A more affecting sight was that, of those who were placed in the boxes, broken and bruised, as they were, in every limb. The boxes could not contain them, as their clothes were stiffened by the water and ice and snow. Those, too, whose clothes had been burned away, were so distorted in limb and body that no box could hold their forms.
Though dead, and stiff and cold, they seemed as if they would start from their graves, and escape the fearful fate, which had seized and destroyed their life.
And yet, even these would move the heart. They were those whom somebody loved, and, though seen in their distorted shapes and in that horrid place, were dear to their friends and gratefully recognized. Some even impressed the eye with what they were in life. Strong men, with enough of clothing left, or with their form and features sufficiently preserved, to show their gentle breeding or their business habits, betokened, through all the smoke and ruin, what they were and how esteemed. Women, too, were there, whose clothes were sufficiently preserved, to show what taste and culture they may have possessed, and in their forms, though blackened and burned, retained the grace and beauty which had been admired.
A little child was there, beautiful in death; the delicate little foot hid beneath the closely fitting shoe, the nicely tapered limbs, the graceful, lovely form, the tasteful dress, the hands so tiny and so touching in their shape, one could but love the little thing. Even the stranger wanted to take that sweet, that precious child, and clasp it to the heart; but no, that awful gash, that cruel blow had stricken all the beauty from the lovely face. If now, the mother would kiss her darling child, she must press her lip upon vacant air, hoping that, as she pressed that loved form to her aching heart, an angel spirit might catch the fond caress.
There were other more revolting scenes than these, but let the veil be drawn. The deformity of death must not distress the living, and yet those were happy, whose loved and lost had been reduced to ashes, in that fearful burning, rather than that they should thus find their precious forms, for the sight would shock their very hearts, and send back its warm affection to a chilled, an appalled, a horror stricken soul. No! the remnants of those deformed, defaced and half destroyed human forms, were better in the hands of strangers than with their friends. The grim certainty of their death, but the uncertainty as to whom the life belonged, were better with those who had less of the yearning for possession, than the friends.
Citizens could take up the poor remains, when no one else could claim them, and could bury them with all the attention and kindness which was in their hearts, but no sense of possession was ever theirs; therefore, they were happy who felt and knew that the sacred ashes of their loved had been covered by the beautiful snow, and the valley was their grave.
The stream could sound their requiem; the lake could moan its lament, and every wave might be supposed to carry a portion of their precious forms to distant shores; but God alone could gather the elements, and fashion it for the future love. Nothing but the sacred urn of earth, which contains all that is mortal of the human race—nothing but this, is the depository of those loved forms which were once so full of life; but everything in nature becomes the more precious to the longing heart. Unseen fingers shall weave their garments in the spring, and the songs shall burst forth from those forest hills, but the better land contains their spirits, and to that, the living must go to claim their own.
THE NEW BRIDGE, WITH TEMPORARY UNDERPINNING.
[From a Photograph by Kitzsteiner & Greene, Cleveland.]