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Dress these people differently (Church all right) and
it is a funeral in Hannibal, fifty years ago. For evidently
all these gorgeous folk know each other from babyhood—
greet, kindly and cordially.
3:05. It is a fine picture now—a solid mass of blue and
green and gold with that splotch of stunning red and
white and gold in front of church.
1600 years ago the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died
here—it was a Roman Camp then, and the country had
been under the Roman Dominion something over 400,
possibly 600, years.
3:58. An interval. The crowd waiting.
Pause—waiting.
(I suppose that no one past 45 attaches high value to
his life, but would not like to have it taken in a horrible
way.)
Essentially, nobilities are foolishnesses, but if I were
a citizen where they prevail I would do my best to get
a title, for the consideration it furnishes—that is what we
want. In Republics we strive for it with the surest means
we have—money.
4:12. The procession is coming—cavalry, four abreast,
to spread the crowd apart—25 men.
Great body of Lancers—blue, and gilt helmets. Hardly
a sound of hoofs.
Three 6-horse mourning coaches. Outriders and coach-
men in cocked hats and white wigs. Troops in red, gold
and white—splendid.
The hearse—eight black horses, plumed—all uncover.
The military salute. Drums. Hungarian bodyguard with
leopard skins.
Candles.
The little coffin borne In.
That scalawag caused it.
The crowd has surged together. Solid. Splendid mass
of color.
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