The head-stone, reared by the hand of pious affection, instead of pointing to the remains it was erected to commemorate, stands over the graves of strangers, and we shed our tears over those whom we never knew; while the sexton and the grave-digger grin at us behind the neighbouring tomb-stones, chinking the silver in their pockets, and laughing to think that the paupers whom they shoved into “our” grave on the previous night in a “huggermugger” way should be wept over by the broken-hearted mourner whom they have thus cheated. With these facts dinned into our ears every day by the uplifted voice of the press, are we not guilty of disrespect towards the dead by burying them in these ever-changing and common lodging-houses? We know not where their remains are to be found at the end of the year; cannot tell whether they have been removed to lay the foundation of a new road, or sold and ground up to manure some distant field.
Let us not forget that when the heathen Greeks and Romans brought the remains of their heroes and poets into their ancient temples, the bodies were first burnt, and only the ashes preserved in richly sculptured urns, on which the achievements of the dead were pictured: their classical minds fashioned “a thing of beauty” out of the ashes of the departed; they gave to the dead a beautiful dwelling-place, and those who were buried unscathed by the funeral fire were interred in cemeteries where trees were planted over them, and marble monuments erected; and, idolators though they were, such places were held sacred, and were called “the silent cities of the dead,” and were ever remote from the abodes of the living.
I have before remarked, in my Pictures of Country Life, that, amid the din and tumult of a populous city, the dead are sadly misplaced. I never look upon those close unhealthy corners, crowded with graves, without feeling that it is wrong to bury the dead there; that they ought to be removed from such shadowy and sunless spots to where the tall trees would make a soothing murmur above their heads, and all around them be “gentle images of rest.” Their business with this world is ended; they have finished their long day’s work; the roll of carriages, the tramp of busy passengers, and living voices, clamorous for gain, ever in my ear sound harshly when they come grating and jarring amongst the resting-places of the dead. The price of corn, the state of the money-market, or the rising and falling of the funds, are matters which ought to be discussed far away from those we followed, and wept over, and consigned to their silent chambers, there to sleep till the last trumpet sounds.
In the open Cemetery, we seem to walk through a land lettered with living affections, and strewn over with tokens of existing love. Our sympathies are divided between the mourned and the mourners; our sorrow is not alone for the dead; the flowers at our feet remind us that there are those behind us somewhere who come here now and then to weep. If we picture Grief standing there with bowed head, and hair unbound, “refusing to be comforted,” Pity seems to kneel before us at the same time; and, while she looks up timidly into the pale face of Grief, appears as if entreating of her to remember the mourners, who only survive to weep; while Memory, with downcast
