A Tower At Agra.

The Tombs Of Shah Jehan And His Wife.

Appropriately enough the sweetest echo in the world dwells in this jeweled cavern. The dome receives all sounds within its silvery crucible, transforms them into purest harmony, and sends them down again as if the upper space were tenanted by a celestial choir, chanting an endless requiem to this ideal union both in life and death. It is particularly sensitive to gentle sounds, and a few notes, sung softly here, float up in rhythmic waves to break upon the concave of the marble arch again, and yet again, until they tremblingly die away like whispered accents of impassioned love. Can anything be more beautiful than this - a building dedicated to the memory of a beloved wife, and at the same time the most perfect structure in the world? It is the grandest yet most delicate homage that man has ever paid to womankind.

There are at least two places in this world where moonlight is essential to complete our happiness - they are Venice and Agra. I had arranged the date of my arrival here with this in view, and hence it was my inestimable privilege to stand here at midnight on the thirty-first of December. Then, gazing on this miracle of beauty, I watched the Old Year take its flight and the New Year steal in with noiseless footsteps, as if to pay its first devotions to the Taj. And as I saw the moonlight gild the slender minarets, till they appeared like beautiful wax tapers lighting this abode of death, and then beheld the Taj itself, one glorified expression of immortal genius, it seemed too wonderful to be reality. It was, in truth, a dream in marble, and, sweetest of all dreams - a dream of love.