And near the Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in
the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature
is, but the comeliness is not of this world; the once worshiped beast
is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see
that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some
ancient mold of beauty--some mold of beauty now forgotten--forgotten
because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the
Ægean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law
among men that the short and proudly wreathed lip should stand for the
sign and the main condition of loveliness through all generations to
come. Yet still there lives on the race of those who were beautiful in
the fashion of the elder world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood
will look on you with the sad, serious gaze, and kiss your charitable
hand with the big pouting lips of the very Sphinx.
[Footnote 15: From "Eothen," which long since took its place as a
classic among books of travel.]
Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye
this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears
awful semblance of Deity--unchangefulness in the midst of changes--the
same seeming will and intent for ever and ever inexorable! Upon
ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings--upon Greek and
Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors--upon Napoleon dreaming of an
Eastern empire--upon battle and pestilence--upon the ceaseless misery
of the Egyptian race--upon keen-eyed travelers--Herodotus yesterday,
and Warburton to-day--upon all and more this unworldly Sphinx has
watched, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and
the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will
wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to hold his loved
India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the
seats of the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching
and watching the works of the new busy race, with those same sad
earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not
mock at the Sphinx!