The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-07
Fine Descriptive Writing

rihc descriptive writing
The London Times editorials are some
times heavy, but that great newspaper
has always had reporters whose descrip-
tive sketches of stately pageants have
been unsurpassed. A month ago Field
Marshal Lord Wellesley was buried from
st. PauPs cathedral, London, and the re-
porter assigned to write the story was
equal to Charles Dickens at his best
Here are excerpts:
ut was a day of weird shapes and
fantastic outlines A white wall of fog
seemed to shut off the embankment from
the rest of the world. The street lamps
in the city were lighted, and as the fu-
neral procession passed they looked like
the sentinel candles of some ghostly
requiem. The fog was not so dense as
to raise any difficulties in the path of
those who took part in the procession
from the war office to st. PauFs, or to
obscure the view of the great crowds who
lined the route. It was, however, suf-
ficienty thick to produce some strangely
solemn effects. The wailing lament of
the pipes, always eerie to the sensitive
mind, could be heard down the slowly
moving line of troops long before the
pipers could be seen. The drums seemed
doubly muffled. And instead of one great
crowd there were a vast number of
segments of people, all, indeed, imbued
with the same spirit of reverence and
awe, but each confined within the allotted
space of a severely restricted line of
vision, and each feeling more intimately
the spell of the stately ceremonial be-
cause of its apparent aloofness from the
others.
THE prevailing gloom had another and
very notable influence on the crowd
There can rarely have been such a silence
in the heart of London. For three-quar-
ters of an hour, while the procession was
passing a given point on the tightly filled
| embankment, one could not only see
every phase of the moving spectacle, but
could hear its every tone. The slow and
measured tramp of the infantry. the me-
tallic ring of the hoofs of the cavalry
mems horses, the rattle of the artillery,
and the low tones of the officers as they
issued their orders to the troops on
street duty-all these We're so clearly
heard as to leave behind an impression
of stiffness and solitude in the midst of a
mighty company.
yet, when the office ended with the
benediction, pronounced by the dean, the
ceremony, so perfectly conducted, so deep
ly impressive, was not over. The Dead
March in Saul had brought the field mar
shall in his last pomp to the cathedral
door; the Dead March in Saul, played by
the Coldstream Guards at the choir gates,
bade farewell to him. Deeply moved as
all present must have been by these thun-
dering drums and the proud security OF
the triumpets, sound yet more moving
and more thrilling was to follow. From
some invisible point high in the soaring
galleries of the dark cathedral broke
sharply and suddenly the notes of The
Last Post, played by the buglers of the
Royal Irish regiment. The echoes died
away in the misty roof. only TO be set
ringing again by a new blast Again
and again the intermittent silence fled
before the clear challenge of this naughty
call, this high-hearted assurance and the
days work is DONE that all Is well, that
the time for rest is at hand. Silence had
brooded unbrolSen for. some seconds be-
fore the congregation, moved to the heart,
again drew breath.
Then. while the band played Beethov-
ems funeral march. one and all walked
In reverence past the vacant PLATFORM
past the orders and the medals never