all to
produce this enduring work of beauty, that tells posterity of the mighty
acts of this mighty man. The rare richness and lavish beauty of the
Wellington mausoleum are only surpassed by a certain tomb in France.

As an exploiter, the Corsican overdid the thing a bit--so the world arose
and put him down; but safely dead, his shade can boast a grave so
sumptuous that Englishmen in Paris refuse to look upon it.

But England need not be ashamed. Her land is spiked with glistening
monuments to greatness gone. And on these monuments one often gets the
epitomized life of the man whose dust lies below.

On the carved marble to Lord Cornwallis I read that, "He defeated the
Americans with great slaughter." And so, wherever in England I see a
beautiful monument, I know that probably the inscription will tell how
"he defeated" somebody. And one grows to the belief that, while woman's
glory is her hair, man's glory is to defeat some one. And if he can
"defeat with great slaughter" his monument is twice as high as if he had
only visited on his brother man a plain undoing.

In truth, I am told by a friend who has a bias for statistics, that all
monuments above fifty feet high in England are to the honor of men who
have defeated other men "with great slaughter." The only exceptions to
this rule are the Albert Memorial--which is a tribute of wifely affection
rather than a public testimonial, so therefore need not be considered
here--and a monument to a worthy brewer who died and left three hundred
thousand pounds to charity. I mentioned this fact to my friend, but he
unhorsed me by declaring that modesty forbade carving truth on monuments,
yet it was a fact that the brewer, too, had brought defeat to vast
numbers and had, like Saul, slaughtered his thousands.

When I visited the site of the Globe Theater and found thereon a brewery,
whose shares are warranted to make the owner rich beyond the dream of
avarice, I was depressed. In my boyhood I had supposed that if ever I
should reach this spot where Shakespeare's plays were first produced, I
should see a beautiful park and a splendid monument; while some
white-haired old patriarch would greet me, and give a little lecture to
the assembled pilgrims on the great man whose footsteps had made sacred
the soil beneath our feet.

But there is no park, and no monument, and no white-haired old poet to
give you welcome--only a brewery.

"Ay, mon, but ain't ut a big un?" protested an En