Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

Preface. xiii

analogy, if it be real, the chief qualification
requisite is a certain patience in collating and
analyzing the results which others have
obtained in their respective departments of
knowledge. But to call it into existence if not
already latent; to construct in imagination the
path of the just, and to express it in terms of
the motions of light; to portray the mystery of
the depths unseen by the mystery of the visible
heavens, to shadow forth the features of light
in the passages of profoundest darkness, and
its motions in a building; which for ages has
remained immutable, that were an intellectual
masterpiece which surely demands nothing less
than a creative genius of the very loftiest
order. So majestic is the outline of the con-
ception as it rises solemnly on the view, so
sublime is every feature of the prospect, now
defining, now transcending, the utmost limits
of space and time ; with such graduated
measure, yet such overwhelming splendour,
does it illuminate mystery after mystery of