a grave joke

I have walked past this gravestone almost every week for the past 16 years and failed to notice the inscription until tonight. 'At spes non fracta' translates roughly as 'but hope is not yet crushed'. Quite why it is written above what looks like a cracked globe, I'm not sure. * But the grave commemorates the life and death of one Reverend Hope, minister of Dunscore, who died in 1886. I wonder if he used the same wit in his sermons?

I was in Dunscore tonight to see a showing of 'The General', a silent movie starring (and directed by). Buster Keaton. It was brilliant, and I won the raffle (a copy of the DVD).

* Postscript... have since discovered that this is the crest of the Clan Hope.