"
I looked up inquiringly, and she continued: "I notice that an old
tombstone seems to set you meditating. So it does me. When I look at an
ancient monument, and especially an old headstone, I find myself almost
unconsciously retracing the years to the date that is written on the
stone. Why do you think that is? Why should a monument be so stimulating
to the imagination? And why should a common headstone be more so than
any other?"
"I suppose it is," I answered reflectively, "that a churchyard monument
is a peculiarly personal thing and appertains in a peculiar way to a
particular time. And the circumstance that it has stood untouched by the
passing years while everything around has changed, helps the imagination
to span the interval. And the common headstone, the memorial of some
dead and gone farmer or labourer who lived and died in the village hard
by, is still more intimate and suggestive. The rustic, childish
sculpture of the village mason and the artless doggerel of the village
schoolmaster, bring back the time and place and the conditions of life
much more vividly than the more scholarly inscriptions and the more
artistic enrichments of monuments of greater pretensions.
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