is a deformity and a monster to this generation; and yet you can see
that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some
ancient mould of beauty, now forgotten,--forgotten because that Greece
drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Aegean, and in her
image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the
short and proudly wreathed lip should stand for the sign and main
condition of loveliness through all generations to come. Yet still
lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the
elder world; and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with
the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your charitable hand with the big,
pouting lips of the very Sphinx.
"Laugh and mock, if you will, at the worship of stone idols; but mark
ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears
awful semblance of Deity,--unchangefulness in the midst of change,--the
same seeming will and intent, forever and forever inexorable. Upon
ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings,--upon Greek and
Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors,--upon Napoleon dreaming of an
Eastern empire,--upon battle and pestilence,--upon the ceaseless misery
of the Egyptian race,--upon keen-eyed travellers,--Herodotus yesterday,
Warbarton to-day,--upon all, and more, this unworldly Sphinx has
watched and watched like a Providence, with the same earnest eyes, and
the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, we shall die; and Islam will
wither away; and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved
India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the
seats of the Faithful; and still that sleepless rock will lie watching
and watching the works of the new, busy race, with those same sad,
earnest eyes, and that same tranquil mien, everlasting. You dare not
mock at the Sphinx!"
Not less stupendously placid than the Sphinx, and even grimmer in his
remoteness from the places that have heard Messiah's name, is the
Boodh, throned in trance, and multitudinously worshipped. Shall I tell
you how I first beheld him in his glory?
We were approaching some sacred caves in Burmah. Lighting our torches,
and each man taking one, we mounted the steep, tortuous, and slippery
foot-path of damp, green stones, through the thorny shrubs that beset
it, to the low entrance to the outer cavern. Stooping uncomfortably, we
passed into a small, vacant antechamber, having a low, dripping roof,
perpendicular walls, clammy and green, and a rocky floor, sloping
inward through a narrow arch to a long, double, transverse gallery,
divided in the direction of its length, partly by a face of rock,
partly by a row of pillars. Here were innumerable images of Guadma, the
counterfeit presentment of the Fourth Boodh, whose successor is to see
the end of all things,--innumerable, and of every stature, from
Hop-o'-my-thumbs to Hurlo-thrombos, but all of the identical orthodox
pattern,--with pendulous ears, one hand planted squarely on the knee,
the other sleeping in the lap, an eternity of front face, and a smooth
stagnancy of expression, typical of an unfathomable calm,--the Guadma
of a span as grim as he of ten cubits, and he of ten cubits as vacant
as the Guadma of a span,--of stone, of lead, of wood, of clay, of
earthenware and alabaster,--on their bottoms, on their heads, on their
backs, on their sides, on their faces,--black, white, red, yellow,--an
eye gone, a nose gone, an ear gone, a head gone,--an arm off at the
shoulder, a leg at the knee,--a back split, a bosom burst,--Guadma,
imperturbable, eternal, calm,--in the midst of time, timeless! It is
not annihilation which the Boodh has promised, as the blessed crown of
a myriad of progressive transmigrations; it is not Death; it is not