - in the midst of the ruins, meditating on the awful scene, till I - could have almost fancied I beheld its former mistress, - revelling in luxury with her infatuated lover, Mark Anthony, who - for her sake lost all. - -An account of a party at the Brandies’ concludes the letter—a clear-cut -malicious account. Eliza is the child of her century, which affected -lofty emotions but whose real interest lay in little things, and in -satire. - - We were most graciously received by Mrs. Brandy, who is a native - of this place; but as she could speak a little Italian we - managed to carry on something like a conversation. She was most - curiously bedizened on the occasion, and being short, - dark-complexioned, and of a complete dumpling shape, appeared - altogether the strangest lump of finery I ever beheld. She had a - handkerchief bound round her head, covered with strings composed - of spangles, but very large, intermixed with pearls and - emeralds; her neck and bosom were ornamented in the same way. - Add to all this an embroidered girdle with a pair of gold - clasps, I think very nearly four inches square, enormous - ear-rings, and a large diamond sprig at the top of her forehead, - and you must allow that she was a most brilliant figure. They - have a sweet little girl about seven years of age, who was - decked out in much the same style; but she really looked pretty - in spite of her incongruous finery. On the whole, though, I was - pleased with both mother and child; their looks and behaviour - were kind, and to a stranger in a strange land (and this is - literally so to us) a little attention is soothing and - consolatory; especially when one feels surrounded by - hostilities, which every European must do here. Compared with - the uncouth beings who govern this country, I felt at home among - the natives of France, and I will even say of Italy. - - On taking leave, our host presented a book containing - certificates of his great politeness and attentions towards - travellers, which were signed by many persons of consideration, - and at the same time requesting that Mr. Fay and myself would - add our names to the list. We complied, though not without - surprise that a gentleman in his situation should have recourse - to such an expedient, which cannot but degrade him in the eyes - of his guests. - -Rather cattish, that last remark, considering how much the Consul had -done for her. But a cat she is—spirited and observant, but a cat. - - - II - -Heedless of the weather, heedless of the rumour of plundered caravans, -Eliza removed her husband as soon as possible for the interior, and some -account must now be given of their adventures. Her pen is our guide. -Through flood and blood it keeps its way, curbed only by her fear of the -Turkish Censor, and by her desire to conceal her forebodings from -friends at home. As soon as misfortunes have occurred she will describe -them. But about the future she is always confident and bright, and this -gallant determination to make the best of trouble gives charm to a -character that is otherwise unsympathetic. - -The Fays selected the river route. Since the Mahmoudieh Canal had not -been cut, they had to reach the Rosetta mouth of the Nile by sea. They -were nearly drowned crossing its bar, and scarcely were they through -when a boat of thieves shot out from the bank and caused Mr. Fay to fire -off two pistols at once. They outsailed their pursuers, and sped up the -lower reach to Rosetta, then a more important place than Alexandria and -apparently a tidier place. Eliza was delighted. Thoughts of England and -of the English Bible at once welled up in her mind. - - There is an appearance of cleanliness in Rosetta, the more - gratifying because seldom met with in any degree so as to remind - us of what we are accustomed to at home. The landscape around - was interesting from its novelty, and became peculiarly so on - considering it as the country where the children of Israel - sojourned. The beautiful, I may say the unparalleled story of - Joseph and his brethren rose to my mind as I surveyed these - banks on which the Patriarch sought shelter for his old age, - where his self-convicted sons bowed down before their younger - brother, and I almost felt as if in a dream, so wonderful - appeared the circumstance of my being here. - -It is news that Jacob ever resided in the province of Behera. Passing by -this, and by the Pyramids which they only saw from a distance, we -accompany the Fays to Boulac, “the port of Grand Cairo,” where their -troubles increased. Restrictions against Christians being even severer -here than at Alexandria, Mrs. Fay had to dress as a native before she -might enter the city. “I had in the first place a pair of trousers with -yellow leather half-boots and slippers over them”; then a long satin -gown, another gown with short sleeves, a robe of silk like a surplice, -muslin from her forehead to her feet, and over everything a piece of -black silk. “Thus equipped, stumbling at every step, I sallied forth, -and with great difficulty got across my noble beast; but as the veil -prevented me breathing freely I must have died by the way.” She rode -into the European enclave where terror and confusion greeted her. The -rumour about the caravan proved only too true. Complete details had just -arrived. It had been plundered between Cairo and Suez, its passengers -had been killed or left to die in the sun, and, worse still, the Turkish -authorities were so upset by the scandal that they proposed murdering -the whole of the European community in case the news leaked out. It was -thought that Mrs. Fay might be safe with an Italian doctor. As she -waddled across to his house her veil slipped down so that a passer -reprimanded her severely for indecency. Also she fell ill. - - There broke out a severe epidemical disease with violent - symptoms. People are attacked at a moment’s warning with - dreadful pains in stiff limbs, a burning fever with delirium and - a total stoppage of perspiration. During two days it increases, - on the third there comes on uniformly a profuse sweat (pardon - the expression) with vomiting which carries all off. - -But as soon as her disease culminated, out she sallied to see the -ceremonies connected with the rise of the Nile. They disappointed and -disgusted her. - - Not a decent person could I distinguish among the whole group. - So much for this grand exhibition, which we have abundant cause - to wish had not taken place, for the vapours arising from such a - mass of impurity have rendered the heat more intolerable than - ever. My bedchamber overlooks the canal, so that I enjoy the - full benefit to be derived from its proximity. - -Events by now were taking a calmer turn. Mr. Fay, who had also had the -epidemic, was restored to such vitality as he possessed, and the Turkish -authorities had been persuaded by a bribe of £3000 to overcome their -sensitiveness and to leave the European colony alive. The terrible -journey remained, but beyond it lay India and perhaps a fortune. - - - III - -The Suez caravan—an immense affair—was formed up in the outskirts of -Cairo. In view of the recent murders it included a large guard, and the -journey, which took three days, passed off without disaster. Mr. Fay had -a horse; Eliza, still panting in her Oriental robes, travelled in a -litter insecurely hung between two restive camels. Peeping out through -its blinds she could see the sun and the rocks by day, and the stars by -night. She notes their beauty, her senses seem sharpened by danger, and -she was to look back on the desert with a hint of romance. Above her -head, attached to the roof of the litter, were water-bottles, melons, -and hard-boiled eggs, her provision for the road, rumbling and crashing -together to the grave disturbance of her sleep. “Once I was saluted by a -parcel of hard eggs breaking loose from their net and pelting me -completely. It was fortunate that they were boiled, or I should have -been in a pretty trim.” By her side rode her husband, and near him was a -melancholy figure, followed by a sick greyhound, young Mr. Taylor, who -became so depressed by the heat that he slid off his horse and asked to -be allowed to die. His request was refused, as was his request that she -should receive the greyhound into her litter. Eliza was ever sensible. -She was not going to be immured with a boiling hot dog which might bite -her. “I hope no person will accuse me of inhumanity for refusing to -receive an animal in that condition: self-preservation forbade my -compliance; I felt that it would be weakness instead of compassion to -subject myself to such a risk.” Consequently the greyhound died. An Arab -despatched him with his scimitar, Mr. Taylor protested, the Arab ran at -Mr. Taylor. “You may judge from this incident what wretches we were cast -among.” - -They found a boat at Suez and went on board at once. Mr. Fay writes a -line to his father-in-law to tell him that they are safe thus far: a -grandiose little line: - - Some are now very ill, but I stood it as well as any Arabian in - the caravan, which consisted of at least five thousand people. - My wife insists on taking the pen out of my hands. - -She takes it, to the following effect: - - My dear Friends—I have not a moment’s time, for the boat is - waiting, therefore can only beg that you will unite with me in - praising our Heavenly Protector for our escape from the various - dangers of our journey. I never could have thought my - constitution was so strong. I bore the fatigues of the desert - like a lion. We have been pillaged of almost everything by the - Arabs. This is the Paradise of thieves, I think the whole - population may be divided into two classes of them: those who - adopt force and those who effect their purpose by fraud.... I - have not another moment. God bless you! Pray for me, my beloved - friends. - -It is not clear when the Fays had been pillaged, or of what; perhaps -they had merely suffered the losses incidental to an Oriental -embarkation. The ship herself had been pillaged, and badly. She had been -connected with the earlier caravan—the ill-fated one—and the Government -had gutted her in its vague embarrassment. Not a chair, not a table was -left. Still they were thankful to be on board. Their cabin was good, the -captain appeared good-natured and polite, and their fellow-passengers, a -Mr. and Mrs. Tulloch, a Mr. Hare, a Mr. Fuller, and a Mr. Manesty, -seemed, together with poor Mr. Taylor from the caravan, to promise -inoffensive companionship down the Red Sea. Calm was the prospect. But -Eliza is Eliza. And we have not yet seen Eliza in close contact with -another lady. Nor have we yet seen Mrs. Tulloch. - - - IV - -The beauty of the Gulf of Suez—and surely it is most beautiful—has never -received full appreciation from the traveller. He is in too much of a -hurry to arrive or to depart, his eyes are too ardently bent on England -or on India for him to enjoy that exquisite corridor of tinted mountains -and radiant water. He is too much occupied with his own thoughts to -realize that here, here and nowhere else, is the vestibule between the -Levant and the Tropics. Nor was it otherwise in the case of Mrs. Fay. As -she sailed southward with her husband in the pleasant autumn weather, -her thoughts dwelt on the past with irritation, on the future with hope, -but on the scenery scarcely at all. What with the boredom of Alexandria, -what with her fright at Cairo, what with the native dress that -fanaticism had compelled her to wear (“a terrible fashion for one like -me to whom fresh air seems the greatest requisite for existence”), and -finally what with Suez, which she found “a miserable place little better -than the desert which it bounds,” she quitted Egypt without one tender -word. Even her Biblical reminiscences take an embittered turn. She -forgets how glad Jacob had been to come there and only remembers how -anxious Moses and Aaron had been to get away. - -Content to have escaped, she turns her gaze within—not of course to her -own interior (she is no morbid analyst) but to the interior of the boat, -and surveys with merciless eyes her fellow-passengers. The letter that -describes them exhibits her talent, her vitality, and her trust in -Providence, and incidentally explains why she never became popular, and -why “two parties,” as she terms them, were at once formed on board, the -one party consisting of her husband and herself, the other of everyone -else. The feud, trivial at the time, was not to be without serious -consequences. “You will now expect me, my dear friends,” she begins, “to -say something of those with whom we are cooped up, but my account will -not be very satisfactory, though sufficiently interesting to us—to being -there.” - -The grammar is hazy. But the style makes all clear. - - The woman Mrs. Tulloch, of whom I entertained some suspicion - from the first, is, now I am credibly informed, one of the very - lowest creatures taken off the streets in London. She is so - perfectly depraved in disposition that her supreme delight - consists in making everybody about her miserable. It would be - doing her too much honour to stain my paper with a detail of the - various artifices she daily practises to that end. Her pretended - husband, having been in India before and giving himself many - airs, is looked upon as a person of mighty consequence whom no - one chooses to offend. Therefore madam has full scope to - exercise her mischievous talents, wherein he never controls her, - not but that he perfectly understands to make himself feared. - Coercive measures are sometimes resorted to. It is a common - expression of the lady, “Lord bless you, if I did such or such a - thing, Tulloch would make no more ado, but knock me down like an - ox.” I frequently amuse myself with examining their - countenances, where ill-nature has fixed her empire so firmly - that I scarcely believe either of them smiled except - maliciously. - - As for the captain he is a mere Jack in office. Being - unexpectedly raised to that post from second mate by the death - of poor Captain Vanderfield and his chief officer on the fatal - Desert, he has become from this circumstance so insolent and - overbearing that everyone detests him. Instead of being ready to - accommodate every person with the few necessaries left by the - plundering Arabs, he constantly appropriates them to himself. - “Where is the captain’s silver spoon? God bless my soul, Sir, - you have got my chair; must you be seated before the captain’s - glass?” and a great deal more of this same kind; but this may - serve as a specimen. And although the wretch half starves us, he - frequently makes comparisons between his table and that of an - Indiaman which we dare not contradict while in his power. - -Food is a solemn subject. Eliza was not a fastidious or an insular eater -and she would gladly sample the dishes of foreign climes. But she did -demand that those dishes should be plentiful, and that they should -nourish her, and loud are her complaints when they do not, and vigorous -the measures she takes. - - During the first fortnight of our voyage my foolish complaisance - stood in my way at table, but I soon learned our gentle maxim, - catch as catch can. The longest arm fared best, and you cannot - imagine what a good scrambler I have become. A dish once seized, - it is my care to make use of my good fortune; and now provisions - running very short, we are grown quite savages: two or three of - us perhaps fighting for a bone, for there is no respect of - persons. The wretch of a captain, wanting our passage money for - nothing, refused to lay in a sufficient quantity of stock; and - if we do not soon reach our port, what must be the consequence, - Heaven knows. - -Mr. Hare, Eliza’s chief gentleman enemy, was not dangerous at meals. It -was rather the activity of his mind that threatened her. Whenever she -writes of him, her pen is at its sharpest, it is indeed not so much a -pen as a fang. It lacerates his social pretentiousness, his snobbery, -the scorbutic blotches on his face, and his little white eyes. Poor -young Mr. Taylor once showed him a handsome silver-hilted sword. He -admired it, till he saw on the scabbard the damning inscription, “Royal -Exchange.” “Take your sword,” said he; “it’s surprising a man of your -sense should commit an error; for fifty guineas I would not have a city -name on any article of my dress.” She comments: “Now would anyone -suppose this fine gentleman’s father was in trade and he himself brought -up in that very city he affects to despise? Very true, nevertheless.” - -How, by the way, did she know that? Who told her? And, by the way, how -did she know about Mrs. Tulloch? But one must not ask such dreadful -questions. They shatter the foundations of faith. - - And so his studied attention to me in the minutest article - effectually shielded him from suspicion till his end was - answered, of raising up a party against us, by the means of that - vile woman, who was anxious to triumph over me, especially as I - have been repeatedly compelled (for the honour of the sex) to - censure her swearing and indecent behaviour. I have, therefore, - little comfort to look forward to for the remainder of the - voyage. - -Then she reckons up her allies, or rather the neutrals. They are a -feeble set. - - It is only justice to name Mr. Taylor as an amiable though - melancholy companion, and Mr. Manesty, an agreeable young man - under twenty. Mr. Fuller is a middle-aged man. He has, it seems, - fallen into the hands of sharpers and been completely pillaged. - He has the finest dark eyes I ever met with. Mr. Moreau, a - musician, is very civil and attentive. - -Small fry like these could be no help. They can scarcely have got enough -to eat at dinner. Her truer supports lay within. - - Having early discovered the confederacy, prudence determined us - to go mildly on, seemingly blind to what it was beyond our power - to remedy. Never intermeddling with their disputes, all - endeavours to draw us into quarrels are vainly exerted. I - despise them too much to be angry. - -And the letter concludes with a moving picture of home life in the Red -Sea: - - After meals I generally retire to my cabin, where I find plenty - of employment, having made up a dozen shirts for Mr. Fay out of - some cloth I purchased to replace part of those stolen by the - Arabs. Sometimes I read French or Italian and study Portuguese. - I likewise prevailed on Mr. Fay to teach me shorthand, in - consequence of the airs Mr. Hare gave himself because he was - master of this art and had taught his sisters to correspond with - him in it. The matter was very easily accomplished. In short, I - have discovered abundant methods of making my time pass usefully - and not disagreeably. How often, since in this situation, have I - blessed God that He has been pleased to endow me with a mind - capable of furnishing its own amusement, despite of all means - used to discompose it. - -Admirable too is the tone of the postscript: - - I am in tolerable health and looking with a longing eye towards - Bengal, from whence I trust my next will be dated. The climate - seems likely to agree very well with me. I do not at all mind - the heat, nor does it at all affect either my spirits or my - appetite.—Your ever affectionate E. F. - -She was to date her next not from Bengal but from prison. Here, however, -her Alexandrian audience must really have the decency to retire. Eliza -in chains is too terrible a theme. Let it suffice to say that though in -chains she remained Eliza, and that Mrs. Tulloch was enchained too; and -let those who would know more procure “The Original Letters from India -of Mrs. Eliza Fay,” published by the Calcutta Historical Society. The -book contains a portrait of our heroine, which quite fills the cup of -joy. She stands before us in the Oriental robes she detested so much, -but she has thrown back their superfluities and gazes at the world as -though seeing through its little tricks. One trousered foot is advanced, -one bangled arm is bent into an attitude of dignified defiance. Her -expression, though triumphant, is alert. She is attended in the -background by a maid-servant and a mosque. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - COTTON FROM THE OUTSIDE - - - I - -“Oh, Heaven help us! What is that dreadful noise! Run, run! Has somebody -been killed?” - -“Do not distress yourself, kind-hearted sir. It is only the merchants of -Alexandria, buying cotton.” - -“But they are murdering one another surely.” - -“Not so. They merely gesticulate.” - -“Does any place exist whence one could view their gestures in safety?” - -“There is such a place.” - -“I shall come to no bodily harm there?” - -“None, none.” - -“Then conduct me, pray.” - -And mounting to an upper chamber we looked down into a stupendous Hall. - -It is usual to compare such visions to Dante’s Inferno, but this really -did resemble it, because it was marked out into the concentric circles -of which the Florentine speaks. Divided from each other by ornamental -balustrades, they increased in torment as they decreased in size, so -that the inmost ring was congested beyond redemption with perspiring -souls. They shouted and waved and spat at each other across the central -basin which was empty but for a permanent official who sat there, fixed -in ice. Now and then he rang a little bell, and now and then another -official, who dwelt upon a ladder far away, climbed and wrote upon a -board with chalk. The merchants hit their heads and howled. A terrible -calm ensued. Something worse was coming. While it gathered we spoke. - -“Oh, name this place!” - -“It is none other than the Bourse. Cotton is sold at this end, Stocks -and Shares at that.” - -And I perceived a duplicate fabric at the farther end of the Hall, a -subsidiary or rather a superseded Hell, for its circles were deserted, -it was lashed by no everlasting wind, and such souls as loitered against -its balustrades seemed pensive in their mien. This was the Stock -Exchange—such a great name in England, but negligible here where only -cotton counts. Cotton shirts and cotton wool and reels of cotton would -not come to us if merchants did not suffer in Alexandria. Nay, -Alexandria herself could not have re-arisen from the waves, there would -be no French gardens, no English church at Bulkeley, possibly not even -any drains.... - -Help! Oh, help! help! Oh, horrible, too horrible! For the storm had -broken. With the scream of a devil in pain a stout Greek fell sideways -over the balustrade, then righted himself, then fell again, and as he -fell and rose he chanted “Teekoty Peapot, Teekoty Peapot.” He was -offering to sell cotton. Towards him, bull-shouldered, moved a lout in a -tarboosh. Everyone else screamed too, using odd little rhythms to -advertise their individuality. Some shouted unnoticed, others would -evoke a kindred soul, and right across the central pool business would -be transacted. They seemed to have evolved a new sense. They -communicated by means unknown to normal men. A wave of the note-book, -and the thing was done. And the imitation marble pillars shook, and the -ceiling that was painted to look like sculpture trembled, and Time -himself stood still in the person of a sham-renaissance clock. And a -British officer who was watching the scene said—never mind what he said. - -Hence, hence! - - - II - -My next vision is cloistral in comparison. Vision of a quiet courtyard a -mile away (Minet el Bassal), where the cotton was sold on sample. Pieces -of fluff sailed through the sunlight and stuck to my clothes. Their -source was the backs of Arabs, who were running noiselessly about, -carrying packages, and as they passed it seemed to be the proper thing -to stretch out one’s hand and to pull out a tuft of cotton, to twiddle -it, and to set it sailing. I like to think that the merchant to whom it -next stuck bought it, but this is an unbridled fancy. Let us keep to -facts, such as to the small fountain in the middle of the courtyard, -which supported a few aquatic plants, or to the genuine Oriental carpets -which were exposed for sale on the opposite wall. They lent an air of -culture, which was very pleasing. Yet, though here there was no cause -for fear, the place was even more mysterious than the Bourse. What did -it all mean? To the outsider nothing seems more capricious than the -mechanism of business. It runs smoothly when he expects it to creak, and -creaks when he expects it to be still. Considering how these same men -could howl and spit, one would have anticipated more animation over the -samples. Perhaps they sometimes showed it, but my memory is of calm -celibates in dust-coats who stood idling in the sunshine before the -doors of their cells, sipping coffee and exchanging anecdotes of a -somewhat mechanical impropriety. Very good the coffee was, too, and the -very blue sky and the keen air and the bright dresses of some natives -raised for a moment the illusion that this courtyard was actually the -academic East, and that caravans of camels were waiting with their snowy -bales outside. There were other courtyards with ramifications of -passages and offices, where the same mixture of light business and light -refreshments seemed in progress—architectural backwaters such as one -used to come across in the Earl’s Court Exhibition, where commerce and -pleasure met in a slack communion. These I did not care for, but the -main courtyard was really rather jolly, and that British officer (had he -visited it) could certainly have left his comment (whatever it was) -unspoken. - -Hence! - - - III - -In the final stage I was in the thick of it again, though in a very -different sort of thickness. Cotton was everywhere. The flakes of Minet -el Bassal had become a snowstorm, which hurtled through the air and lay -upon the ground in drifts. The cotton was being pressed into bales, and -perhaps being cleaned too—it is shocking not to be sure, but the row was -tremendous. The noise was made no longer by merchants—who seldom so far -remount the sources of their wealth—but by a certain amount of wooden -machinery and by a great many Arabs. Some of them were fighting with -masses of the stuff which was poured over them from an endless -staircase. Just as they mastered it, more would arrive and completely -bury them. They would shout with laughter and struggle, and then more -cotton would come and more, quivering from the impetus of its transit, -so that one could not tell which was vegetable, which man. They thrust -it into a pit in the flooring, upon which other Arabs danced. This was -the first stage in the pressing—exerted by the human foot with the -assistance of song. The chant rose and fell. It was better than the -chants of the Bourse, being generic not personal, and of immemorial -age—older than Hell at all events. When the Arabs had trodden the cotton -tight, up they jumped, and one of them struck the flooring with his -hand. The bottom of the pit opened in response, a sack was drawn across -by invisible agents, and the mass sank out of sight into a lower room, -where the final pressure was exerted on it by machinery. We went down to -see this and to hear the “cri du coton,” which it gives when it can -shrink no more. Metal binders were clamped round it and secured by hand, -and then the completed bale—as hard as iron and containing two or three -Arabs inside it for all I know—was tumbled away to the warehouse. - -It is difficult to speak intelligently about or against machinery, and -my comments made no great stir—_e.g._ “Why has it to be pressed?” and -“Do the different people’s cotton not get mixed?” and “What I like is, -it is so primitive.” To this last indeed it was somewhat severely -replied that the process I had viewed was anything but primitive—nay, -that it was the last word on cotton-pressing, or it would not have been -adopted at Alexandria. This was conclusive, and one can only hope that -it will be the last word for ever, and that for century after century -brown legs and rhythmic songs will greet the advancing cataracts of -snow. That peevish British officer would have forgotten his peevishness -had he come here. He would have regretted his criticism of the Bourse. -It was “A bomb in the middle of them is the only possible comment,” and -when he made it I realized that there was someone in the world even more -outside cotton than I was myself. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE DEN - - -At last I have been to a Den. The attempt was first made many years ago -in Lahore City, where my guide was a young Missionary, who wasted all -his time in liking people and making them like him. I have often -wondered what he found to convert, and what his financial backers—old -ladies in America and England—will have to say upon the results of his -labours. He had lived in the Lahore bazaars as a poor man, and as he -walked through their intricacies he explained how this became -comprehensible, and that pardonable, and that inevitable, so soon as one -drew close enough to it to understand. We did interesting things—went -into a temple as big as a cupboard where we were allowed to hold the -gods and ring the bells, visited a lawyer who was defending a client -against the charge of selling a wife—and as the afternoon closed the -Missionary said he supposed I should like to include a Den. He remarked -that a great deal of rubbish was talked about opium, and he led me to a -courtyard, round whose sides were some lean-to’s of straw. “Oh! it isn’t -working,” he said with disappointment. He peered about and pulled from a -lean-to a solitary sinner. “Look at his eyes,” he said. “I’m afraid -that’s all.” - -There my acquaintance with Vice stopped, until Egypt, the land of so -much, promised new opportunities. It would not be opium here, but -hashish, a more lurid drug. Concealed in walking-sticks, it gave -delicious dreams. So I was glad of a chance of accompanying the police -of Alexandria upon a raid. Their moral tone was superior to the -Missionary’s, but they had no better luck. Advancing stealthily upon a -fragile door they burst it open and we rushed in. We were in a passage, -open to the stars. Right and left of it, and communicating with one -another, were sheds which the police explored with their heavy shoulders -and large feet. In one of them they found a tired white horse. A -corporal climbed into the manger. “They often secrete bowls here,” he -said. At the end of the passage we came upon human life. A family was -asleep by the light of a lamp—not suspiciously asleep, but reasonably -disturbed by our irruption. The civil father was ordered to arise and -carry the lamp about, and by its light we found a hollow reed, at which -the police sniffed heavily. Traces of hashish adhered to it, they -pronounced. That was all. They were delighted with the find, for it -confirmed their official faith—that the city they controlled was almost -pure but not quite. Too much or too little would have discredited them. - -A few weeks later an Egyptian friend offered to take me round the native -quarters of the same town. We did interesting things—saw a circumcision -procession, listened to an epic recitation—and as the evening closed he -asked me whether I should like to include a Den. He thought he knew of -one. Having laid his hand on his forehead for a moment he led through -intricate streets to a door. We opened it silently and slipped in. There -was something familiar in the passage, and my forebodings were confirmed -by the sight of a white horse. I had left as an avenging angel, I was to -return as a devotee. I knew better than my friend that we should find no -hashish—not even the hollow reed, for it had been confiscated as an -exhibit to the Police Station—but I said nothing, and in due time we -disturbed the sleeping family. They were uncivil and refused to move -their lamp. My friend was disappointed. For my own part I could hardly -help being sorry for poor sin. In all the vast city was this her one -retreat? - -But outside he had an idea. He thought he knew of another Den, which was -less exposed to the onslaughts of purity since it was owned by a British -subject. We would go there. And we found the genuine article at last. It -was up a flight of stairs, down which the odour (not a disagreeable one) -floated. The proprietor—a one-eyed Maltese—battled with us at the top. -He hadn’t hashish, he cried, he didn’t know what hashish was, he hardly -knew what a room was or a house. But we got in and saw the company. -There is really nothing to say when one comes to the point. They were -just smoking. And at the present moment they don’t even smoke, for my -one and only Den has been suppressed by the police—just as his old -ladies must by now have suppressed my Missionary at Lahore. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE MOON - - -Of the three streets that dispute the honour of being Alexandria’s -premier thoroughfare the Rue Rosette undoubtedly bears the palm for -gentility. The Bond Street (I refer to Rue Chérif Pacha) is too shoppy -to be genteel, and the Boulevard de Ramleh competes from this particular -aspect not at all. In its length, its cleanliness, and the refined -monotony of its architecture, Rue Rosette outdoes either of its rivals. -They are tainted with utility: people use them to get something or -somewhere. But Rue Rosette is an end in itself. It starts in the middle -of the town and no man can tell where it stops: a goal it may have, but -not one discoverable by mortal leg. Its horizon, narrow but -uninterrupted, ever unrolls into a ribbon of blue sky above the -wayfarer’s head, and the ribbon of white beneath his feet corresponds, -and right and left of him are the houses that he thought he had passed a -quarter of an hour before. Oh, it is so dull! Its dullness is really -indescribable. What seem at first to be incidents—such as the trays of -worthies who project from the clubs—prove at a second glance to be -subdued to what they sit in. They are half asleep. For you cannot have -gentility without paying for it. - -The poor street does not want to be dull. It wants to be smart, and of a -Parisian smartness. Eternally well-dressed people driving infinitely in -either direction—that is its ideal. It is not mine, and we meet as -seldom as possible in consequence. But friends of a higher social -outlook tell me that, by a great effort, they can feel perfectly at home -in the Rue Rosette—can transform the municipal buildings into -Ministries, and the Consulates into Embassies, and arabias into -broughams, can increase the polish on the gentlemen’s boots and the -frou-frou from the ladies’ skirts, until the Rue Rosette becomes what it -yearns to be—a masterpiece by Baron Haussmann, debouching in an Arc de -Triomphe instead of a Police Station. - -I have never been able to make that effort. When fancies do come here, -they are of an older and friendlier civilization. I recall Achilles -Tatius, a bishop of the post-classical period, who wrote a somewhat -improper novel. He made his hero enter Alexandria by this very street -one thousand years ago. It was not called the Rue Rosette then, but the -Canopic Road, and it was not genteel or smart but presented throughout -its length scenes of extraordinary splendour. Beginning at the Gate of -the Sun (by the Public Gardens) it traversed the city uninterruptedly -until it reached the waters of the Harbour (near Minet el Bassal), and -here stood the Gate of the Moon, to close what the Sun had begun. The -street was lined with marble colonnades from end to end, as was the Rue -Nebi Daniel, and the point of their intersection (where one now stands -in hopeless expectation of a tram) was one of the most glorious -crossways of the ancient world. Clitophon (it was thus that the Bishop -named his hero) paused there in his walk, and looked down the four -vistas, over whose ranks rose temples and palaces and tombs, and he -tells us that the crossways bore the name of Alexander, and that the -Mausoleum close to them was Alexander’s tomb. He does not tell us more, -being in search of a female companion named Leucippe, whom he deems of -more permanent interest, but there is no reason to doubt his statements, -for Achilles Tatius himself lived here and dare not cause his characters -to lie. The passage gleams like a jewel among the amorous rubbish that -surrounds it. The vanished glory leaps up again, not in architectural -detail but as a city of the soul. There (beneath the Mosque of Nebi -Daniel) is the body of Alexander the Great. There he lies, lapped in -gold and laid in a coffin of glass. When Clitophon made his visit he had -already lain there for eight hundred years, and according to legend he -lies there still, walled into a forgotten cellar. And of this glory all -that tangibly remains is a road: the alignment of the Rue Rosette. -Christian and Arab destroyed the rest, but they could not destroy the -direction of a road. Towards the harbour they did divert it, certainly; -the great thoroughfare contracts into the Rue Sidi Metwalli and becomes -heaven knows what in the neighbourhood of the Rue des Sœurs. But in its -eastern stretch it runs with its old decision, and the limestone and -stucco still throw over it the shadows that marble once threw. - -Of the two gates there survives not even a description. They may have -been masterpieces of art, they may have been simple entrances, but they -must certainly have included shrines to the god and goddess who -respectively guarded them. No one took much notice of the shrines. -Paganism, even in the days of Clitophon and Leucippe, was dead. It is -dead, yet the twin luminaries still reign over the street and give it -what it has of beauty. In the evening the western vista can blaze with -orange and scarlet, and the eastern, having darkened, can shimmer with a -mysterious radiance, out of which, incredibly large, rises the globe of -the moon. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE SOLITARY PLACE - - -Delicate yet august, the country that stretches westward from the -expiring waters of Lake Mariout is not easy to describe. Though it -contains accredited Oriental ingredients, such as camels, a mirage, and -Bedouins, and though it remounts to a high antiquity, yet I cannot -imagine our powerful professional novelists getting to work at it, and -extracting from its quiet recesses hot tales about mummies and sin. Its -basis is a soft limestone, which rises on the seaward side into two -well-defined and parallel ridges, and swells inland into gentle hills -whose outlines and colouring often suggest a Scotch moor: the whole -district has a marked tendency to go purple, especially in its -hollows—into that sombre brownish purple that may be caused by moorland -growths. Many of the bushes are like flowerless heather. In the lower -ground barley is cultivated, and depends for its success upon an -occasional violent thunderstorm which shall swill a sudden torrent off -the hills. The ancients cultivated vines and olives here too, as the -remains of their presses prove, and Cleopatra had a garden here, but -from such luxuries the soil has desisted. It has beat a general retreat -from civilization, and the spirit of the place, without being savage, is -singularly austere. Its chief episode is the great temple of Abousir, -which with its attendant beacon-tower stands so magnificently upon the -coastal ridge. And inland lie the marble basilicas of St. Menas and his -holy well. But these apart, there is nothing to catch the attention. The -tents of the Bedouins, so Mongolian in outline, seldom cut the lines of -the sky, but blend in colour with the stone, against which they crouch. -The quarries, vast and romantic, lie hidden in the flanks of the -limestone. They do not play the part that a chalk-pit does in the -landscape of the Sussex downs. The place is not a wilderness, it is a -working concern. But it is essentially solitary, and only once a year -does it, for a brief space, put its solitude away, and blossom. - -There is nothing there of the ordered progress of the English spring, -with its slow extension from wood-anemones through primroses into the -buttercups of June. The flowers come all of a rush. One week there is -nothing but spikes and buds, then the temperature rises or the wind -drops, and whole tracts turn lilac or scarlet. They scarcely wait for -their leaves, they are in such a hurry, and many of them blossom like -little footstools, close to the ground. They do not keep their times. -They scarcely keep their places, and you may look in vain for them this -season where you found them last. There is a certain tract of yellow -marigolds that I suspect of migration. One year it was in a quarry, the -next by the railway line, now it has flown a distance of five and a half -miles and unfolded its carpet on the slopes beneath Abousir. All is -confusion and hurry. The white tassels of garlic that wave in the shadow -of the temple may be fallen to-morrow, the blue buds of the borage never -have time to unfold. The pageant passes like the waving of a -handkerchief, but in compensation without the lumber that attends the -passing of an English spring, no stalks and reluctant exits of half-dead -leaves. As it came, so it goes. It has been more like a ray of coloured -light playing on the earth than the work of the earth herself, and if -one had not picked a few of the flowers and entombed them in vases upon -an Alexandrian mantelpiece, they could seem afterwards like the growths -of a dream. - -It would require a botanist to do justice to these flowers, but -fortunately there is no occasion to do justice to flowers. They are not -Government officials. Let their titles and duties remain for the most -part unknown. The most permanent of them are, oddly enough, the -asphodels, whose coarse stems and turbid venous blossoms have -disappointed many who dreamt of the Elysian Fields. How came the Greeks -to plant so buxom a bulb in the solitary place they imagined beyond the -grave—that place which though full of philosophers and charioteers -remains for ever empty? The asphodel is built to resist rough winds and -to stand on the slopes of an earthly hill. It is too heavy for the hands -of ghosts, too harsh for their feet, but perhaps ours were not the -asphodels the Greeks planted, and their ghosts may have walked upon what -we call Stars of Bethlehem. The marigolds are solid too, but for the -most part the flora are very delicate, and their colours aerial. There -is a tiny vetch that hesitates between terracotta and claret. There is a -scented yellow flower the size of flax which is only found in one part -of the district and which closes in the evening when the irises unfold. -Two of these irises are dwarf, and coloured purple and deep blue; at -third is larger and china blue. There are tracts of night-scented stock. -Down in the quarries grows a rock plant with a dull red spire and a -fleshy leaf that almost adheres to the stone. As for the shrubs, some -have transparent joints that look filled with wine; while from the -woolly fibre of others jut buttons like a blue scabious. Other blue -plants wave their heads in the barley. Mignonette, purple and white -anemones, scarlet and yellow ranunculus, scarlet poppies, coltsfoot and -dwarf orange marigolds, nettles genuine and false, henbane, mallows, -celandine, hen and chickens, lords and ladies, convolvulus. English -daisies I do not remember. And many of these flowers are not the -varieties we know in England. The lords and ladies, for instance, are -smaller and thrust up their pale green spoons in the open ground. While, -to compensate, there is a larger kind—an arum of great size with a -coal-black sheath and clapper—a positively Satanic plant, such as Des -Esseintes would have commanded for his conservatory. In this way, just -here and there, the tropic note is struck, and reminds us that these -familiar and semi-familiar flowers are after all growing in Africa, and -that those swelling hills stretch southwards towards the heart of the -dark continent. - -But what impresses one most in the scene is the quiet persistence of the -earth. There is so little soil about and she does so much with it. Year -after year she has given this extraordinary show to a few Bedouins, has -covered the Mareotic civilization with dust and raised flowers from its -shards. Will she do the same to our own tins and barbed wire? Probably -not, for man has now got so far ahead of other forms of life that he -will scarcely permit the flowers to grow over his works again. His old -tins will be buried under new tins. This is the triumph of civilization, -I suppose, the final imprint of the human upon this devoted planet, -which should exhibit in its apotheosis a solid crust of machinery and -graves. In cities one sees this development coming, but in solitary -places, however austere, the primæval softness persists, the vegetation -still flowers and seeds unchecked, and the air still blows untainted hot -from the land or cold from the sea. I have tried to describe this -Mariout country as it is at the beginning of March, when the earth makes -her great effort. In a few days the wind may scratch and tear the -blossoms, in a few weeks the sun will scorch the leaves. The spongeous -red growth of the ice-plant endures longest and further empurples the -hills. This too will dry up and the bones of the limestone reappear. -Then all will be quiet till the first winter rain, when the camels will -be driven out to surface-plough. A rectangle is outlined on the soil and -scattered with seed barley. Then the camel will shuffle up and down -dragging after him a wooden plough that looks like a half-open penknife, -and the Bedouin, guiding it, will sing tunes to the camel that he can -only sing to the camel, because in his mind the tune and the camel are -the same thing. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE POETRY OF C. P. CAVAFY - - -Modern Alexandria is scarcely a city of the soul. Founded upon cotton -with the concurrence of onions and eggs, ill built, ill planned, ill -drained—many hard things can be said against it, and most are said by -its inhabitants. Yet to some of them, as they traverse the streets, a -delightful experience can occur. They hear their own name proclaimed in -firm yet meditative accents—accents that seem not so much to expect an -answer as to pay homage to the fact of individuality. They turn and see -a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a -slight angle to the universe. His arms are extended, possibly. “Oh, -Cavafy...!” Yes, it is Mr. Cavafy, and he is going either from his flat -to the office, or from his office to the flat. If the former, he -vanishes when seen, with a slight gesture of despair. If the latter, he -may be prevailed upon to begin a sentence—an immense complicated yet -shapely sentence, full of parentheses that never get mixed and of -reservations that really do reserve; a sentence that moves with logic to -its foreseen end, yet to an end that is always more vivid and thrilling -than one foresaw. Sometimes the sentence is finished in the street, -sometimes the traffic murders it, sometimes it lasts into the flat. It -deals with the tricky behaviour of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus in 1096, -or with olives, their possibilities and price, or with the fortunes of -friends, or George Eliot, or the dialects of the interior of Asia Minor. -It is delivered with equal ease in Greek, English, or French. And -despite its intellectual richness and human outlook, despite the matured -charity of its judgments, one feels that it too stands at a slight angle -to the universe: it is the sentence of a poet. - -A Greek who wishes to compose poetry has a special problem; between his -written and spoken language yawns a gulf. There is an artificial -“literary” jargon beloved by schoolmasters and journalists, which has -tried to revive the classical tradition, and which only succeeds in -being dull. And there is the speech of the people, varying from place to -place, and everywhere stuffed with non-Hellenic constructions and words. -Can this speech be used for poetry and for cultivated prose? The younger -generation believes that it can. A society (Nea Zoe) was started in -Alexandria to encourage it, and shocks the stodgy not only by its -writings but by its vocabulary—expressions are used that one might -actually hear in a shop. Similar movements are born and die all over the -Levant, from Smyrna and Cyprus to Jannina, all testifying to the zeal of -a race who, alone among the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean, appear -to possess the literary sense and to desire that words should be alive. -Cavafy is one of the heroes of this movement, though not one of its -extremists. Eclectic by nature, he sees that a new theory might be as -sterile as the old, and that the final test must be the incommunicable -one of taste. His own poems are in Demotic, but in moderate Demotic. - -They are all short poems, and unrhymed, so that there is some hope of -conveying them in a verbal translation. They reveal a beautiful and -curious world. It comes into being through the world of experience, but -it is not experience, for the poet is even more incapable than most -people of seeing straight: - - Here let me stand. Let me too look at Nature a little, - the radiant blue of the morning sea, - the cloudless sky and the yellow beach; - all beautiful and flooded with light. - Here let me stand. And let me deceive myself into thinking that I saw - them— - (I really did see them one moment, when first I came) - —that I am not seeing, even here, my fancies, - my memories, my visions of voluptuousness. - -It is the world within. And since the poet cannot hope to escape from -this world, he should at all costs arrange and rule it sensibly. “My -mind to me a kingdom is,” sang the Elizabethan, and so is Cavafy’s; but -his is a real, not a conventional, kingdom, in which there may be -mutinies and war. In “The City” he sketches the tragedy of one who -misgoverned, and who hopes to leave the chaos behind him and to “build -another city, better than this.” Useless! - - The city shall ever follow you. - In these same streets you shall wander, - and in the same purlieux you shall roam, - and in the same house you shall grow grey.... - There is no ship to take you to other lands, there is no road. - You have so shattered your life here, in this small corner, - that in all the world you have ruined it. - -And in “Ithaca” he sketches another and a nobler tragedy—that of a man -who seeks loftily, and finds at the end that the goal has not been worth -the effort. Such a man should not lament. He has not failed really. - - Ithaca gave you your fair voyage. - Without her you would not have ventured on the way, - but she has no more to give you. - - And if you find Ithaca a poor place, she has not mocked you. - - You have become so wise, so full of experience, - that you should understand by now what these Ithacas mean. - -The above extracts illustrate one of Cavafy’s moods—intensely -subjective; scenery, cities and legends all re-emerge in terms of the -mind. There is another mood in which he stands apart from his -subject-matter, and with the detachment of an artist hammers it into -shape. The historian comes to the front now, and it is interesting to -note how different is his history from an Englishman’s. He even looks -back upon a different Greece. Athens and Sparta, so drubbed into us at -school, are to him two quarrelsome little slave states, ephemeral beside -the Hellenistic kingdoms that followed them, just as these are ephemeral -beside the secular empire of Constantinople. He reacts against the -tyranny of Classicism—Pericles and Aspasia and Themistocles and all -those bores. Alexandria, his birthplace, came into being just when -Public School Greece decayed; kings, emperors, patriarchs have trodden -the ground between his office and his flat; his literary ancestor—if he -has one—is Callimachus, and his poems bear such titles as “The -Displeasure of the Seleucid,” “In the Month of Athyr,” “Manuel -Comnenus,” and are prefaced by quotations from Philostratus or Lucian. - -Two of these poems shall be quoted in full, to illustrate his method.[2] -In the first he adopts the precise, almost mincing style of a chronicle -to build up his effect. It is called “Alexandrian Kings” and deals with -an episode of the reign of Cleopatra and Antony. - -Footnote 2: - - A third is on page 56. - - An Alexandrian crowd collected - to see the sons of Cleopatra, - Cæsarion and his little brothers - Alexander and Ptolemy, who for the first - time were brought to the Gymnasium, - there to be crowned as kings - amidst a splendid display of troops. - - Alexander they named king - of Armenia, of Media, and of the Parthians. - Ptolemy they named king - of Cilicia, of Syria, and Phœnicia. - Cæsarion stood a little in front, - clad in silk the colour of roses, - with a bunch of hyacinths at his breast. - His belt was a double line of sapphires and amethysts, - his sandals were bound with white ribbons - embroidered with rosy pearls. - Him they acclaimed more than the small ones. - Him they named “King of Kings!” - - The Alexandrians knew perfectly well - that all this was words and empty pomp. - - But the day was warm and exquisite, - the sky clear and blue, - the Gymnasium of Alexandria a triumph of art, - the courtiers’ apparel magnificent, - Cæsarion full of grace and beauty - (son of Cleopatra, blood of the Lagidæ!), - and the Alexandrians ran to see the show - and grew enthusiastic, and applauded - in Greek, in Egyptian, and some in Hebrew, - bewitched with the beautiful spectacle, - though they knew perfectly well how worthless, - what empty words, were these king-makings. - -Such a poem has, even in a translation, a “distinguished” air. It is the -work of an artist who is not interested in facile beauty. In the second -example, though its subject-matter is pathetic, Cavafy stands equally -aloof. The poem is broken into half-lines; he is spelling out an epitaph -on a young man who died in the month of Athyr, the ancient Egyptian -November, and he would convey the obscurity, the poignancy, that -sometimes arise together out of the past, entwined into a single ghost: - - It is hard to read ... on the ancient stone. - “Lord Jesus Christ” ... I make out the word “Soul.” - “In the month of Athyr ... Lucius fell asleep.” - His age is mentioned ... “He lived years....”— - The letters KZ show ... that he fell asleep young. - In the damaged part I see the words ... “Him ... Alexandrian.” - Then come three lines ... much mutilated. - But I can read a few words ... perhaps “our tears” and “sorrows.” - And again: “Tears” ... and: “for us his friends mourning.” - I think Lucius ... was much beloved. - In the month of Athyr ... Lucius fell asleep.... - -Such a writer can never be popular. He flies both too slowly and too -high. Whether subjective or objective, he is equally remote from the -bustle of the moment, he will never compose either a Royalist or a -Venizelist Hymn. He has the strength (and of course the limitations) of -the recluse, who, though not afraid of the world, always stands at a -slight angle to it, and, in conversation, he has sometimes devoted a -sentence to this subject. Which is better—the world or seclusion? -Cavafy, who has tried both, can’t say. But so much is certain—either -life entails courage, or it ceases to be life. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONCLUSION - - -A serious history of Alexandria has yet to be written, and perhaps the -foregoing sketches may have indicated how varied, how impressive, such a -history might be. After the fashion of a pageant it might marshal the -activities of two thousand two hundred and fifty years. But unlike a -pageant it would have to conclude dully. Alas! The modern city calls for -no enthusiastic comment. Its material prosperity seems assured, but -little progress can be discerned elsewhere, while as for the past such -links as remain are being wantonly snapped: for instance, the -Municipality has altered the name of the Rue Rosette to the meaningless -Rue Fouad Premier, and has destroyed a charming covered Bazaar near the -Rue de France, and out at Canopus the British Army of Occupation has -done its bit by breaking up the Ptolemaic ruins to make roads. -Everything passes, or almost everything. Only the climate, only the -north wind and the sea remain as they were when Menelaus, the first -visitor, landed upon Ras el Tin, and exacted from Proteus the promise of -life everlasting. He was to escape death, on his wife’s account: he was -not to descend into the asphodel with the other shades whom Hermes -conducts, himself a shade. Immortal, yet somehow or other -unsatisfactory, Menelaus accordingly leads the Alexandrian pageant with -solid tread; cotton-brokers conclude it; the intermediate space is -thronged with phantoms, noiseless, insubstantial, innumerable, but not -without interest for the historian. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS - - -LEONID ANDREEV. The Dark 2s. net. - -CLIVE BELL. Poems 2s. 6d. net. - -IVAN BUNIN. The Gentleman from San Francisco and other stories 4s. net. - -F. DOSTOEVSKY. Stavrogin’s Confession, &c. 6s. net. - -T. S. ELIOT. Poems _Out of print._ - -E. M. FORSTER. The Story of the Siren _Out of print._ - -ROGER FRY. Twelve Original Woodcuts. Third impression 5s. net. - -MAXIM GORKY. Reminiscences of Tolstoi. Second edition 5s. net. - -RUTH MANNING-SANDERS. 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