DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0025
THE SUN
tiresome episode in the bazaar. I too deplored his obstinate
preference for the Arab quarter of Cairo; but it seemed
hardly fair to harass him with our dislike of mosques, which
must have been unintelligible to his Moslem instincts, and
which in any case was not shared by most foreigners.
It’s quite alarming. I often wish it were a thing of the
past, a mere memory: no longer that burning ball in the sky,
but a part of my life and experience. For it eludes us, for
all that it is perpetually shining upon our skins, there under
our very noses. It eludes us, because a thousand stupid
trifles are always distracting us; because Ibrahim turns out
after all not to be the true servant of the sun, but a greedy
dragoman; because we are restless and flighty, incapable of,
fundamentally unequal to letting the rays penetrate us and
melt that last fragment of northern ice, that relic of chilly
Europeanism, that allows us only to warm our skins. One
ought to embrace the outside world within oneself, even if
it thereby ceases to be the outside world. An imaginary, an
artificial sun, then, instead of the real one? I suppose so; for
if one is susceptible to nothing but pure physiological
effects, one may as well go and hang oneself. The most
rational cure for spiritual ailments would be to pack off
home as quickly as possible.
Perhaps one’s fancy only takes this turn if one has been
blind or obliged to sit without legs. When one first dis-
covers the use of one’s new limbs there’s no telling what one
may not call a nine days’ wonder.
The importance of natural obstacles must not be under-
rated. We may freeze after sunning ourselves, but in spite
of the cold outside we are capable of warming ourselves
inside. 1'his capacity is responsible for all sorts of activities.
A good deal of religion and civilization and culture hangs
by the stove; and also the tastiest part of reason, it goes
without saying. In point of fact, Ibrahim is a dragoman and
not a sun-worshipper at all. I admit it. At all events an
19
tiresome episode in the bazaar. I too deplored his obstinate
preference for the Arab quarter of Cairo; but it seemed
hardly fair to harass him with our dislike of mosques, which
must have been unintelligible to his Moslem instincts, and
which in any case was not shared by most foreigners.
It’s quite alarming. I often wish it were a thing of the
past, a mere memory: no longer that burning ball in the sky,
but a part of my life and experience. For it eludes us, for
all that it is perpetually shining upon our skins, there under
our very noses. It eludes us, because a thousand stupid
trifles are always distracting us; because Ibrahim turns out
after all not to be the true servant of the sun, but a greedy
dragoman; because we are restless and flighty, incapable of,
fundamentally unequal to letting the rays penetrate us and
melt that last fragment of northern ice, that relic of chilly
Europeanism, that allows us only to warm our skins. One
ought to embrace the outside world within oneself, even if
it thereby ceases to be the outside world. An imaginary, an
artificial sun, then, instead of the real one? I suppose so; for
if one is susceptible to nothing but pure physiological
effects, one may as well go and hang oneself. The most
rational cure for spiritual ailments would be to pack off
home as quickly as possible.
Perhaps one’s fancy only takes this turn if one has been
blind or obliged to sit without legs. When one first dis-
covers the use of one’s new limbs there’s no telling what one
may not call a nine days’ wonder.
The importance of natural obstacles must not be under-
rated. We may freeze after sunning ourselves, but in spite
of the cold outside we are capable of warming ourselves
inside. 1'his capacity is responsible for all sorts of activities.
A good deal of religion and civilization and culture hangs
by the stove; and also the tastiest part of reason, it goes
without saying. In point of fact, Ibrahim is a dragoman and
not a sun-worshipper at all. I admit it. At all events an
19