Machine summary:
But the delay had been fatal to my plans ; the shadows of the rows of cypresses had now shifted their ground ; so had those in the alcoves of the facade of the Taj ; so I abandoned this sketch for the present, determin• ed to renew the effort on the following day, when I would be more careful to avoid letting my attention be distracted.
There were many little scuffles, alarums, and excursions, and several ignominious retreats on the part of the squirrels ; and the old man watched these operations with his small eyes screwed up under the shadow of his huge white tur• ban, and the wrinkles on his thin face augmented by a sympathetic smile \Vell !
A day spent in the garden of the Taj Mahal of Agra, gives one a renewed appreciation of the place which shadows occupy in art, and their possibilities in the hands of great artists, for supplementing and explaining form, in• tensifying colour, and casting upon the spectator a mys• terious spell.
Like Bhanavar the Beautiful, when she had to throw her magic jewel to the serpents to save her lover, and so divested herself of her perpetual beauty, the Taj without its shadow would whither in a moment ; the lingering love-whisper of youth which throbs eternally through all its delicate loveliness, would die away, and the fairest building in the world would be no more than an old and empty emblem, the dull record of a burnt-out passion.