Cemeteries 



few weeks, such a thing as a great artist 

 could not execute without many months of 

 careful study. Gradually, however, we are 

 coming to realize that this is not the way to 

 secure monuments for public display. Grad- 

 ually we are learning that the artist's part in 

 them is quite as important as the stone-cut- 

 ter's or the mason's. But just in the place 

 where one might think good taste would 

 most surely prevail, and no care or pains 

 would be counted too great — ^just here we 

 do even worse than with our pubHc monu- 

 ments. In our cemeteries we still feel that 

 we can dispense altogether with the artist's 

 aid. When we commemorate our own be- 

 loved dead we think less of true beauty in 

 the result than when we buy a dress or fur- 

 nish a drawing-room. The stone-yard stands 

 close to the cemetery's gate ; and to the 

 stone-yard we contentedly go when we want 

 a slab or headstone, or even an emblematic 

 figure or an elaborate architectural monu- 

 ment. 



There is a chance for the exercise of true 

 art in the designing of even the simplest 

 head-stone ; and there is the certainty of a 



237 



