I do not give this example in contempt; heaven forbid.
I have had so much to say of the inhuman side of Prussianised Germany
that I am glad to be able to pay a passing tribute to those more
generous German traditions which we hope may revive and make Germany
once more a part of Christendom. I merely give it as an instance
of the way in which things we have all heard of, like church-going
or beer-drinking, in foreign lands, mean much more, and something
much more special, than we should infer from our own land.
Now this is true of a phrase we have all heard of deserted cities
or temples in the Near East: "The Bedouins camp in the ruins."
When I have read a hundred times that Arabs camp in some deserted town
or temple near the Nile or the Euphrates, I always thought of gipsies
near some place like Stonehenge. They would make their own rude shelter
near the stones, perhaps sheltering behind them to light a fire;
and for the rest, generations of gipsies might camp there without
making much difference. The thing I saw more than once in Egypt
and Palestine was much more curious. It was as if the gipsies set
to work to refurnish Stonehenge and make it a commodious residence.
Pages:
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277