Let the burial-day be a day of meditation and quiet. In the evening the bereaved family can gather alone and talk over what has to be done. Then the next day let all the clothes be sent to the Kilburn Orphanage; and the personal property distributed according to the wish of the dead. Let the death room be entirely repapered and painted, and, if possible, refurnished; and, above all, do not be afraid to speak of those who have gone. I know how I should resent being forgotten; and perhaps those with whom we have just parted may hunger to hear all about us still; at all events, we cannot know they do not. De mortuis may mean a great deal more than we think; it is doubly evil, surely, to speak aught but good of the dead if we remember not only the defencelessness which caused that proverb, but the idea that all we may say about them we say in their dumb presence, and before those who are silent, and cannot speak in their own defence.
Death is a dreadful thing because of its silence, its separation. Yet if we meet it patiently—if we believe our dead are still within reach—we can bear it, more especially if we do our best to carry out their wishes, and do not, the moment they are gone, begin to reverse all their ideas and plans, and to forget them as speedily as may be; while, when our own time comes, we can face it bravely, feeling we are setting a good example, and leaving behind us nothing to pain or embarrass anyone, nothing but a bright remembrance, a good record, that may sooner or later be of use to others after us.
The sick room has more than once been the heart of the house; the death chamber in its turn can become, if properly thought of, the very gate of heaven itself.
CHAPTER XII.
WHERE SHALL WE GO FOR A CHANGE?
I think there is nothing that tries an ordinary householder more than answering the question with which I have headed this, my last chapter.
In the first place, as a rule, few men consider that a change can possibly be required. It seems only the other day that they returned from the last uncomfortable sojourn at some unhappy seaside town, and they are quite convinced that a second martyrdom cannot be necessary just at present. In the second, when change is really wanted, no one knows where to go; and in the third, if the place be selected, and the rooms taken, the unfortunate creature is sure to meet someone who knows all about it, and proceeds to make his friend profoundly miserable by telling him that that especial town is only decent at the very time of year when he cannot possibly go there; that he knows for certain an epidemic is raging there; and that the rooms taken for ‘six weeks certain’ are in the very worst part both for health and comfort, and that he can but wish him well home again. And the unfortunate traveller starts depressed and nervous; and having made up his mind to be miserable, is so, and derives no benefit whatever from that which was to do him and his soul an immense amount of good.
Now I cannot help thinking that English people, as a rule, do not show the smallest common sense in the manner they manage their holidays, more especially, of course, among the middle classes; the upper portion of which often enough have a tiny cottage somewhere, of which they speak grandly as ‘my country house,’ and the address of which is inscribed on their cards, and mentioned in the ‘blue book.’ And they fly to this the moment the weather becomes in the least warm, remaining there until they are driven back by the falling leaves and chilling fogs of an October in the country; and then wonder they are so little benefited. Why, they have not had any change; no more, at least, than those a shade lower in the social scale, who go to the same watering-place year after year, spend their mornings on the beach, their afternoons in slumber, or a ‘country walk,’ and their evenings on the pier or parade, and who see the same people, say the same things, and do the same actions mechanically as they do in town, only perhaps in a smaller space, and under far more uncomfortable circumstances.
The very stupidest thing on earth, to my mind, is the annual sojourn of a large family of small children, accompanied by their parents, to the orthodox seaside rooms or lodgings. In the first place, the parents, children, and nurses are very much too much together; the annoyances of the predatory habits of the landladies spoil Materfamilias’ temper; the servants are disorganised, and imagine that because the family makes holiday they are to be in some measure allowed to do just as they like, and much resent being unable to make excursions and ramble at large, whether it is convenient or not for their mistress to spare them. And, indeed, I do not know a more hard-worked, driven creature than the ordinary Materfamilias at the seaside, more especially if she has left her own large airy house, with its nurseries and schoolrooms, and taken lodgings at a fashionable spot, where every inch of space costs pounds, and where she can never rid herself of her family for one moment.
It is in her defence that I suggest that change of air should be obtained in a far easier and more satisfactory manner than it can be under the circumstances of which I have been speaking. As long as the children are quite small, I most strongly advise any mother to send them to the seaside in the end of May, and let them remain there until the first or second week in July. She should send them to some plainly-furnished cottage under the care of a lady who would be thankful to superintend them for the mere fare, change, keep, &c., that would be such a boon to her; and she should send their nurses with them. In this early portion of the year lodgings are cheap and clean, and so are provisions; the days are longer, the heat not so great as later on; and the children would come back when London was thinning and the parks and streets safe for them to be in; and at the end of July, having settled the children in, the father and mother could go for the complete change and rest they both need so greatly, and which it is impossible for them to have, encumbered by their household duties and cares, which must be taken with them if they move their servants and children en masse to some seaside place for August and September.