Is there no house on Inishail?
NORTH.
Not one—but the house appointed for all living. A Burial-place. I see it—but not one of you—for it is little noticeable, and seldom used—on an average, one funeral in the year. Forty years ago I stepped into a small snuff-shop in the Saltmarket, Glasgow, to replenish my shell—and found my friend was from Lochawe-side. I asked him if he often revisited his native shore, and he answered—seldom, and had not for a long time—but that though his lot did not allow him to live there, he hoped to be buried in Inishail. We struck up a friendship—his snuff was good, and so was his whisky, for it was unexcised. A few years ago, trolling for Feroces, I met a boat with a coffin, and in it the body of the old tobacconist.
SEWARD.
"The Churchyard among the Mountains," in Wordsworth's Excursion, is alone sufficient for his immortality on earth.
NORTH.
It is. So for Gray's is his Elegy. But some hundred and forty lines in all—no more—yet how comprehensive—how complete! "In a Country Churchyard!" Every generation there buries the whole hamlet—which is much the same as burying the whole world—or a whole world.
SEWARD.
"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!"
All Peasants—diers and mourners! Utmost simplicity of all belonging to life—utmost simplicity of all belonging to death. Therefore, universally affecting.