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Meier-Graefe, Julius
Pyramid and temple — London, 1931

DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0122
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PYRAMID AND TEMPLE

would be safe from desecration, and their tackle would long
ago have changed the face of the countryside. But that’s
quite another thing, they say; one can be a patriot without
taking an interest in art. Really they are interested in nothing
but cotton; and the question arises as to whether people with
such limited aims have any right to own a country. The
dualism of ancient and modern Egypt strikes me as hardly
less unnatural than the English regime. The difference
between an Egyptian caftan and the tartan kilt of the
Scottish garrison is superficial: merely a species of artistic
curiosity.

At times the patriots make us feel that they cherish an
invincible aversion for the things we adore. Simply because
we adore them, they will not. An honest fanatic said to me
quite frankly: ‘But for these things we should have fewer
foreigners in Cairo; I should have no objection to shipping
them all off to Europe.’ There was something in his tone
that perplexed me. This fanatic was not prepared to sacrifice
the little red house; but afterwards he proposed as a bargain
to surrender Gizeh, Sakkara, and the Cairo Museum in
return for ten thousand popular schools. Naturally we were
to provide the personnel of these schools along with the
other equipment; so he didn’t really want to be quit of Europe.
I saw our chance and offered him all the masters and school-
books of the Prussian regime, and was even prepared to
throw in a couple of thousand obsolete sergeant-majors and
generals. The inconsistency escaped him, and he was
obviously beaten. Elis fanaticism wore thin and turned into
moral enthusiasm; I advised him to try Bolshevism.

Only among the people, if anywhere, are there some
traces of the old order: among the fellaheen and the Nubians,
who look fantastically like the limestone-people now and
then, and perhaps really are like them. Indefinable traces of
the Arab, and, among the Copts, of Christianity remain
untouched. Meyerhof, the eye-specialist and orientalist, has

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