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The Temple of Truth
Maurice Greiffenhagen
1896
Lithograph
10.8 cm high by 8.3 cm wide (4 ¼ by 3 ¼ inches), facing p. 258, framed
Additional illustration for H. Rider Haggard's SHE: A History of Adventure in the Longman's British-American edition (1896).
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
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And there in the centre of the inmost court, that might have been some fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with what is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius of her children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre of the court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge round ball of dark stone, some twenty feet in diameter, and standing on the ball was a colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing and divine that when I first gazed upon it, illuminated and shadowed as it was by the soft light of the moon, my breath stood still, and for an instant my heart ceased its beating.
The statue was hewn from marble so pure and white that even now, after all those ages, it shone as the moonbeams danced upon it, and its height was, I should say, a trifle over twenty feet. It was the winged figure of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form that the size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so human and yet more spiritual beauty. She was bending forward and poising herself upon her half-spread wings as though to preserve her balance as she leant. Her arms were outstretched like those of some woman about to embrace one she dearly loved, while her whole attitude gave an impression of the tenderest beseeching. Her perfect and most gracious form was naked, save — and here came the extraordinary thing — the face, which was thinly veiled, so that we could only trace the marking of her features. A gauzy veil was thrown round and about the head, and of its two ends one fell down across her left breast, which was outlined beneath it, and one, now broken, streamed away upon the air behind her.
“Who is she?” I asked, as soon as I could take my eyes off the statue. [Chapter XXIII, "The Temple of Truth," pp. 257-258]
There, all bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles upon miles of ruins — columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great columns still remained standing. [1]
[1] In connection with the extraordinary state of preservation of these ruins after so vast a lapse of time — at least six thousand years — it must be remembered that Kôr was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but deserted, owing to the action of a terrible plague. Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and there is very little rain or wind; as a result of which these relics have only to contend against the unaided action of time, that works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry. — L. H. H. [253]
In one of the few captioned additional illustrations for the 1896 edition, Greiffenhagen conveys a sense of the scale of the remains of the lost city by placing a miniature Ayesha and Holly against the pediment of the statue of winged Truth balanced on a globe, undoubtedly representing the world. There is no comparable illustration of Kôr in any of the previous editions. The dimensions of the statue and the base in this nocturnal scene seem to contradict the narrator's assertion that "The town was not very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other cities of remote antiquity" (252). And the illustrator's failure to suggest the obscuring veil over the face of Truth undermines the implied connection between the image of the allegorical figure and that of Ayesha.
Brantlinger, Patrick. Introduction. She: A History of Adventure. By H. Rider Haggard. London: Penguin, 2004. vii-xxviii.
Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.
Haggard. H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888, rpt. 1896.
Haggard, H. Rider. She. Project Gutenberg EBook #3155 produced by John Bickers; Dagny; William Kyngesburye; David Kyngesburye; David Widger. 2016. Web. Accessed 9 May 2025.
Created 4 June 2025