Decalogue

“ He asked her, “Why hast thou done this?”; and she answered, “Except thou do me justice on thy son, I will cast myself into this very fire and accuse thee of this on the Day of Resurrection, for I am a-weary of my life, and before coming into thy presence I wrote my last will and testament and gave alms of my goods and resolved upon death. And thou wilt repent with all repentance, even as did the King of having punished the pious woman who kept the Hammam.” Quoth the King, “How was that?” and quoth she, “I have heard tell, O King, this tale concerning
The Stolen Necklace. ”

“ I reflected on many a country walk in England, culminating in a visit to an old church and graveyard, and the tracing of the names and dates of people long since passed away. It is somewhat strange. When we are in an old graveyard and looking at the graves of people who have died centuries ago we feel, instead of grief, a sort of quiet satisfaction, and that even when those whose burial is recorded are of our own name and family. We dare not even contrast our feeling with the poignancy that is attached to a new grave—with its garish stone, fresh clods, and wilted flowers. ”

“ And now his blessed body reposes in the cemetery with those of our many other brethren who have preceded us to the grave: we shall no more behold his sweet and loving figure; but his memory will always live with us, and we shall remember the luminous examples he has given us of prudence, amiability, profound piety and ardent love of labor and retirement. ”

“ R.’s, feeling that the grave was a poor place to go for consolation in times of affliction; but there is comfort in the promise, “Thy brother shall rise again.” If you ask where my brother shall rise, I reply: “The scene of his death and burial is to be the scene of his resurrection.” “How beautiful the thought, that, when the trumpet sounds, the dead shall come forth from the spot whereon they fell. The sailor who found a watery grave will emerge from his long deep resting-place ”

“ Out of the night and from beyond it come forms that seem buried below the reach of grave-desecrating memory; they plead with us and claim us as their kin, and all the nobleness we have laboured after succumbs to the witchery of their piteous appeals. ”

“ At the grave the body had been lowered to its resting-place, and all being ready, the attendants standing with uncovered heads, I was just about to begin the reading of the solemn words of the burial service, when a tall, blue-eyed man with gray side-whiskers pushed his way to the head of the grave, and in a voice choked with passion, exclaimed:
"There lies as noble a gentleman as ever breathed, and he owes his death to that fiend!" ”

“ Disown'd its brief companionship.—One grave
Open'd for both.—Whom rivalry disjoin'd,
Nature in burial, as in birth made one.
Grief mark'd their obsequies, and the sad tribe
Like orphans mourning, heap'd the hallow'd mould. ”

“ I am an old man. I have hoped and prayed too long. I must go down to my grave without an heir,—even an adopted heir,—for there is no disciple worthy to succeed!"
"Dear friend, believe that I would not willingly add to a grief like this. ”

“ At length the elder king paid the debt of nature, and though he had been wise and humane, yet among the adherents of his brother was no mourning. But death, as if determining that the grief should be general, smote the younger also, and they reposed in one grave. On the tomb-stone of the favourite of our ancestors, the following epitaph was inscribed. ”

“ What tho’ other Ceremonies be perform’d with the greatest Splendor and Exactness, they can give no other Satisfaction than the Decency of Burial, or performing perhaps the Will of the Dead; for the Body will nevertheless stink, corrupt, and it may be startle the nearest Friend to see it a while after? Then shall his Bones not be known, nor his Ashes be distinguish’d from another Mans, nay even from common Earth, so that the parcimonious Heir may well reflect, how vain and needless it would have been to have bestow’d more than a decent Expence on his Funeral. ”

“ The Chronicles say that at his death nobles and commoners alike, "the old, as if they had lost a dear child, the young, as if they had lost a beloved parent, filled the ways with the sound of their lamenting." ”

“ The relatives and friends then hand the priest a list of the contributions and charities which have been subscribed in memory of the deceased, which concludes the ceremony of “rising from mourning,” or “the resurrection of the dead.” On each successive anniversary of the death of a Parsee funeral ceremonies are performed in his memory. An iron framework is erected in the house, in which shrubs are planted and flowers cultivated to bloom in memory of the departed. ”

“ Fit motto of many a disappointed gold-seeker, the finale of many a broken up, desolated home, the last dying words of many a husband, far away from wife or kindred, with no loved ones near to soothe his departing moments—no better burial—place than the very hole, perchance, in which his last earthly labours were spent. ”

“ Indifference! That was the most marked characteristic of that funeral. You felt it everywhere, on the faces and in the hearts of the mourners, not only among all those functionaries, most of whom [Pg 146] had known the duke by sight only, but in the ranks of those on foot between his hearse and his coupé, his closest friends and those who were in daily attendance upon him. ”

“ One little fit of jealousy, and the rest would briefly work out as a funeral, a handsome young mourning widow, very regular indeed at confession, visited once a week by a man in a cloak, who presently so raises the price of secrecy that by and by she’ll have to do for him, too. ”

“ I must and will tear him out of the grim clutches of Death—fine, handsome, young fellow that he is, and the heir and hope of his noble family—it will be long ere his tomb need be made ready to receive him. ”

“ Am I more loathsome to thee, than the Grave,
That thou dost seek to shield thee there, and shun
My Love? But to the Grave I'll follow thee-
He looks not, minds not, hears not; barbarous Man,
Am I neglected thus? Am I despis'd? ”

“ It was but a few days before this sequel was narrated to me, that the first communication had been made from the Countess of —— to her husband. It was a summons to attend, if he wished, the burial of his only child—the heir of his name, and the bringer-back, had he lived, of wealth to the broken fortunes of his title. A severer blow could hardly have followed the first—for it struck down heart, pride, and all that could brighten this world's future. Lord —— came. The grave was made in a deep grove of firs on the estate of the boy's mother. ”

“ The funeral was so economical and so private that neither the tongue of repute, identifying the grave from generation to generation, nor the more unerring evidence of shaft or vault guides the footsteps of those who come so late, so late! ”

“ When she had finished, I said to her, "O my cousin, let thy mourning suffice thee: for weeping profiteth nothing." She replied, "Thwart me not, or I will kill myself." So I held my peace and let her go her way: and she ceased not to mourn and weep for the space of another year. At the end of the third year, I came into the mausoleum one day, vexed at something that had crossed me and weary of this excessive affliction, and found her by the tomb under the dome, saying, "O my lord, I never hear thee speak to me, no, not one word. Why dost thou not answer me, O my lord?" ”

“ The lamentations over, the mourner retires, doffs the mourning robes, and eats his food. At the new and the full moon, all the relatives are invited and expected to assist at the ceremonies. These practices continue more or less even after burial, and at intervals during several years. Often a noble will go out to weep and kneel at the tomb, passing a day, and even a night, in this position. ”

“ It does not give us a very exalted notion of the sincerity or value of these funeral testimonials, or the mental capacity of our ancestors, to read in the newspapers advertisements of printed circulars of praise for the dead, eulogistic in every aspect of the life of the departed, and suitable for various ages and either sex, to be filled in with the name of the deceased, his late residence, and date of death. ”

“ A more ghastly procession than the funeral one cannot imagine. Instead of a company of grave men, carrying with decorous sorrow to its final resting-place the body of their departed brother, you meet what you take to be a procession of ghouls. ”

“ Sisters and brothers, within the city of the dead, we consign to the bosom of mother earth all that was mortal of our departed sister.—The body we leave in the grave is but the casket which held the precious jewel of life. ”

“ The doctrine is, that the whole ceremony connected with a funeral is gone through in rehearsal by spectres which are the shades, phantoms, appearances, taïshs, doubles, swarths, or whatever else we choose to call them, of living men, not merely by the shade of the person who is to die, but by the shades of all who are to be concerned in the ceremony. ”

“ It followed man from the cradle to the grave. There were ceremonies to be observed at birth, at marriage, at death; at every stage of the journey of life. It gave to clouds and birds omens that decided human fate. ”

“ At his funeral the rich and great gathered to honor him, and after his body was lowered into its flower-hung grave, the poor peasants came by hundreds with their green boughs or sprigs of fern or wildflowers and filled his grave with them—because they loved him! ”

“ Although we meet with the burial of the dead either in a recumbent or a crouching position, everywhere the minor ceremonies connected with death are innumerable; each people, each race, indeed, having its own custom, handed down from one generation to another, and piously preserved intact by each successive family. ”

“ The veneration they have for the memory of their ancestors, and the assurance they have of their spirits always existing, is apparent in almost every circumstance of the few religious ceremonies which they perform: the burial of their dead is very particular and solemn. ”

“ A day or two after the funeral, and on special feast-days, the near relatives carry food to the grave and offer the food to the spirit by placing it in bowls before the grave. [162] They also again burn paper money or incense. While the fire burns, and the food remains to be received by the spirit, a woman, usually the nearest relative, kneels by the side of the grave and begins a long-drawn-out season of lamenting and wailing for the sorrow that has come upon her on account of the death of the one by whose grave she is kneeling. ”

“ It reminds one of the offerings made by recent mourners at a tomb. The tomb gets the ointment and the garlands, while the mourners drink and enjoy the feast.
If your patron is of a jealous disposition, and has a young wife or handsome children, and you are not wholly without personal attractions, then beware! you are on dangerous ground. Many are the ears of a king, and many the eyes, that see not the truth only, but ever something over and above the truth, lest they should seem to fail of their office. ”

“ The gifts offered to the dead; not only those placed with the body at the time of burial, but those offered at a subsequent time for the benefaction of the departed on his way to the other world, and for his use on arrival. Here, too, it is as important for us to know the ceremonies with which the gifts are made as to know the character of the gifts themselves.
4. An interesting branch of this research relates to the customs of mourning, embracing the time of mourning, the habiliments, the self- mutilations, and other penances, and the ceremonies with which these are accompanied. ”

“ Mourners tearing themselves to raise pity, and set wailings, and at one man's funeral to lament for another, he forbade. To offer an ox at the grave was not permitted, nor to bury above three pieces of dress with the body, or visit the tombs of any besides their own family, unless at the very funeral ”

“ For the average Englishman loved a funeral and all its ghastly accompaniments as passionately as though he had Irish blood in his veins, and often insisted upon investing the burial of his friends with the mockery, rather than the sincerity, of woe. ”

“ We celebrate the anniversary of our ancestors, pay visits to their graves, offer flowers, food and drink, burn incense, and bow before their tombs entirely from a feeling of love and respect for their memory, and no question of 'dread' enters our minds in doing so. ”

“ Within a few yards two occasional houses were set up, in one of which some relations of the deceased constantly resided, and in the other the chief mourner, who is always a man, and who keeps there a very singular dress in which a ceremony is performed that will be described in its turn. ”

“ And he heard her brother wish that violets might spring from her grave; and he saw him leap into the grave all frantic with grief, and bid the attendants pile mountains of earth upon him, that he might be buried with her. ”

“ Does not the grave Spectator assure us that even our much bepraised diffidence, modesty, and blushes are all directed to make ourselves good wives and mothers as fast as we can? Why, I'll undertake with one flirt of this hoop to bring more beaux to my feet in one week than the grave Maria, and her sentimental circle, can do, by sighing sentiment till their hairs are grey. ”

“ No, the very fact that we bury our departed brother teaches us that the grave is not the end of all. Though our brother dies he shall live in our hearts, in the flowers that we cast, in the precious memories that forever cluster around the links, the heart and the hand, the altar and the hour glass. ”