sauntered across the room to another table similarly equipped for
plan-making. But he did not concern himself with the papyrus spread
thereon. Instead he dropped on the bench, and crossing his shapely
feet before him, gazed straight up at the date-tree rafters and
palm-leaf interbraiding of the ceiling.

Though the law of heredity is not trustworthy in the transmission of
greatness, Kenkenes was the product of three generations of heroic
genius. He might have developed the frequent example of decadence; he
might have sustained the excellence of his fathers' gift, but he could
not surpass them in the methods of their school of sculpture and its
results. There was one way in which he might excel, and he was born
with his feet in that path. His genius was too large for the limits of
his era. Therefore he was an artistic dissenter, a reformer with noble
ideals.

Mimetic art as applied to Egyptian painting and sculpture was a curious
misnomer. Probably no other nation of the world at that time was so
devoted to it, and certainly no other people of equal advancement of
that or any other time so wilfully ignored the simplest rules of
proportion, perspective and form. The sculptor's ability to suggest
majesty and repose, and at the same time ignore anatomical
construction, was wonderful. To preserve the features and individual
characteristics of a model and obey the rules of convention was a feat
to be achieved only by an Egyptian. There was no lack of genius in
him, but he had been denied liberty of execution until he knew no other
forms but those his fathers followed generations before.

All Egypt was but a padding that the structural framework of religion
supported. Science, art, literature, government, commerce, whatever