AGRA 65 



" One might as well attempt to describe a Beethoven 

 symphony," he says, "for if architecture be frozen 

 music, as some poet has said, the Taj Mahal is the 

 supremest and sublimest composition that human 

 genius has produced." 



When you drive through the wood which leads 

 to its entrance, pass under the red sandstone gate- 

 way, and stand at last in the gardens which sur- 

 round the tomb, you will perhaps not at first appre- 

 ciate its full value. You will regard it from each 

 corner of the gardens, and then enter to examine 

 the mural decorations and the pierced marble 

 screens and the cenotaphs, of which as usual the 

 more imposing imitation ones lie above, and those 

 which actually hold the bodies of the Emperor and 

 his wife in a sepulchral chamber below. But only 

 when you have finished examining its details, have 

 seated yourself on one of the benches in the garden 

 before its eastern face, and there, hour after hour, 

 in the peacefulness and silence of the surroundings 

 have let the effect of the tomb impress itself upon 

 your senses as a whole, while the fading afternoon 

 sunlight slowly shifts the lights and shades and 

 varies the tints upon its flawless marble, only 

 then will you wholly understand why the Taj Mahal 

 is called the most beautiful of all buildings. 



