Of life under such conditions Kingsley has said: "They enjoyed nature,
not so much for her beauty as for her perfect peace. Day by day the
rocks remained the same. Silently out of the Eastern desert, day by day,
the rising sun threw aloft those arrows of light which the old Greeks
had named 'the rosy fingers of the dawn.' Silently he passed in full
blaze above their heads throughout the day, and silently he dipped
behind the Western desert in a glory of crimson and orange, green and
purple.... Day after day, night after night, that gorgeous pageant
passed over the poor hermit's head without a sound, and though sun, moon
and planet might change their places as the years rolled round, the
earth beneath his feet seemed not to change." As for the companionless
men, who gazed for years upon this glorious scene, they too were of
unusual character, Waddington finely says: "The serious enthusiasm of
the natives of Egypt and Asia, that combination of indolence and energy,
of the calmest languor with the fiercest passions, ... disposed them to
embrace with eagerness the tranquil but exciting duties of religious
seclusion." Yes, here are the angels of Ducis in real flesh and blood.
They revel in the wildest eccentricities with none to molest or make
afraid, always excepting the black demons from the spiritual world. One
dwells in a cave in the bowels of the earth; one lies on the sand
beneath a blazing sun; one has shut himself forever from the sight of
man in a miserable hut among the bleak rocks of yonder projecting peak;
one rests with joy in the marshes, breathing with gratitude the
pestilential vapors.
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