Mourning glory; Two city cemeteries embody Victorian culture of grief.(ARTS & CULTURE)(THINK PIECE)

Washington Times, The, March, 2008

Byline: Joseph Bottum, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Washington is a city with two great Victorian cemeteries: the public graveyard of Arlington National Cemetery and private Rock Creek Cemetery.

Perhaps that's not surprising. The Victorians were half in love with death. Many pictures show them in funeral black, and every other novel of the era tells of lifelong grief they seemed to treasure.

Their Edwardian children despised them for it, of course. To read the Edwardians is to discover a generation who believed that their parents were not merely wrong but sick - ...