第43章 THE SKETCH BOOK(3)

It is greatly to be regretted, that a custom so truly elegant andtouching has disappeared from general use, and exists only in the mostremote and insignificant villages. But it seems as if poeticalcustom always shuns the walks of cultivated society. In proportionas people grow polite they cease to be poetical. They talk ofpoetry, but they have learnt to check its free impulses, to distrustits sallying emotions, and to supply its most affecting andpicturesque usages, by studied form and pompous ceremonial. Fewpageants can be more stately and frigid than an English funeral intown. It is made up of show and gloomy parade; mourning carriages,mourning horses, mourning plumes, and hireling mourners, who make amockery of grief. "There is a grave digged," says Jeremy Taylor,"and a solemn mourning, and a great talk in the neighborhood, and whenthe daies are finished, they shall be, and they shall be remembered nomore." The associate in the gay and crowded city is soon forgotten;the hurrying succession of new intimates and new pleasures effaces himfrom our minds, and the very scenes and circles in which he movedare incessantly fluctuating. But funerals in the country aresolemnly impressive. The stroke of death makes a wider space in thevillage circle, and is an awful event in the tranquil uniformity ofrural life. The passing bell tolls its knell in every ear; it stealswith its pervading melancholy over hill and vale, and saddens allthe landscape.

The fixed and unchanging features of the country also perpetuate thememory of the friend with whom we once enjoyed them; who was thecompanion of our most retired walks, and gave animation to everylonely scene. His idea is associated with every charm of nature; wehear his voice in the echo which he once delighted to awaken; hisspirit haunts the grove which he once frequented; we think of him inthe wild upland solitude, or amidst the pensive beauty of thevalley. In the freshness of joyous morning, we remember his beamingsmiles and bounding gayety; and when sober evening returns with itsgathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to mind many atwilight hour of gentle talk and sweet-souled melancholy.

Each lonely place shall him restore,

For him the tear be duly shed;

Beloved, till life can charm no more;

And mourn'd till pity's self be dead.

Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased in thecountry is that the grave is more immediately in sight of thesurvivors. They pass it on their way to prayer, it meets their eyeswhen their hearts are softened by the exercises of devotion; theylinger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is disengaged fromworldly cares, and most disposed to turn aside from presentpleasures and present loves, and to sit down among the solemn mementosof the past. In North Wales the peasantry kneel and pray over thegraves of their deceased friends, for several Sundays after theinterment; and where the tender rite of strewing and plantingflowers is still practised, it is always renewed on Easter,Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the season brings the companionof former festivity more vividly to mind. It is also invariablyperformed by the nearest relatives and friends; no menials norhirelings are employed; and if a neighbor yields assistance, itwould be deemed an insult to offer compensation.

I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural custom, because, as it is oneof the last, so is it one of the holiest offices of love. The grave isthe ordeal of true affection. It is there that the divine passion ofthe soul manifests its superiority to the instinctive impulse ofmere animal attachment. The latter must be continually refreshed andkept alive by the presence of its object; but the love that isseated in the soul can live on long remembrance. The mere inclinationsof sense languish and decline with the charms which excited them,and turn with shuddering disgust from the dismal precincts of thetomb; but it is thence that truly spiritual affection rises,purified from every sensual desire, and returns, like a holy flame, toillumine and sanctify the heart of the survivor.