DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0090
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
meanness, our animal-worship and a thousand petty trifles
hinder us - not one only: the geographical obstacle. It is not
enough to have been born five thousand years ago and to
have a dark skin. It is a question of conventions. There are
no such conventions; but there well might be. They are
conceivable; they are not African alone, but perfectly good
European as well.
Again, as always in this hall, we have a feeling that we
cannot express, but which also crossed our minds at the
pyramids and in front of the reliefs at Sakkara. Everything
in ancient Egypt, in fact, speaks to us in the same way. This
beauty is part of us, belongs to us, and to my mind is the
possession of our dreams. There we belong to this Family.
Without our willing it our minds run on when we stand
before this group. It has long ceased to be art and has be-
come human. We have embarked on a conversation without
words, an intimacy of a serious sort — not the sort that leads
to a comfortable, happy-go-lucky relationship. Our inter-
course, though easy, is more finely wrought. There is no
idle toying, but a determination to improve our form and
realize our dream.
Such a relationship, of course, becomes feasible only in
the realm of literature and art, in the cheerful presence of
enlightened people who can appreciate such a dream and
disengage it from the tangle of existence. We can hardly
expect such things at present, seeing that we regard such a
search as comic and almost indecent and seeing that we hardly
dare hope to recover any general belief in the value of the
urbane from the obstinate loneliness of our personal existence.
Part of its value came from the time and place and the con-
gregation of many kindred spirits. So it happened that I
remembered the most urbane community that Europe has
ever produced: Paris. Oh no, not the Parisian Messieurs.
They have none of the frank gaze of the uncontaminated
youth of the fifth dynasty. Nor indeed Parisian women;
78
meanness, our animal-worship and a thousand petty trifles
hinder us - not one only: the geographical obstacle. It is not
enough to have been born five thousand years ago and to
have a dark skin. It is a question of conventions. There are
no such conventions; but there well might be. They are
conceivable; they are not African alone, but perfectly good
European as well.
Again, as always in this hall, we have a feeling that we
cannot express, but which also crossed our minds at the
pyramids and in front of the reliefs at Sakkara. Everything
in ancient Egypt, in fact, speaks to us in the same way. This
beauty is part of us, belongs to us, and to my mind is the
possession of our dreams. There we belong to this Family.
Without our willing it our minds run on when we stand
before this group. It has long ceased to be art and has be-
come human. We have embarked on a conversation without
words, an intimacy of a serious sort — not the sort that leads
to a comfortable, happy-go-lucky relationship. Our inter-
course, though easy, is more finely wrought. There is no
idle toying, but a determination to improve our form and
realize our dream.
Such a relationship, of course, becomes feasible only in
the realm of literature and art, in the cheerful presence of
enlightened people who can appreciate such a dream and
disengage it from the tangle of existence. We can hardly
expect such things at present, seeing that we regard such a
search as comic and almost indecent and seeing that we hardly
dare hope to recover any general belief in the value of the
urbane from the obstinate loneliness of our personal existence.
Part of its value came from the time and place and the con-
gregation of many kindred spirits. So it happened that I
remembered the most urbane community that Europe has
ever produced: Paris. Oh no, not the Parisian Messieurs.
They have none of the frank gaze of the uncontaminated
youth of the fifth dynasty. Nor indeed Parisian women;
78