THE MONUMENT TO GENERAL GORDON.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." j
SIR,—" His disconsolate widow now carries on the old-established business in Brick Street." "Let me see, sirs ; first we lost our wee callant, and then Jenny, and then the gudeman himsel died, and then the coo died, poor hizzey ; but, to be sure, her hide brought me fifteen shillings." Captain Dalgetty, with the tear in his eye for his dead ' Gustavus,' took comfort in prospective cassock and trousers of 'Gustavus'' skin. Into how many town-clocks and additional wings to charitable institutions did not a sympathetic public utilise the memory of "Albert the Good?" And what time would suffice me for telling of the funeral-sermons which out of departed worthies have " improved " their several occasions? So no wonder that the doctor who now (not unhonoured there) sits in Hooker's seat should (in a last week's Times) suggest some similar utilisation of General Gordon. Let one poor protest be offered against any such utilisation, any fifteen shillings—material or spiritual—oat of our hero's hide. Let a "Gordon Pyramid" look over the Desert from Khartoum as "idly and inertly" as Carlyle tells as those of Geeza. and Sacckara have looked for these three thousand years. A pyramid, let it be, surmounted by a Queen Eleanor's cross. But, in truth,— The Blue Nile and the White Nile are the lasting " Sacred to the memory" of the Gordon who was shot down where their waters meet. What need of any other ?—I am, Sir, &c., Sulby Vicarage. F. W. Haarza.
Previous page
