These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads
through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a
seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some
reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a
child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the
knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the
end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was
taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my
father was taken there.
What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear
again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up
with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman
no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others
with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all
wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon
they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a
funeral!
Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked
that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the
elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer
lingered there.
Pages:
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386