"It was a scene more like a quiet garden party than a funeral service when his mortal remains were buried near the garden-hut, which he had so often used as a study, in the grounds at Windlesham. Jean Conan Doyle wore a flowered summer dress. Word had spread that they did not wish mourning; there was little sign of it in the vast crowd who attended on that sunlit day of July 11th, 1930.
But they missed him. And the world missed him. People at home, people in far places, saw pictures and remembered dreams when they heard he was gone. When the telegrams arrived, and the special train to carry the flowers, it seemed that all on earth remembered him.
So he was buried near the garden-hut; and the flowers that had been sent in his memory covered the whole field as though a fanciful Dutch garden had grown as high as a man's head. On the headstone over his grave Jean told them to inscribe only his name, the date of his birth, and four words - Steel true, blade straight. The headstone was of British oak.
What more can be said, after that ?
Nearly all else must be in the minds of those who remember. Ageing men and women who remember the pleasure his stories gave; ageing men and women who remember how he championed the helpless and the broken; those, older still, who catch an echo of 'The Bow was made in England', and remember how all his life he served England well.
These must speak in full of him, not those of us who toil in his wake and only try to understand. For the cause of psychic religion he gave his heart, his worldly possessions, and finally his life. And, whether it be said in the spiritual sense or only the earthly influence he has left behind among us, one word may be added. Let no man write his epitaph. He is not dead."
from John Dickson Carr's The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle