Monument

“ The name we pronounce deserves to be recorded in a more conspicuous place in the book of fame than any name which has gathered gory laurels on the wet field of carnage; she deserves a higher monument than rises over the resting-place of earth's proudest conqueror—a monument not of marble, nor of brass, nor of gold, but one which shall lift its summit until a halo of eternal light shall gather about it and gild it with the beams of glory. ”

“ How steeped now in the stillness of moonlight are all those pale, pillared Churches, Courts and Cloisters, Shrines and Altars, with here and there a Statue standing in the shade, or Monument sacred to the memory of the pious—the immortal dead. ”

“ If he would dream of being remembered by coming generations, what monument so enduring as a college building that shall bear his name, and even when its solid masonry shall crumble give place to another still charged with the same sacred duty of perpetuating his remembrance. ”

“ Behold how fair, how far prolonged in arch and aisle, the avenues of the valleys, the fringes of the hills! so stately,—so eternal; the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, the glory of the earth,—they are but the monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let them not pass, without our understanding their last counsel and example: that we also, careless of monument by the grave, may build it in the world—monument by which men may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where we lived. ”

“ This monument forms a prominent object in the surrounding scene, raising its fair head amid the green foliage of summer, the many-hued leaves of autumn, or the snow-clad boughs of winter, and yielding both from base and summit an extended view of vale, village, river, and mountain.
To find the connecting links between beautiful nature, and the higher endowments of the human mind, is always delightful. ”

“ A simple monument on the crest of the hill, the bloodiest spot of the one-time battle ground, tells to the thoughtful stranger the story of a restless heart o’er whom as o’er Madame de Stael and many another heir of a checkered heritage might be engraved as epitaph, “Here rests one who never rested.” ”

“ If, again, he seek for objects of moral interest, there is the feudal fortalice—the cloistered abbey—the storied minster—the gothic castle, with all their rich associations;—there the mouldering monument—the fields of conflict, the scenes of tradition, of poetry, and of love—and, far amid the wild upland, gleams the mossy stone, and bends the solitary ash, over the martyr of his faith. ”

“ What if the monument has photographs and phonographs of all it has seen and heard and some day, some acuter scientist than now living comes along and reproduces all these scenes and voices in a historical panorama! ”

“ I have completed a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower, the unavailing north wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and the flight of seasons, shall be able to demolish. ”

“ At every turn there is a great name, or some great monument of the mighty dead, and as you pause to look you ponder and remember what made the name great, who built the great monument, who indeed were the mighty dead! ”

“ While there I took a sketch, wherein I introduced the father of New England rivers, and the bald peak of Mount Lafayette, with the storm-inflicted scar upon its brow. A noble monument is yonder mountain to the memory of a noble man. ”

“ Let his successors, who daily behold this monument, consider that it was not built to entertain the eye, but to instruct the mind ! Let them reflect, that their conduct will make it their glory or their reproach. Let them feel that similarity of manners, not proximity of blood, gives them an interest in this statue. ”

“ We might erect to our fallen dead the most magnificent monument that this world has ever seen, we might built it in marble, and stud it with gems, and have the greatest poets and artists decorate it, but it would be a mockery and a sham. ”

“ As the astonishing monument assumes colossal proportions in his eyes, the spectator somehow multiples the mass by the number of arms which have erected it, and he experiences a genuine admiration for the work whose greatness reveals in so striking a manner what men are capable of producing by the union of their efforts. ”

“ When he had a monument to build he wasted years in quarries, selecting his blocks of marble and making roads along which to carry them. He wanted to be everything—engineer, workman, stone-cutter; to do everything himself—build palaces and churches with no other aid than his own. ”

“ We honour you. And though no sculptured marble transmit your fame, a nobler monument shall be yours—the happy hearts of [Pg 18] unborn millions shall be the shrine in which your names will be treasured. In your high example—in your noble disinterestedness—in your entire subordination of every thought, and act, and scheme, and interest, to the heaven-born purpose of human regeneration and human elevation, we hear the language of encouragement. ”

“ But you will have, whether in your obscure and unvisited graves or in your great mausoleums, a richer and a more imperishable monument; a monument which neither time nor war nor malice can ever destroy. The stories of your heroic lives and noble deaths can no more perish than the ocean that laps our shores. ”

“ This monument dedicated to his memory to-day, is a token, primarily, of our gratitude to Thee for the favors Thou hast granted us through Thy servant. Teach us all to be like him, intrepid in danger, indomitable in trial, undismayed in failure and unspoiled in success. May everyone who has participated in the erection and dedication of this monument have the grace to direct his own life in the way of [173] happiness and virtue, and also to be a source of benediction unto generations yet unborn. ”

“ AND now 'tis done: more durable than brass
My monument shall be, and raise its head
O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread
Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.
I shall not wholly die: large residue
Shall 'scape the queen of funerals. ”

“ The statue--unlike the monument, which at once arouses spontaneous emotions in the spectator--should express the human being, his sensations, his affections, his passions and struggles, and should arouse an enthusiasm of admiration while it awakens sympathetic echoes in the heart of the observer. ”

“ This is what he has accomplished among us, this is the work which he has left us,—a work lofty and solid,—a monument robustly piled in layers of granite, from the height of which hereafter his renown shall shine in splendor. Great men make their own pedestal, the future will be answerable for the statue. ”

“ Natural beauty it has none: it is simply a long, narrow strip of ground inclosed in walls, with straight, parallel walks running the whole length, and narrow cross-walks; and yet it is a lovely burial-ground. There are but few trees; but the whole inclosure is a conservatory of beautiful flowers. Every grave is covered with them, every monument is surrounded with them. The monuments are unpretending in size, but there are many fine designs, and many finely executed busts and statues and allegorical figures, in both marble and bronze. The place is full of sunlight and color. ”

“ But, in any case, whatever may be the future of architecture, in whatever manner our young architects may one day solve the question of their art, let us, while waiting for new monument, preserve the ancient monuments. ”

“ The monument being a plain one, and making no palpable appeal to vulgar admiration, was disregarded by these people; for it is in death as in life, if you would excite the notice of the multitude, you must in the grave have a splendid mausoleum, or in walking the streets you must wear fine clothes. ”

“ We have many a monument of past ages: we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. ”

“ Another monument has a life-size figure on horseback, and all have so much freshness to an English eye, and yet so much identity in principle with our own old monuments, that they are well worthy of study. ”

“ And, finally, "in creating a monument, the problem is mainly to give expression to the acts performed within its walls, which is done by giving the structure a form which will correspond with the groups performing those acts, and to its parts such masses, modeling, carved and color decoration as will express precisely the degree of stability, dignity, and elegance which corresponds with the import of the acts to be expressed." ”

“ And this is so true, that not only every religious symbol, but every human thought, has its page and its monument in that immense book. ”

“ The monument that tells of a civilization whose hieroglyphic records we cannot even decipher, the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and left no sign of its life except the rough tools and utensils buried in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and excites our curiosity. ”

“ And when old time Shall lead him to his end, Goodness and he fill up one monument! ”

“ We can therefore always select a spot where that part of human or inanimate nature is most peculiarly manifested, and we should always do this in preference to selecting any scenes of celebrated passages in the individual's life; for those scenes are in themselves the best monuments, and are injured by every addition. Let us observe a few examples. The monument to the Swiss who fell at Paris, defending the king, in 1790, is not in the halls of the Tuileries, which they fortified with their bodies ”

“ O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her! And be her sense but as a monument, Thus in a chapel lying! ”

“ Thus man passes away; his name passes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin. ”

“ Yet the works of a good man follow him and in numberless homes, in public buildings, on church spires, honored monuments to the memory of Simon Willard still survive—monuments far more useful than are inert blocks of marble—monuments that pulse with life and keep hourly before those who look upon them the thought of one who performed for his fellow men a practical and enduring service. ”

“ CONCORD HYMN SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, JULY 4, 1837 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. ”

“ In the other the escaped captive might well desire to adopt the arts of his former masters, and wish to take his last rest beneath a monument with his effigy at its head. The use of a large stone instead of a wooden tablet scarcely deserves comment, for the change of material would in no sense interfere with the object in view, but on the contrary would render the monument more deserving of the name. ”

“ To propose a subscription to all well-disposed people to raise a certain sum of money, to be expended in the care of a cheap monument for the former and the future great dead men—the monument to be a white cross with a wooden slab at the end, telling their names and qualifications. ”

“ Monuments and ruins have been disinterred in the ancient seats of human power, in the oriental world, and inscriptions deciphered, which give vitality to ancient history. Ethnology has arisen to hold up the light of her resplendent lamp, amid these ruins, to guide the footsteps of letters, science and piety. ”

“ He has built his monument
With the winds of time at strife,
Who could have before he went
Written in the book of life.
To the stars from which he came
Empty handed he goes home;
He who might have wrought in flame
Only traced upon the foam.'
[33] ”

“ The monument has a long and dignified human history: it is a place where one can see how nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage. The monument presents exemplary opportunities for geologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians, and biologists. ”

“ There you have all my life, save only a tomb which I have not yet had the courage to visit. We pay great attention to crumbling monuments: we keep them up; we rid them of their plants and flowers; the women whom I had left young have become old, and the ruins have become young again: what would you have one do here? ”

“ Hundreds of people have cut their names in the stone work, and the monument, which ought to be preserved in perpetuity, looks so disreputable that little regret would be caused were the entire fragment to be swept away by some unusually heavy gust of wind. ”

“ Our ancients had to explore the remains of these far earlier days by the same faint glimmerings of legend and tradition as ourselves ... and to us, whose early youth is spent among the immortal lays, whose living substance is called up by even the pictured resemblance of these massive piles—monuments, as we would fain believe, of the days of Achilles and the Atridæ, and the old time before them—to us every rugged stone seems vocal with some old heroic legend. ”

“ Upon these imperishable monuments, which have outlived, in all the beauty and freshness of early youth, the sculptured trophy, the triumphal arch, the pompous and elaborate inscription, and the many costly and gorgeous works of art that were erected to commemorate the conqueror's achievements, may be read the meaning, though sententious legend, which, assisted by appropriate designs, tells its story plainly and effectively. ”

“ Transmuted imperfection into art
And built up glory from relinquished dreams
And made of clay memorial to stilled prayer,
Giving our silted graves power in the light,
Our dusted mouths voice in the upper air.
Yet every building shall be razed, nor shall
There rest one stone upon another placed
By our primeval days, for in the time
Of consummation such communities
Of worship, and such habitations
Shall rise, that all our most ethereal spires,
Our flame-transmuted monuments shall seem
But lead to gold or clay to alabaster ”