Who
except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to
what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees
with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour
that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead
coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because
men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs
insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The
common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our
remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It
is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander
away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor
humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at
least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that
might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some
little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every
one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of
the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is
served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of
crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I
am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last
manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have
I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have
done in this order for my tomb.
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