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I find a sweetness in the aching dreariness of Sabbath afternoons in genteel suburbs in the evil-laden desolateness of waste places by the river, when the yellow fog is stealing inland across the ooze and mud, and the black tide gurgles softly round worm-eaten piles.
It is not, however, my province to attempt this. I must content myself with narrating what I see. First, there is the river, flowing very rapidly upon a bed of large shingle, with alternate rapids and smooth places, constantly forking and constantly reuniting itself like tangled skeins of silver ribbon surrounding lozenge-shaped islets of sand and gravel.
Before the destruction of the heathen sanctuaries it had been a temple of Imhotep, the Egyptian Esculapius, the beneficient god of healing, who had had his places of special worship even in the city of the dead. It was half relined, half buried in desert sand when an enterprising inn-keeper had bought the elegant structure with the adjacent grove for a very moderate sum.
And to Migwan studying history meant not merely the memorizing of a number of facts attached to dates which might or might not stay in her mind at the crucial time; it was the bringing to life of bygone races and people, and putting herself in their places, and living along with them the events described on the pages.
'There is but one such man in these places, answered the witch, 'whom the men of the outer world, unknowing his loftier attributes and more secret fame, call Arbaces the Egyptian: to us of a higher nature and deeper knowledge, his rightful appellation is Hermes of the Burning Girdle. 'Look again, returned Arbaces: 'I am he.
At many places the soil was rich and black for six or seven feet deep, showing its wonderful agricultural properties, while here and there the alkali deposits seemed like frost work. The storms had eaten some of the massive cliffs into forms of castles and there were galleries of arches and columns sculptured by the rain, stretching for miles on either side.
Tall lighted candles draped with crape surrounded him, and the solemn chant had been going on around him ever since life had become extinct. The dead in Russia are never left alone or in the dark. Relays of singing priests take the places of those who are weary, and friends keep watch in an adjoining room.
I am not well off, but I would offer or his agent £1000, if either of them would live one week in one of these poor devil's places, and feed as these people do.
Class hatred, discontent, wild extravagance in some places, children starving in others, women mad for pleasure, and the dead forgotten already except by the mothers the mothers who never to their dying day will see a fresh-faced boy without a sword piercing their hearts and a cry rising to their lips, 'My son! My son!"
In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places in a man above all, if you should find a whole family living together on such pleasant terms you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind that you can do perfectly well without the rest; and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.
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