DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0129
AND LOWER EGYl'T. 103
have fiat terrace roofs : they have no windows,
and the apertures which supply their place are al-
most entirely obstructed by a wooden lattice pro-
jecting, of various form, and so close, that the light
can hardly force a passage. In those countries,
more than any where else, such inventions, which
transform a mansion into a prison, are real jalousies
(jealousies, window-blinds). It is through this
grate of iron or wood, sometimes of elegant con-
struction, that beauty is permitted to see what is
passing without, but eternally deprived of the pri-
vilege of being seen ; it is in this state of hopeless
seclusion that, far from receiving the homage which
nature demands to be paid to it by every being
possessed of sensibility, it meets only contempt
and outrage ; it is there, in a word, that one part
of the human race, abusing the odious right of the
more powerful, retains in degrading servitude the
other part, whose charms alone ought to have had
the power to soften both the ruggedness of the soil
and the ferocity of their tyrants.
Narrowand awkwardlydisposed streets are with-
out pavement as without police; no public edifice,
no private building arrests the eye of the traveller,
and, on the supposition that the fragments of the
old city had not attracted his attention, he would
find no object in the present one that could supply
H 4 matter
have fiat terrace roofs : they have no windows,
and the apertures which supply their place are al-
most entirely obstructed by a wooden lattice pro-
jecting, of various form, and so close, that the light
can hardly force a passage. In those countries,
more than any where else, such inventions, which
transform a mansion into a prison, are real jalousies
(jealousies, window-blinds). It is through this
grate of iron or wood, sometimes of elegant con-
struction, that beauty is permitted to see what is
passing without, but eternally deprived of the pri-
vilege of being seen ; it is in this state of hopeless
seclusion that, far from receiving the homage which
nature demands to be paid to it by every being
possessed of sensibility, it meets only contempt
and outrage ; it is there, in a word, that one part
of the human race, abusing the odious right of the
more powerful, retains in degrading servitude the
other part, whose charms alone ought to have had
the power to soften both the ruggedness of the soil
and the ferocity of their tyrants.
Narrowand awkwardlydisposed streets are with-
out pavement as without police; no public edifice,
no private building arrests the eye of the traveller,
and, on the supposition that the fragments of the
old city had not attracted his attention, he would
find no object in the present one that could supply
H 4 matter