The voice of a child disturbed me.

Somewhere far off in the mosque a child began to sing a great tune, powerfully, fervently, but boyishly. The voice was not a treble voice; it was deeper, yet unmistakably the voice of a boy. And the melody sung was bold, indeed, almost angry, and yet definitely religious. It echoed along the walls of marble, which seemed to multiply it mysteriously, adding to it wide murmurs which were carried through all the building into the dimmest, remotest recesses. It became in my ears as the deep-toned and fanatical thunder of Islam, proclaiming possession of the church of Divine Wisdom which had been dedicated to Christ. It put me for a time definitely outside of the vast harmony. I was able at last to notice details both architectural and human.

Santa Sophia has nine gates leading to it from a great corridor or outer hall, lined with marble and roofed with old-gold mosaic. As you enter from the Porta Basilica, you have an impression of pale yellow, gold, and gray; of a pervading silvery glimmer; of a pervading gleam of delicate primrose, brightly pure and warm. You hear a sound of the falling of water from the two fountains of ablution, great vases of gray marble which are just within the mosque.

Gray and gold prevail in the color scheme, a beautiful combination of which the eyes are never tired. But many hues are mingled with them: yellow and black, deep plum-color and red, green, brown, and very dark blue. The windows, which are heavily grated, have no painted glass, so the mosque is not dark. It has a sort of lovely and delicate dimness, as touching as the dimness of twilight. It is divinely calm, almost as nature can be when she would bring her healing to the unquiet human spirit. We know that during the recent war Santa Sophia was crowded with suffering fugitives, with dying soldiers and cholera patients. I feel that even upon them in their agony it must have shed rays of comfort, into their hearts a belief in a far-off compassion waiting the appointed time to make itself fully manifest.

The great dome is of gold and of either black or very deep blue. Myriads of chandeliers, holding tiny glass cups, hang from the roof. Pale-yellow matting covers the plain of the floor. The silvery glimmer comes from the thousands of cups, the primrose gleam from the matting. The walls are lined with slabs of exquisite marble of many patterns and colors. Gold mosaic decorates the roof and the domes. Galleries, supported by marble arcades, and leaning on roofs of dim gold, run round a great part of the mosque, which is subtly broken up and made mysterious, enticing, and various by curved recesses of marble, by innumerable arches, some large and heavy, some fragile and delicate, by screens, and by forests of columns. Two-storied aisles flank the vast nave, through which men wander, looking almost like little dolls. So huge is the mosque that the eyes are deceived within it, and can no longer measure heights or breadths with accuracy. When I first stood in the nave I thought the chandeliers were hanging so near to the ground that it must be dangerous for a tall man to try to pass underneath them. They are, of course, really far higher than the head of a giant.

In Santa Sophia intricacy, by some magical process of genius, results in simplicity. Everything seems gently but irresistibly compelled to become a minister to the beauty and the calmness of the whole: the arcades of gray marble and gold; the sacred mosaics of holy Mary and the six-winged seraphim, which still testify to another age and another religion; the red columns of porphyry from Baalbec’s Temple of the Sun; the Ephesus columns of verd-antique; the carved capitals and the bases of shining brass; the gold and gray pulpit, with its long staircase of marble closed by a gold and green curtain, and its two miraculously beautiful flags of pearly green and faint gold, by age made more wonderful than when they first flew on the battle-field or were carried in sacred processions; the ancient prayer-rugs fixed to the walls; the sultan’s box, a sort of long gallery ending in a kiosk with a gilded grille, and raised upon marble pillars; the great doors and the curtains of dull-red wool; the piled carpets, which are ready against the winter, when the cool yellow matting is covered up; the great green shields in the pendentives, bearing their golden names of God and His prophet, of Ali, Osman, Omar, and Abu-Bekr. Everything slips into the heart of the great harmony, however precious, however simple, even however crude. There are a few ugly things in Santa Sophia—whitewash covering mosaics, stains of fierce yellow, blotches of plaster—which should be removed. They do not really matter; one cannot heed them when one is immersed in such almost mysterious beauty.

IN THE CEMETERY OF EYUB, ON THE GOLDEN HORN

PAINTED FOR THE CENTURY BY JULES GUÉRIN

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