its paws. The text of this stele was in the form of an official inscription.

It stated that, while Thothmes IV was a prince without expectations of the succession, he had been in the habit of shooting and racing with two or three boon companions in the desert behind the Pyramids. One day he fell asleep in the shadow of the Sphinx, which, as the deity Harmackhis, appeared to him in a dream. Harmackhis complained of the sand that weighed heavy on him, and, foretelling that Thothmes would become king of Egypt, asked him when he ascended the throne to free his image from this burden and reëndow it with the offerings that were made to it in former times. The text breaks off here, but manifestly it goes on to state that the wishes of the deity were complied with. For many years this text was held to be a fairy tale created by the priests for mercenary motives, and no proof was available of Thothmes having done what the text attributed to him. One of the great results of the work executed this winter by Mr. Baraize has been to prove that the Sphinx was actually restored by Thothmes IV, and the story recorded on the stele must therefore take its place in the history of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

From the Roman restoration, circa 100 B.C., until the beginning of the nineteenth century the Sphinx appears to have been entirely neglected. The original limestone casing which Thothmes and the Ptolemies restored was in part taken away for building materials or for burning for lime. Thus the shoulders, neck, and head became more and more exposed, and serious erosion was set up by the wind-driven sand. In 1853 Mariette Pasha and in 1886 M. Maspero cleared the area immediately in front of it, but like Caveglia they effected no important repairs. After 1886 sand again silted up the monument, until latterly only the head

and shoulders could be seen. In addition, pieces began to fall from the head. The beard had already disappeared long ago. Soon after the last excavation part of the headdress fell off, and a more recent examination showed that the drifting sand had made such an inroad into the back of the neck that it was evident that before long the great weight of the head might cause it to break loose and topple over forward.

Confronted with this report, Monsieur Lacau, the head of the Antiquities Service, decided that no further time must be lost in taking steps to prevent a disaster the occurence of which would have aroused world-wide indignation. Conferences of the leading authorities on the spot were held. The process to be followed in the matter of consolidation was exhaustively discussed, and it was decided to clear the Sphinx of its sand covering and execute all the necessary repair work without in any way touching the original design or altering the proportions of the figure, the work being entrusted to Mr. Baraize, an archæologist and engineer with long experience of restoration work in Egypt.

The complete excavation of the Sphinx revealed, first, proofs of the repairs done by Thothmes IV and in the Ptolemaic period. Both restorations had deteriorated, many of the finerchiseled stones of Thothmes having fallen to the ground. A most interesting feature now disclosed for the first time was the manner in which the toenails of the hind legs had been depicted on the stone base by the original sculptor and reproduced respectively in finer and coarser stone by Thothmes and the Ptolemaic restorers.

The excavation further showed that the base of the figure had enormous cavities which had been cut into by early excavators who believed that there was a secret passage under the

Sphinx. It has also uncovered again the altar between the paws that the Romans used in their sacrifices to the sun god, and revealed a second stairway leading down to the Sphinx, a tablet bearing a figure of the Sphinx with a short inscription, and a couple of small bronze sphinxes. Incidentally, Mr. Baraize has confirmed, first, the theory that the pedestal in the middle of the chest originally had a statue of the king on to whose head the beard flowed, and secondly, from fragments found by Caveglia and now put together for the first time, that the beard had engraved on either side a figure of a king, probably Thothmes IV, kneeling in adoration of the Sphinx's head.

Certain singularly uninstructed criticisms in the European press have been made either by those who based their remarks on hearsay or by others who have completely misunderstood what they have seen. Allegations that the face has been changed, that it is intended to replace the nose, that the body has been repainted, and that the repair work has seriously altered the proportions and the design, are absolutely untrue.

As regards the paws, the sides, and the hind legs, all that has been done has been to replace the fallen stones and strengthen the mortar. Admittedly, the stonework here has all the appearance of newness, but it owes its freshness to having been buried for so long beneath the sand. One has only to go to Sakkara and look at Mr. Firth's Third Dynasty discoveries to realize how fresh such stonework can keep and how deceptive it can be to the untrained eye. A comparison of the Sphinx as it appears to-day with its appearance after Maspero's excavation just forty years ago will show, moreover, how unjustified is the criticism now made in this respect.

The face has been left untouched,

but the head, which was in an exceedingly bad condition, has been skillfully treated. Huge cavities and cracks appeared in the headdress, part of which, together with the back of the neck, had been completely eroded, while on the left-hand side of the head there was a deep gash. All these cracks have been filled with lime. Two pieces of the headdress were found on the ground after the clearance. These were cemented again into place, but, as the headdress itself was in a very fragile condition just above the joins, it has had to be built up on either side with masonry. Similarly masonry has been built into the back of the neck to prevent further erosion and maintain the centre of gravity, but the traces of the pattern of the headdress have been preserved everywhere. In the crown of the head there is an enormous hole large enough to take a man, and so deep that only his head emerges when he stands up. This hole was made anciently by vandals who believed that there was a cache of treasure inside the head. It has not been filled in, but has merely been covered with an iron clapper that can be unscrewed at any time to permit of investigation of the interior, and cannot be seen from below.

The complaint about painting is no doubt due to the fact that the repaired parts are naturally of a different color from the original portion. This is, of course, unavoidable. Time will possibly give the new portion a patina approximating to the original, but if this does not happen it will be quite easy to remove the offense to the critic's eyes by giving the new portions a touch of color like the old patina.

A good deal of the present outcry has undoubtedly arisen from the change which the clearance has made in the tableau presented by the Sphinx. In fact, it is another illustration of the eternal fight between art and science.

When the Sphinx lay submerged up to its chest, the yellow sand in which it was embedded gave it an aspect so picturesque and an atmosphere so mystical that even the most profane were impressed. The present excavation has not only removed this attractive framework, but has revealed the lack of proportions of the body which the sand concealed. As originally carved the Sphinx was strictly in proportion according to canonical precedent, and the lack of proportion noticed to-day is due to two extra casings which Thothmes and the Romans applied to the paws. To the eye of the modern artist the present picture of the Sphinx must indeed be a bitter disillusion and disappointment. But to the student of Egyptian art the Sphinx, as it now stands, with its whole structure revealed, has an attraction and an interest that transcend every other consideration.

To sum up, the work done by Mr. Baraize at the Sphinx during the past winter has achieved three outstanding results. In the first place, the Sphinx has been placed in safety against further damage for several generations. Secondly, its later history has been revealed to us for the first time. And thirdly, modern historians and students are now able for the first time to see this monument in its true relations to the Pyramids area and appreciate the artistic intention of the sculptor who conceived the idea of its creation. These are results of incalculable value to Egyptian archæology, and in the opinion of prominent archæologists the work of consolidating this huge figure, while

not altering its design or proportions, has been most ingeniously and skillfully executed.

In conclusion, the excavation has disclosed remnants of protective walls constructed round the edge of the hollow by the Romans; and also of a similar wall at a lower level set up by Maspero. These were to prevent sand from silting up the Sphinx. The Roman wall is being repaired at certain points, while at the west end a new masonry wall is being set up to stop sand-drifts and prevent tourists and animals from falling over the edge of the hollow. It remains, however, to be seen what the effect of climate may be on the lower portion of the body now exposed. During the coming months the Sphinx will be constantly and carefully watched, and if it appears that deterioration is being caused by exposure the authorities will not hesitate to return it at once to the submerged condition in which it stood last September.

The excavation carried out this winter had to be undertaken sooner or later in order to satisfy the demands of science about the history and object of this great monument. The secrets that the sand concealed from our ancestors are now all known, and although the sight of this fantastic relic of Ancient Egypt in its original state would be invaluable both as a demonstration to future generations of students and as an attraction to visitors, they will have to be satisfied with photographic records if continued exposure is found to have any deteriorating effect on the fabric of the base.

WHEN I try to make an image to symbolize to myself life in the wonderlands of Lord Dunsany's imagination, a fancy comes that over all those wonderlands a monstrous and fantastic cat is brooding and purring. It purrs as if it was happy and was certain that all the mice were within reach of its claws and not one of them could escape. That happy and melodious purring, full of lovely sound, holds an opposite within itself as all things do, and what it holds within itself is its sinister antithesis. There is no beautiful thing living in those wonderlands that can be sure of its happiness, sure that Time or the gods will not wantonly lay a claw on it. Dunsany's gods are such as Caliban imagined Setebos to be, and there is not one, but a whole pantheon, of such monstrous divinities. In our world our lives are normally gray, but we have now and then as consolation moments of beauty. In the worlds of this dreamer the normal life has the beauty of enchantment, but its accents are made by terror and death. At any moment a doom may come upon it, a god may awaken and desire its sacrifice. The contraries of that life are not, as with us, love and beauty, but agony or death.

Let us take A Dreamer's Tales, which has some of the finest imagination of this extraordinary writer. In the very first tale the loveliness of the Inner Lands is conjured up for us by a master of fantasy, and it seems to us

1 From the Irish Statesman (Dublin Independent weekly), April 17

like the beauty we would yearn to rest on after death, but there the mystery of the sea that none has ever beheld weighs heavily on all who live there, and drains the Inner Lands of their people. Nothing can restrain them— not love, not even the terrible myths invented by their priests who said of those unknown waters:

The sea is a river heading towards Hercules, and he touches against the edge of the world and that Poltarnes looks upon him. They say that all the worlds of heaven go bobbing in this river and are swept down with the stream, and that Infinity is thick and furry with forests, through which the river in her course sweeps on with all the worlds of heaven and whenever its

thirst, glowing in space like a great sun, comes upon the beast, the tiger of the gods creeps down to the river to drink.

...

Dooms such as these hang over Inner Lands and their lovely and languid people. That great cat purrs through all the dreamer's tales. In the narrative of adventure on the River Yann the cities on either side gleam amid its massy forests like pearl or onyx. They are imagined as rich and sleepy paradises, but the voyager discovers in Perdondaris a huge gate of ivory carved out of one piece, and the thought of what terrible creature let fall that tusk, and that some of its kind might come over the mountains and stamp on the palaces, creates terror in the adventurers, and they fly from that magical city. One almost comes to believe that no one even in imagination can create a completely happy beauty.

When the conscious mind has projected from itself an image of all it desires, out of the inmost recesses, out of the unconscious, stalks into the dream all we would exile, death or madness, terror or mystery. The opposite of all we imagine seems to wait within ourselves to fall upon whatever we fashion. It will not be denied. It needs no conscious art to create it. While we fashion the happy, unknown to ourselves the unhappy is taking form, and it must be let appear or the tale will be dead. So I interpret to myself the psychology behind these astonishing tales and dramas fuller of mystery than any I know since Poe wrote his wild inventions. If the sinister were denied the beauty would lose its magic, and have merely the faint charm of a fairy tale. Wherever Dunsany tries for beauty only he is at his feeblest, but where he lets the contraries prowl about the worlds he has created they have a mysterious life.

I think he has made the happiest compromise between the sinister and the beautiful in the long story, The King of Elfland's Daughter, which has mysteries and perils, but hardly any lurking devilry. It is a highly sustained piece of fantasy, written in a prose whose melody never fails and never tires. It compares well, I think, with any of William Morris's prose romances, for their defect is that they are almost altogether literature in one dimension. They are on the flat, like wall paper or tapestry, even though the figures worked upon it have unending comeliness. The invention of an Elfland that can, by the magic of its king, come close to our world or be inconceivably remote, gives a richness to Dunsany's romance, so that it may be said to be two-dimensional, though not in his tale any more than in Morris's romances do recognizable human entities move about. His people loom before us like a dance of animated and

lovely shadows and grotesques, but we follow their adventures with excitement, and that means that in some way they are symbolic of our own spiritual adventures. We have all known that fading of Elfland from just beyond the familiar woods and lakes and hills which comes after childhood, and how inconceivably remote Elfland seems once it has gone from us, and what purifications and sacrifices and labors of the soul we must endure if we are to regain the child vision we have lost. The fading away of Elfland from the vision of Alveric in the tale, and his years of search for it, do not appear to us unreal as we read, for have we not, most of us, lost vision of the enchanted land? And though some have sought to regain it, how few they are who have won it back so that it glows again beyond the familiar fence! The King of Elfland's Daughter is the most purely beautiful thing Lord Dunsany has written. There may be better or more exciting things in some of the short tales, but nowhere else has he had such a long run on that Pegasus of his that carries him east of the East and west of the West - not curving round the world, as he once said to me, but going on straight into regions that the makers of the Arabian tales of enchantment knew, or which lay in neighboring kingdoms of

romance.

His last book, The Charwoman's Shadow, is less beautiful and more ingenious. The invention does not flag, but is not quite so happy. Still we follow with unfatigued curiosity the adventures of Ramon Alonzo - he is nominally a Spaniard, but his country is really west of the West. He is sent by his father to an old magician to get gold, but the old magician wants payment, and the payment he asks from Ramon is his shadow. He has a box full of shadows, including the shadow of the charwoman. Ramon sells his