And I won't be buried in the city neither, nor in Greenwood. I've been crowded enough in my life-time—I'll have room enough after I'm dead. But where shall I go? There are places a plenty now, but in fifty years, or ten, who can tell that there won't be a hundred thousand trampling over my grave? Five dollars a square foot, let me see, that would be thirty dollars. Alas, poor Yorick! who would give thirty dollars to secure you a quiet sleep?
That was a glorious idea of that world-weary old Goth to be buried under a river, forever sounding his funeral dirge; but it's no sort of use now—that's the very place to be turned topsey-turvey. I'll be sunk in the very middle of the Atlantic—yes, that'll do—I shall be safe enough there, in an iron coffin. But wait a minute. They are talking already of laying their wires to Europe—yes, and then I shall hardly have settled myself for a nap of a thousand years or so, when they'll be sure to come foul of me, and perhaps fish me up again, or at least give me a confounded shock.
I used to think I would be buried by my old mother, under the old elm in the quiet churchyard. But it's no use: the churchyard is quiet no longer; the old elm is as dusty and worried as I; and the old tombstones have stopped mourning for the dead, to stare, and gape, and gossip over the living. No, I'll not be buried there, to be waked up every hour by that infernal whistle.
Heighho! what a strange thing it is to grow old all alone, and when everything else is so young! I used to think the world would grow old with me, but I believe it's younger than ever. But it's no such thing—it's only paint and varnish; the older it grows, the thicker they lay it on. Wash that off, and what is there but a withered, wrinkled old hag? Faugh! I'd as lieve sit down to dinner with a skeleton. There's nothing old but the hills. They're not ashamed to be grey, God bless 'em! They never can paint Mr. Washington.
How I love the sight of their conscious yet unpretending majesty, their quiet, self-reliant strength! With what grand and noble pity they seem to look down on our fretting, bustling insignificance!
But stop. Where am I? right in the middle of the nineteenth century—the last of my race—the last of the old fogies. There's something in that. There'll never be another after me. Noah, he was the first, and I'm the last. Who is there to mourn for Logan?
But, no matter. They've enough to do to mourn for themselves. From my soul I pity them, poor helpless creatures! stuffed full of self-sufficiency, they've no longer any occasion for our services; they're no longer sensible of any obligation. When I was young it was the fashion to respect old age for what it had done, if not for what it could do; but we have changed all that.
[He turns over some old papers and reads.]
"July, 1812. Some reflections on the exceeding folly of growing old." Let me see: what is this? Oh, ha, ha, [laughing feebly] I remember now. It's that paper I wrote for my grandfather when I was younger and not so wise as I am now; and sister Mary—where is she now, I wonder—she wouldn't let me put it in his way.
[He reads here and there.]