Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1895-01-11

years Of age and died at 30. Her life
ended as another life began. AS the rose
bloomed the rosebush perished.
Glittering with Jewels.
To adorn this dormitory Of the dead,
at the command Of the king, Bagdad
sent to this building its cornelian and
Ceylon its lapis lazuli, and Punjab its
jasper, and Persia its amethyst, and
Tibet its turquoise, and Lanka its sap
phire, and Yemen its agate, and Puma
its diamonds and blood stones and sar-
donyx and chalcedony and moss agates
are as common as though they were peb-
bles. You find one spray Of vine beset
with so and another with 100 stones.
Twenty thousand men were 20 years in
building it, and although the labor was
slave labor and not paid for, the build
ing cost what would be about $50, 600, :
600 of our American money. Some Of
the jewels have been picked out of the
wall by iconoclasts or conquerors, and
substitutes Of less value have taken their
places, but the vines, the traceries, the
arabesques, the spandrels, the entabla-
tures are so wondrous that you feel like
dating the rest of your life from the day
you first saw them. In letters Of black
marble the whole of tho Koran is spelled
out in and on this august pile. The king
sleeps in the tomb beside the queen, al
though he intended to build palace as
black as this was white on the opposite
side of the river for himself to sleep in.
Indeed the foundation Of such neerop-
oils of black marble is still there, and
from the white to the black temple Of
the dead a bridge was to cross, but the
son dethroned him and imprisoned him,
and it is wonderful that the king had
any place at all in which to be buried.
Instead of windows to let in the light
upon the two tombs, there is trellis
work Of marble, marble cut SO delicate
ly thin that the sun shines through it as
easily as through glass Look the world
over and find so much translucency,
canopies, traceries, lace work, embroid-
cries Of stone.
We had heard Of the wonderful reso-
nance of this Tai, and so tried it. |
suppose there are more sleeping echoes
in that building waiting to be wakened
by the human voice than in any build
ing ever constructed. uttered one word,
and there seemed descending invisible
choirs in full chant, and there was re-
verberation that kept on long after one
would have expected it to cease. When
a line Of a hymn was sung, there were
replying, rolling, rising, falling, inter
weaving sounds that seemed modulated
by beings seraphic. There were aerial
sopranos and bassos, soft, high, deep,
tremulous, emotional, commingling. 1t
was like an antiphonal Of heaven. But
there are four or five Tai Mahals. 1t has
one appearance at sunrise, another at
noon, another at sunset and another by
moonlight Indeed the silver trowel OF
the moon, and the golden trowel of the
sunlight, and the leaden trowel Of the
storm build and rebuild the glory, SO
that it never seems twice alike. 1t has
all moods, all compilations, all gran
deurs. From the top of the Tai, which
is 25O feet high, springs a spire 30 feet
higher, and that is enameled gold. What
an anthem in eternal rhythm Lyrics
and elegies in marble. Sculptured no.
sanDa. Masonry as Of supernatural
hands. Mighty doxology in stone. /
shall see nothing to equal it till see
the great white throne, and on it him
from whose face the earth and heavens
flee away.
The Pride Of India.
The Tai is the pride of India. and es-
pecially Of Mohammedanism. An Eng
lish officer at the fortress told US that
when during the general mutiny in 1857
the Mohammedans proposed insurrection
at Agra the English government aimed
the guns Of the fort at the Tai and said,
"You make insurrection. and that same
day we will blow your Tai to atoms, I"
and that threat ended the disposition for
mutiny at Agra
But I thought while looking at that
palace for the dead all this constructed
to cover handful Of dust, but even that
handful has probably gone from the
mausoleum. How much better it would
have been to expend $50, 900. 900, which
the Tai Mahal cost, for the living. What
asylums it might have built for the sick,
what houses for the homelessl What i'm
provement our century has made upon
other centuries in lifting in honor Of the
departed memorial churches, memorial
hospitals, memorial reading rooms, me-
mortal observatories. BY all possible
means let us keep the memory Of de-
parted loved ones fresh in mind, and let
there be an appropriate headstone or
monument in the cemetery, but there is
dividing line between reasonable COM
memoration and wicked extravaganza
The Tai Mahal has its uses as an archt-
teotural achievement, eclipsing all other
architecture, but as a memorial Of de-
parted wife and mother it expresses no
more than the plsinest slab in many a
country graveyard. The best monument
we can any Of US have built for us when
we are gone is in the memory Of those
whose sorrows we have alleviated, In
the wounds we have healed, in the kind
nesses we have done, in the ignorance
we have enlightened, in the recreant we
have reclaimed, in the souls we have
saved. Such a monument is built out Of
material more lasting than marble or
bronze and will stand amid the eternal
splendors long after the Tai Mahal OF
India shall have gone down in the ruins
Of world OF which II was the costliest
adornment. But l promised TO show you
not only a tomb of India, but unique
heather temple, and it is a temple un-
derground.
With miners candle we had seen
something of the underside Of Australia,
as at Gimpie, as with guides torch we
had seen at different times something
of the underside Of America as in Mann
moth cave, but we are now 10 enter one
of the sacred cellars Of India, common
ly called the Elephanta caves. We had
Il all to ourselves, the steam yacht that
was 20 take us about ! 5 miles over the
harbor Of Bombay and between enehant-
ed isisnds, and along shores whose curves