Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-01-12

its first figure, or rnason's plumb line
measured its first wall, or architects
compass swept its first circle.
Tho TAI has 10 great arched win
dows fonr at each corner; also at each
Of tho four corners of the Tai stands
minaret 1877 feet high; also at each side
of this building is splendid mosque Of
red sandstone. Two hundred and fifty
years has the Tai stood, and yet not q
wall is cracked, nor mosaic loosened,
nor an arch sagged, nor panel dulled
/ The storms of 250 winters have not
marred nor the heats Of $50 summers
disintegrated marble. There is no
story of age written by moses on its
white surface. Montaz, the queen, was
beautiful. and Shah Jehan, the king,
here proposed TO let all the centuries of
time know it. She was married at 20
years of age and died at 30. Her life
ended as another life began As the rose
bloomed the rosebush persisted.
Glittering With Jewels.
To adorn this dormitory of the dead,
at tho command of the king, Bagdad
sent to this building its comedian 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 cbalcedony and moss agates
are as common as though they were peb
bles. You find enc spray of vine beset
with 80 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
1 ing cost what would be about $50, 000,-
4 600 of our American money. Some of
tho 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-
lures are so wondrous that you feel like
dating the rest of your life from the day
/ you first saw them. IRletters of black
marble the whole of the 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 tho river for himself to sleep in
Indeed the foundation of such Lotrop
| oils of black marble is still there, and
| from the white to the black temple of
the dead bridge was to cross, but the
SON dethroned him and imprisoned him,
and it is wonderful that tho king had
any place at all in which to be buried.
| Instead Of windows to let in tho light
upon tho 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
i'll that building waiting to be Weakened
by the human voice than in any build
ing ever constructed. UTTERED ono word,
and there seemed descending invisible
choirs in full chant, and there was re-
verberation that kept on long after ono
would have expected it to cease. When
a line of 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 trowol 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 $50 feet high, springs spire 80 feet
| higher, and that is enameled gold. What
an anthem in eternal rhythm! Lyrics
and elegies in marble Sculptured no.
sauna. 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
| fish officer at the fortress told Us that
when during the general mutiny in 1857
the Mohammedans proposed Instruction
at Agra the English government aimed
the guns of the fort at the TAI and said,
"You make instruction, and that same
day we will blow your Tai to atoms, "
I hat Iol I,a f.,
mutiny at Agra
But thought while looking at that
/ palace for tho 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 homelessi What i'm
provement our century has made upon
other centuries in lifting i'll 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
I iA'NAN " HiA AiIdtiStbLG VI
monument i'll the cemetery, but there is
q dividing line between reasonable COM
memoration and wicked extravaganza
/ The TAI Mahal has it's uses as an archi-
tectural achievement, eclipsing all other
architecture but as memorial of a de.
| parted wife and mother it expresses no
more than the plainest slab i'll many a
| country graveyard The best monument
! we can any of us have built for us when
I we are gone is in the memory of those
1 whose sorrows we have alleviated, in
the wounds we have healed, in the kind.
nesses we have done, in the ignorance
we have enlightened, III the recreant we
have reclaimed, i'll the souls we have
saved. Such a monument is built ont 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 i'll the ruins
If a world Of which it was thu costliest