Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/76

 to read a page written in an Indo-European language, from Sanskrit to Keltic, without coming across some kind of dialectic process of which I do not remember a single trace in an Egyptian text.

Art.

But if the Egyptian mind must be considered as inferior in some branches of intellectual development, the world of Art, not indeed in its full extent, but in many aspects, ranging from mere elegance and prettiness to real beauty and sublimity, was revealed to it at a very early period indeed. Those who know Egyptian art only through our northern museums can have no adequate conception of what it really is or was. Almost all the objects in our museums have suffered by frequent locomotion, atmospheric influences, or other deleterious causes. You should see the freshness of the articles contained in the museum at Bulaq, which seem to have just come from the hand of the artist, or inspect some of the tombs which have not yet suffered from the vandalism of the moderns, or see the magnificent temples whose ruins have as yet escaped destruction. But, even on the spot, imagination must come to our aid if the past has to be realized.

Many of us have seen the Pyramids, and, as Dean Stanley says, "One is inclined to imagine that the Pyramids are immutable, and that such as you see them