The owls hoot to one another through the garden; and at the edge of the alabaster tank wherein the dusk is mirrored, a frog croaks unseen amidst the lilies.  Even so croaked he on this very ground in those days when, typifying eternity, he seemed to utter the endless refrain, “I am the resurrection, I am the resurrection,” into the ears of men and maidens beneath these self-same stars.

And now a boat floats past, on its way to Karnak, silhouetted against the last-left light of the sky.  There is music and song on board.  The sound of the pipes is carried over the water and pulses to the ears, inflaming the imagination with the sorcery of its cadences and stirring the blood by its bold rhythm.  The gentle breeze brings the scent of many flowers to the nostrils, and with these come drifting thoughts and undefined fancies, so that presently the busy considerations of the day are lulled and forgotten.  The twilight seems to cloak the extent of the years, and in the gathering darkness the procession of the centuries is hidden.  Yesterday and to-day are mingled together, and there is nothing to distinguish to the eye the one age from the other.  An immortal, brought suddenly to the garden at this hour, could not say from direct observation whether he had descended from the clouds into the twentieth century before or the twentieth century after Christ; and the sound of the festal pipes in the passing boat would but serve to confuse him the more.

In such a garden as this the student will learn more Egyptology than he could assimilate in many an hour’s study at home; for here his five senses play the student and Egypt herself is his teacher.  While he may read in his books how this Pharaoh or that feasted o’ nights in his palace beside the river, here, not in fallible imagination but in actual fact, he may see Nilus and the Libyan desert to which the royal eyes were turned, may smell the very perfume of the palace garden, and may hearken to the self-same sounds that lulled a king to sleep in Hundred-gated Thebes.

Not in the west, but only by the waters of the Nile will he learn how best to be an historian of ancient Egypt, and in what manner to make his studies of interest, as well as of technical value, to his readers, for he will here discover the great secret of his profession.  Suddenly the veil will be lifted from his understanding, and he will become aware that Past and Present are so indissoluble as to be incapable of separate interpretation or single study.  He will learn that there is no such thing as a distinct Past or a defined Present.  “Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare,” and the affairs of bygone times must be interpreted in the light of recent events.  The Past is alive to-day, and all the deeds of man in all the ages are living at this hour in offspring.  There is no real death.  The earthly grave will not hide, nor the mountain tomb imprison, the actions of the men of old Egypt, so consequent and fruitful are all human affairs.  This is the knowledge which will make his work of lasting value; and nowhere save in Egypt can he acquire it.  This, indeed, is the secret of the Sphinx; and only at the lips of the Sphinx itself can he learn it.