Why can't I do that?

These days I spend about half of my working hours writing and editing. Every now and then I turn out a phrase or even a sentence that I'm proud of. But I had cause last week to pull down from the bookshelf Barbara Tuchman's justly famous 1962 history of WWI The Guns of August. This was one of JFK's favourite books, and it's possible to see a keen sense of wanting to avoid the sort of stupidity that Europe fell into in 1914 in his dealings with the Soviets in 1962-3.

But it's the writing that just kills me in this book. Here's the first paragraph:

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and green and blue and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Tuchman said it took her eight hours to write that paragraph. I don't think I could do it in eight years. I hereby announce that I want to be Barbara Tuchman when I grow up.