CHAPTER II

THE WAY OF THE DESERT

It may truly be said, touching the type of culture at least,
that Egypt has an Egyptian lower class, a French middle class and an
English governing class. Anyhow it is true that the civilisations
are stratified in this formation, or superimposed in this order.
It is the first impression produced by the darkness and density
of the bazaars, the line of the lighted cafes and the blaze
of the big hotels. But it contains a much deeper truth in all
three cases, and especially in the case of the French influence.
It is indeed one of the first examples of what I mean by the divisions
of the West becoming clearer in the ancient centres of the East.
It is often said that we can only appreciate the work of England in a
place like India. In so far as this is true, it is quite equally true
that we can only appreciate the work of France in a place like Egypt.
But this work is of a peculiar and even paradoxical kind.
It is too practical to be prominent, and so universal that
it is unnoticed.

The French view of the Rights of Man is called visionary;
but in practice it is very solid and even prosaic.
The French have a unique and successful trick by which French
things are not accepted as French. They are accepted as human.
However many foreigners played football, they would still consider
football an English thing. But they do not consider fencing
a French thing, though all the terms of it are still French.