How Legends Pass

Roland is missing; his grave near Bordeaux is long destroyed. Where is the bearer of that mighty horn, where the bearer of the sword Durandal? He who was Lord of the Breton Marches, he who passed on the Ides of August in 778, is gone. They say he may yet rise, a paladin in the service of men.

Arthur is lost; Who is Arthur?, say the voices of the learned. We know that someone shut the voices of the Saxons in the 6th Century after Christ. Some say he sits, resting with his knights, until Britain needs him once more.

The Thunderer once said that even if he were to be lowered into his grave, he would rise up if anything went wrong with Atlantis. He still lives, but one can tell when a legend is passing, and when the device of foreshadowing is being employed.

But the Gnome has passed. And this one will not return. For like many elemental spirits of earth and matter, of coin and gem, of earthy humour and down-to-earth ways, he has built himself into the land and returns his body thereto. His sinews are in our institutions, his mind is in our processes, his veins are in our roads and tunnels. His historical record will be everywhere, like Arthur; his memory will survive his grave, like Roland.

And like Sir Christopher Wren, "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice!" — if you require a memorial, look around you!