The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1910-10-14

Fl American tourist in West
minister abbey. Unconvention-
al as he may be in thousand
things, the American is the most con-
ventionaI of mortals in his attitude to-
ward the historic show places Of Eu-
rope. There is but one proper way to
view a monument, one proper opinion
to express in regard to it. This is de-
termined by tradition and, in the case
of the abbey the Washington Irving
tradition is the one that must be re-
garded. A hundred years ago Irving
established a residence within the
wall of the old minister and pro-
ceeded to write some very charming,
albeit little ford, prose regarding
its architecture and its memorials.
His expressed feeling toward it was
one of reverence and awe and melan-
choly, of admiration and respect. Now,
this was both correct and natural in
Irving's time, but that was before the
day when visitors crowded the aisles
like cattle at the herding, when the
walls were placarded with instructions
and warnings, even as the motor
buses that pass the door are placard-
ed with advertisements, and before
youthful vergers lined up the curious
In companies and collected siXpence
apiece for personally conducting them
through the royal chapels. The at
mosphere today, indeed, is not conduc-
I've to meditation and reverential &C.
stasy; the abbey is as much a show
place as the Albert Memorial or Earl's
Court, and the sad sight referred to
above is that of the hurried, bustling
tourists of the twentieth century try
ing to adapt themselves to the tradi-
ated by Irving-trying and not sue
ceeding.
Women in the Minister.
The suggestion that Florence Night
ingale be accorded the highest honor
known to an Englishman, that Of
burial in the abbey, caused me to res
urrect from the scrap pile an old
guide to the building, written in a tone
that Irving himself would have ap-
proved l wanted to find what women
have heretofore been granted this
distinction, or that of a tablet or mon
ument in this national place of sepul-
ture, and the reasons therefor. | dis
covered that their name was legion,
but that the honor given them, except
il two or three cases was for no spe-
cial merit Of their own. Their bodies
rested there or the monument was
raised to them because they were the
wives or daughters Of this dignitary
or that, one taking the room for no
more valid reason than that she was
the spouse of an estimable gentleman
who was for a time organist Of the
church. Two exceptions there were,
indeed-the one, jenny Lind, the 9TH
err Sarah Siddons. But their tablets
are Of small comparative size and
value, while to this Or that lady of the
court has been erected an imposing
and colossal monument. One all WIS.,
itors to the abbey will remember be-
cause of the hideous skeleton that
forms part of it's composition, erected,
as it happens, to the lady as we'll as
the lord of the same name as the he
roic Santa Filoment, who has just
passed away.
Was an Age of Stilted Periods.
The epitaphs quoted in the guide
book have a distinctive flavor. as if
they were some special brand manu-
featured for the abbey. The old kings
in the splendid old tombs need no in
scription, and have none, but as the
architectural merit of the tombs de
creases so does the verbal decoration
Increase, and with the monstrous
sculpture of the eighteenth century
comes the ford and overweight Pc
rioas of the epitaph writer's. You can