CONCLUSION
A serious history of Alexandria has yet to be written, and perhaps the foregoing sketches may have indicated how varied, how impressive, such a history might be. After the fashion of a pageant it might marshal the activities of two thousand two hundred and fifty years. But unlike a pageant it would have to conclude dully. Alas! The modern city calls for no enthusiastic comment. Its material prosperity seems assured, but little progress can be discerned elsewhere, while as for the past such links as remain are being wantonly snapped: for instance, the Municipality has altered the name of the Rue Rosette to the meaningless Rue Fouad Premier, and has destroyed a charming covered Bazaar near the Rue de France, and out at Canopus the British Army of Occupation has done its bit by breaking up the Ptolemaic ruins to make roads. Everything passes, or almost everything. Only the climate, only the north wind and the sea remain as they were when Menelaus, the first visitor, landed upon Ras el Tin, and exacted from Proteus the promise of life everlasting. He was to escape death, on his wife’s account: he was not to descend into the asphodel with the other shades whom Hermes conducts, himself a shade. Immortal, yet somehow or other unsatisfactory, Menelaus accordingly leads the Alexandrian pageant with solid tread; cotton-brokers conclude it; the intermediate space is thronged with phantoms, noiseless, insubstantial, innumerable, but not without interest for the historian.
LEONID ANDREEV. The Dark 2s. net.
CLIVE BELL. Poems 2s. 6d. net.
IVAN BUNIN. The Gentleman from San Francisco and other stories 4s. net.
F. DOSTOEVSKY. Stavrogin’s Confession, &c. 6s. net.
T. S. ELIOT. Poems Out of print.
E. M. FORSTER. The Story of the Siren Out of print.
ROGER FRY. Twelve Original Woodcuts. Third impression 5s. net.
MAXIM GORKY. Reminiscences of Tolstoi. Second edition 5s. net.
RUTH MANNING-SANDERS. Karn. A Poem 3s. 6d. net.
KATHERINE MANSFIELD. Prelude Out of print.
HOPE MIRRLEES. Paris. A Poem Out of print.
J. MIDDLETON MURRY. The Critic in Judgment 2s. 6d. net.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH. Stories from the Old Testament retold Out of print.
FREDEGOND SHOVE. Daybreak 3s. 6d. net.
The Note-books of ANTON TCHEKHOV, together with Reminiscences of TCHEKHOV by Maxim Gorky 5s. net.
The Autobiography of Countess TOLSTOI 4s. net.
LEONARD WOOLF. Stories of the East 3s. net.
VIRGINIA WOOLF. Monday or Tuesday 4s. 6d. net.
The Mark on the Wall. Second edition 1s. 6d. net.
Kew Gardens Out of print.
Jacob’s Room. Second impression 7s. 6d. net.
LEONARD & VIRGINIA WOOLF. Two Stories Out of print.
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.