Skip to main content

The Dead and Beautiful Rest (Cont.): Platypus Travels Part LXI

There are many beautiful places in the world.  I've stood in San Marcos in Venice, Saint Peter's in Rome, Saint Patrick's and Trinity in New York, Westminster Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral, and heard Easter service in London's Saint Paul's.  If you asked me, however, where I've felt the sublime, it would be as the evening sunlight is falling over the farms of White Hills.  This little baptist church is tucked away there on a small side road.  It hasn't been in use for a hundred years.  The burial ground is still active, however, and an association of families keeps the church in good repair and allows it to be used for weddings and other special occasions.  It's rather unremarkable, and one of the most beautiful things I've seen.

I suppose a Baptist church didn't stand much chance in a town like Shelton.  The first Sheltons were staunch members of the Church of England and Patriarch of the Family, Lieutenant Daniel Shelton, was a loyalist during the War of Independence.  Of course, being New England, many of the town's inhabitants (it was called Ripton back then) disagreed with the Sheltons on both counts and threw their lot in with Congregationalism and the Republic.  Over time, Catholic immigration added Saint Joseph's to the list of churches.  The small Baptist community made a valiant effort to insert themselves into the charged ecclesiastical atmosphere and held out for less than a hundred years.  The building is beautiful, however, and a brief look at the cemetery discloses that there was some real power and money behind it.

This is the Hubbell monument that forms the rough center of the cemetery.  Numerous signs proclaim that the head of the clan was a prominent Mason.  Under an inverted triangle, we find and arch with the legend HTWSSTKS (Hiram the Widow's Son Sent to King Solomon).  Beneath that, we find Jacob's Ladder and another arch(for the Temple?) under a rising sun(the Divine).  Below these are the mason's tools, the trowel and the spade and a clock with a crescent moon reminding us that we are all headed toward death (it would signify membership in the Elks if it was stopped at 11:00).  I knew a Hubbell many years ago and I wonder if he was a relation.  One way or another, this is a monument that was made to last, the fact that it sits in an out-of-the way corner of town by a church that hasn't been in use for a hundred years is a sad irony.  Yet I'm glad for the church and for the stone.  Whatever Mr. Hubbell and his fellow Baptists intended, they have left a legacy; a legacy of beauty.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane: The Platypus Reads Part CCLII

I needed a break from A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (too many authors and too many styles coming in too fast) so I decided to turn back to an author whose work I've enjoyed exploring: Robert E. Howard.  This time, however, I decided to skip over Howard's famous Conan yarns and instead take a look at one of his earlier creations, Solomon Kane.  The idea of a puritan occult detective was too intriguing to pass up.  I have the whole collection of Kane's tales and I do intend to blog them all.  Right now, my little literary detour has only encompassed the first two short stories so I'm going to record my thoughts on them right away and get back to the rest as I have time. Skulls in the Stars Solomon Kane makes his debut with this classic bit of English Gothic including a haunted moor, a vengeful ghost, and a solitary miser.   Howard's Kane fits the portrait of the archetypal puritan: grim, principled, metaphysical, with an iron sense of right and wrong.  I h...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCLI

Wow, it's hard to read anthologies at anything other than a slow crawl.  The change from author to author and style to style is exhausting.  Slowing down is a good thing, though, if it makes time for reflection.  That seems like one good reason to create an anthology: to force readers to slow down and reflect. With that as a preamble, let's move on to today's selections. The Black Ferris by Ray Badbury I didn't expect to see this Sci-Fi heavy hitter in a Fantasy collection, but there you go.  I've tried to get into Bradbury once or twice and failed.  His Martian Chronicles , in particular, resisted all my best efforts.  This short story, however, worked like a charm.  The sense of atmosphere in particular is masterfully done (a sort of Tom Sawyer strays into Edgar Allan Poe).  My only complaint is that there isn't more of it, but apparently Bradbury already fixed that by expanding the story into Something Wicked This Way Comes. This raise...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
16 comments
Read more