The Iola register., 1891-07-31
LIONDON!

~
have been here week now, in thi
mighty wilderness, this trysting plac
of all the globe, this city of cities, thi
great Babel, this gigantic labyrlnthin
puzzle, this vast, interminable ocean
this inexhaustii,le store of wonders
this seething caldron, this universe
gala ground and perpetual mourning
house, this aggregation of all kindreds
tribes and tongues, this whirlpool
which sucks into itself money, goods
business, genius, from the four quar-
ters of the earth, this tOOrtd of London
And the thought that the readers o
the REGISTER may perhaps expect me
to give i'm one brief letter, some de
script Dn of the sights L have seen and
some idea of the impressions I have
received, fairly appals me. have
seen so much, and my mind has beer
so busy connecting the events of the
past with the scenes of the present
that to write it all down would be tC
write more nearly book than news.
paper letter. The best I can do is to
write down as briefly as may be, a
few of the things have seen, in what
ever order they may be recalled, Ieav-
ing It to the imagination of my readers
to supply notes and comments.
And so, to begin:
~
/ have seen Westminster Abbey,
that antique pile" where royal heads
have received "tbe sacred gold" since
the time of Edward the Confessor, and
where they have come again to lay
them down i'm their last sleep; where
Chaucer lies, and where nearly two
centuries later Spenser came, and aft
er him nearly another century, Dry
den, and since then Milton, and Addi-
son and Gray and Campbell, 80 rare
Ben Johnson" Macauley, Dickens and
host of others whose crowns of laur-
ell shall be bright and unfaded long
after the golden crowns of the kings
whose dust is mingled with theirs
shall have tarnished and crumbled;
where naughty Elizabeth sleeps quiet
ly by the side of the sister she sent to
the block; where Tudors and Stuarts
meet in peace, remembering their long
quarrels DO more forever. A wonder
full place, this old Abbey, at once a
sanctuary and sepulchre, reminding
the beholder at the same moment of
the majesty and the meanness, the
greatness and the littleness, the dig
nifty and the vanity, of human life.
/ have seen st. Paul's Cathedral,
with its magnificent dome, the finest
in the world, its vaulted ceiling, its
wilderness of columns. And above
all 1 have heard its two great organs,
both playing at once, accompanying
the voices of its hundred singers in the |
splendid chorus from "The Messiah, 4"
81 Waited for the Lord" and I hope it |
will be long before 1 cease to hear in |
my soul the majestic roll and swell of i
the mighty tones reverberating among
the arched aisles and echoing back
from the lofty dome. st. Paul's is an
other mausoleum, second only to the
Abbey, and within its walls are buried
poets and painters and statesmen and
soldiers. The greatest of these, in the
English mind at least, is the Duke of
Wellington. Near the main entrance
is magnificent marble and bronze
to his memory, and in the
crypt below his remains repose in a
splendid tomb, while near at hand is
the great funeral car,-weighing Is
tons, costing S65, 900, cast from cannon
captured by his armies-on which his
body was borne and which was used
but the one time. But there are other
tombs and monuments that an Amer
lean notes with peculiar interest. One,
for example, to Major General the
Hon. Sir Edward Packenham, "who
fen gloriously on the Sth Of January,
1915, while leading the troops in an
attack upon the enemy's works in
front of New Orleans" There is all
other to Lord CORVALLIS and another r
% Major Andre. Benjamin West, the :
artist, born in Pennsylvania, I believe, ]
8 buried in the crypt. Of course, on =
III these hundreds of monuments there r
re many touching and eloquent epi- Il
apis. But the one that seemed to me a
he proudest of an,-because it is his h
ory and not panegyric,-is that in G
cribed upon the monument to "Chi- II
lese" Gordon, the hero of Khartoum. 4
which is as follows: n
''To Major General Charles George h
iordon, c. B., who at all times and H.
gave his strength to the y
weak, his substance to the poor, his fl
to the suffering, his heart D
o God. He saved an empire by his h
Earlike genius, he ruled vast provinces =
nth justice, wisdom and power. And U
astly i'll obedience to the command of b
is sovereign, he died in the heroic at
ampt to save men, women and child II
IN from imminent and deadly peril.
ireater love hath no man than this, vi
aat he lay down his life for his ID
-iends.'n al
L have seen the British Museum. W
hat is to say / have had a glimpse of II
few of the things in "a collection in br
hich a man might spend life time
nd see something new every day- T th