Under this arch you go, a dome above, deep and lofty recesses on either hand; now you are past the sternness. Shah Jehan is soldier no longer but artist and amorist at large. You come to the Pearl Mosque. There is a Pearl Mosque at Delhi, sandstone slabs without, marble within, as this is; but the Delhi mosque is a bauble to this. This is a broad court, paved with slabs of marble, veined with white and blue, gray and yellow. This is all marble--marble walls with moulded panels, marble cloisters of multifoliate arches, marble gateways breaking three walls of the square, marble columns supporting bell-cupolas above them and at each corner, a marble basin in the centre of the court, a marble sundial beside it. Along the west side of the court shines the glorious face of the mosque itself--only a roofed quarter of the whole space, a mere portico, but colonnaded with three rows of seven pillars apiece, each branching to right and left, to front and back, with eight-pointed, nine-leaved arches. Along the entablature above runs a Persian inscription in mosaic of black marble; on the roof, over each pillar of the front row is a cupola with four columns, and at each corner a cupola with eight columns. Three domes fold their broad white wings behind and above all. Three steps for the mullah to preach from, and that is all the catalogue. No altar or shrine or image: there is no god but God. No carving or lattice-work: but the simple pillars and arches, the few cupolas and domes, are yet the richest of ornamentation. No paint or gems--only the clear harmonious veining of the marble. Only space and proportion, form and whispers of colour--and it is so beautiful that you can hardly breathe for rapture. The radiant marble ripples from shade to shade--snow-white, pearl-white, ivory-white--till it seems half alive. The bells and pinnacles are so light that they seem to float in the air. It cannot be a building, you whisper: it is enchantment.