"That is all," he cried, springing lightly up. "Oh, the dust on my knees!" he added with vexation.
"He may have sung very sweetly," pursued the old man.
"He may, indeed!" they answered, carelessly.
"But, sirs," continued he, with a sad smile, "perhaps you are the very generation that he looked to for the fame which his own denied him; perhaps he died believing that you would fully appreciate his poems."
"If so, it was a comfortable faith to die in," they said, laughing, in return. "He will never know that we did not. A few great poets have posthumous fame: we know them well enough." And they passed on.
"This," said the old man, as they paused elsewhere, "seems to be the monument of a true soldier: know you aught of the victories he helped to win?"
"He may not have helped to win any victories. He may have been a coward. How should we know? Epitaphs often lie. The dust is peopled with soldiers." And again they moved on.
"Does any one read his sermons now, know you?" asked the old man as they paused before a third monument.
"Read his sermons!" they exclaimed, laughing more heartily. "Are sermons so much read in the country you come from? See how long he has been dead! What should the world be thinking of, to be reading his musty sermons?"
"At least does it give you no pleasure to read 'He was a good man?'" inquired he, plaintively.