is even a more unmeaning sepulchral monument
than an urn. It is an ugly thing, an
unsuggestive thing, it can never have any attractiveness
except such as might attach to it from its
being of vast size, a monolith hewn out of one
solid block of marble. In our cemeteries, it has
certainly no merit of this sort to redeem it from
ignominy. It is small, of poor material, and
is, generally speaking, out of the perpendicular.

These obelisks are of various forms.
Sometimes they are enormous at their bases, and
taper away rapidly to a sharp point, so as to
present something of the appearance of a
pyramid; sometimes they rise to a considerable
height—six or seven feet, perhaps—and end
abruptly in a blunt four-sided point, and
sometimes they terminate in some terrible and
abnormal fashion, as in a hand with the forefinger
pointing upward. Let the reader picture this
to himself for a moment—an obelisk rising from
its pedestal and tapering swiftly away till it
becomes as small as a man's wrist. Then comes
the hand, as above, with the index extended—
sometimes knocked off. You would find nothing
more rudely conceived, than this barbarous
arrangement, among savages.

It is possible to effect combinations of the
obelisk and the urn together, though the urn is
usually to be found on a pedestal by itself.
Still, the thing may be done, and I even
distinctly remember an instance in one of the
London cemeteries of such fertile invention on
the part of one of our monumental sculptors as
led to the combination of obelisk, pedestal, urn
and drapery, in one composition, leaving nothing
to be desired—except, perhaps, a crowbar, with
which to make an end of the whole thing.

This popularity of the obelisk, and it is to the
full as popular as the urn, is a thing entirely
mysterious. That it can ever have been chosen
by any sane human being on account of its
intrinsic merits, that anything of beauty or
suggestiveness can ever have been associated
with it in any one of its aspects, that an
obelisk can ever have been chosen by any one
because he liked it or thought it the most
appropriate monumental design which could
be selected to mark the last resting-place
of his friend or relation—these are ideas which
may at once be dismissed as simply absurd and
untenable.

It is a feature in our national character, and
a very important one, that we are at once
extremely docile and extremely bigoted in
matters of opinion. We believe what we
are told to believe, and stick to it. People
who think for themselves are rare in the
extreme. We have an enormous respect for
what are called professional people, and are
guided by their enunciations in an inordinate
degree. The ordinary type of human being
going to the "emporium" of a sepulchral
monumentalist to select a gravestone, on being
told by the proprietor of the establishment what
he ought to have, will at once fall into the
views of the professional person. "This, sir, is
generally thought to be a chaste and appropriate
kind of monument," says the artist, indicating
an obelisk of granite, standing in his showroom;
or, "We set up a very great number of
these, sir, and they are found to give general
satisfaction." We shrink from trusting to our
own convictions, or consulting our own tastes.
We require a precedent. We seek to intrench
ourselves behind the opinions of others,
mistrusting our own, or perhaps, still oftener, we
have none of our own.

It is by no means uncommon to find among
our more elaborate monuments some which are
decorated with human figures, rudely expressing
the passion of grief, the flight of time, and the like.
There is one figure especially, a female figure,
bowed over an urn—the urn again!—and often
holding the inverted torch, in an attitude expressive
of grief, which is no doubt very generally
known, and which may be seen in any of the
monument shops in the neighbourhood of our
cemeteries. It is never well executed, and it
never can be. The human figure has this
remarkable characteristic among others, that it
can only be well modelled or carved by a first-rate
artist, and the services of such an one cannot
be secured except on terms which very few
among those who wish to put up monuments
to their friends or relatives are able to afford.
This especial mourning figure, representations
of angels, and even of cupids holding hour-
glasses, and other appropriate and inappropriate
emblems, are frequently to be found in
our burying-grounds, but they are almost
invariably (as is also the case with busts and
medallions of the dead) ill executed, and would
be much better away. A man may be able to
carve a flower, or to cut out a stone cross,
tolerably well, and may yet be wholly inadequate to
the task of dealing with the human figure.
Moreover, there is a fitness and propriety in all
things, and though the cemetery may be—nay
undoubtedly is—a fit place for a commemorative
stone or cross indicating the place where the
departed one is laid, it is hardly the right situation
for sculptured monument of high value. Such
a work of art demands to be sheltered under
a roof, and not left in the open air exposed to
all the injurious influences of weather and
atmosphere. The proper thing in a graveyard is
a grave. If a monument be wanted, it should be
elsewhere. In a church, under cover, or grounded
at least on some firm and good foundation.

If the common head-stone be ugly and
repulsive, if the obelisk be unmeaning, and the
urn, in modern times, inexcusable, what sort of
structure should we do well to place over the
graves of our dead, sacred before all men to
their memory? Something there should be—
but what?

There is not much room for fancy or vagary
here. Neither our tombstones nor the inscriptions
on them should be of a fantastic sort.
Heaven knows that the presence of fancy or
even of eccentricity, as displayed in the
construction of a monument or the wording of an
epitaph, does not necessarily indicate anything
of indifference to their loss in the hearts of those
who have caused such monument to be set up;
still they are apt to convey that impression.