Gravestone

“ Those which can boast an antiquity greater than that of the common gravestone are very few indeed. It might have been supposed that the sculptured shrine under the roof of the sanctuary, reverently tended and jealously watched, might have stood for a thousand years, while the poor gravestone out in the churchyard, exposed to all weathers and many kinds of danger, would waste away or meet with one of the ordinary fates which attend ill-usage, indifference, or neglect. ”

“ The gravestone is so overgrown with grass and weeds, so covered with unsightly lichens, and so crumbly with time and foul weather, that it is questionable whether anybody will ever be at the trouble of deciphering it again. ”

“ A churchyard is in hopeful case when we see the mounds carefully levelled, the stones set up in serried ranks, and the turf between rolled smooth and trimmed and swept. There is no outrage in levelling the ground. The Christian feeling which clings to the grave, and even to the gravestone, does not attach to the mound of earth which is wrongly called the grave. ”

“ Although memorials of the dead in one shape or another have apparently existed in all eras of ethnological history, it would seem that the upright gravestone of our burial-grounds has had a comparatively brief existence of but a few hundred years. ”

“ In order that no space may be lost between the graves, the shields are used alternately to serve as the dividing wall, and are then drawn out, thus enabling the sexton to pack the coffins close together.
The towns and cities abroad have their cemeteries beyond the outskirts, as is the practice here. Occasionally an old churchyard is to be met with, but never an old gravestone as we know it. Still there are instances in which ancient carvings of the same character have been saved by attachment to the church or churchyard wall. ”

“ It is true that a stone is only a stone, whatever it may have been used for, but a peculiar sanctity is in most minds associated with the grave, and we ought not to run the risk of shocking tender-hearted people by degrading even the dead memorial of the dead to profane and secular purposes. And yet, what has become in too many cases of the [pg 75] old gravestones? The very old ones we may perhaps account for, but where are the middle-aged ones of the eighteenth century? ”

“ The vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imperfect men and women was to them a forbidden thing; the ostentation even of a name carved on a slab was at variance with doctrine; the cravings of a poor humanity to be remembered after death had to be satisfied with bare initials, and initials are all that were written on the gravestones in many thousands of cases, [pg 85] probably ninety per cent, of the whole, throughout the eighteenth century and approximate years. ”

“ Wherever such are found in Scotland, bearing dates of the eighteenth century, they are usually of the rough character depicted in the sketch. The recumbent slab in the same drawing is given to illustrate the table or altar stone, which throughout Scotland has been used all through the Covenantic period to evade the Covenantic rule of the simple anonymous gravestone, for such memorials are almost invariably engraved and inscribed with designs and epitaphs, sometimes of the most elaborate character. But these are not mere gravestones: they are "tombs." ”

“ Although, for reasons already explained or surmised, the gravestones in our burial-grounds seldom exceed an age of 200 years, there has probably been no time and no race of men in which such memorials were unknown. Professor Dr. John Stuart, the Scottish antiquary,15 opines that "the erection of stones to the memory of the dead has been common to all the world from the earliest times," and there are many instances recorded in the Old Testament, as when Rachel died and Jacob "set a pillar upon her grave" (Genesis, chapter xxxv. verse 20) ”

“ The gravestones, though removed to the sides of the enclosure, are numbered and scheduled, and all in which any living person can claim an interest are left untouched. No stones are ever destroyed in the process of reformation, but previous ill-usage and natural decay have rendered very many of them illegible, and in another century or so all these once fond memorials will probably have become blank and mute. ”

“ And how terrible the grief of surviving in impotence, what anguish to have to tell oneself that one is the end of everything, that with oneself all life, all hope for the morrow will depart! Amidst the murmur of the prayers, the dying perfume of the roses, the pale gleams of the two candies, Pierre realised what a downfall was that bereavement, how heavy was the gravestone which fell for ever on an extinct house, a vanished world. ”

“ Christian burials, as we have seen, cannot be dated in England earlier than the eighth century, and monuments at the grave may have possibly originated about the same period, but there is nothing whatever to sustain such a belief, and we cannot assign the earliest of existing memorials to a time prior to the eleventh century. Indeed it is very [pg 51] significant to find that the tombs within the churches are only a trifle older than the gravestones outside, scarcely any of them being antecedent to the sixteenth century. ”

“ Books about Tombs there are many, and volumes of Epitaphs by the hundred. But of the Common Gravestones—the quaint and curious, often grotesque, headstones of the churchyard—there is no record.
These gravestones belong to the past, and are hastening to decay. In one or two centuries none will survive unless they be in Museums. To preserve the counterfeit presentment of some which remain seems a duty. ”

“ Altogether, primitive as they may be, the gravestones of the last century in Ireland, so far as I have seen them, compare favourably with the works of the hedge-mason in England which we have seen in earlier chapters. Even the poor pillar of rough stone, unhewn, ungarnished, and bare as it is, represents an affectionate remembrance of the dead which is full of pathos, and has a refinement in its simplicity which commands our sympathy far above the semi-barbarous engravings of heads and skulls which we have previously pictured. ”

“ In more modern observances, especially in the centres [pg 95] of population, English and continental manners more nearly approximate; and in the many new cemeteries which are now to be found adjacent to the cities and large towns of Western Europe there are tombs and gravestones as many and as costly as are to be found in any round London. In Germany the present practice appears to be single interments, and one inscription only on the stone, and that studiously brief. ”

“ In Every village cemetery it is easy to find shafts of gray or speckled granite, the polished surfaces of which show that the granite is made of small bits of different coloured minerals, cemented together into solid rock. Outside the gate you will usually find a place where monuments and gravestones may be bought. Here there is usually a stonecutter chipping away on a block with his graving tools. He is a man worth knowing, and because his work is rather monotonous he will probably be glad to talk to a chance visitor and answer questions about the different kinds of stone on which he works. ”

“ But it may truthfully be said that of all the headstones (not to speak alone of decorated headstones) which were set up prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century, by far the greater number have disappeared! Indeed the cases in which the old [pg 64] churchyards have been the objects of any care whatever are lamentably few, while attempts to preserve the old gravestones are almost unknown. The ordinary experience is to find the churchyard more or less neglected and forgotten, and the grey and aged stones either sinking into the earth or tottering to their fall. ”

“ It is comforting to reflect that gravestones do not last for ever, nor for very long; and in the meantime Nature is doing what she can with our ugly modern memorials, touching, softening, and tingeing them with her mosses, lichens, and with algæ—her beautiful iolithus. In most churchyards in southern England we see many stones stained a {195} peculiar colour, a bright rust-red, darkest in dry weather, and brightest in wet summers, often varying to pink and purple and orange ”

“ Axes are found figured upon old gravestones built into the walls of our English churches, as for instance upon two gravestones at Ashover Church in Derbyshire, where the axe appears side by side with the cross, both symbols being emblems of heathen belief. ”

“ The rest of the gravestones are entirely different both in appearance and in idea from anything we are accustomed to-day to use in our cemeteries, and it is likely to be universally agreed that they far eclipse our modern devices in beauty. ”

“ I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white Through the pale dusk of the impending night; O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws Its golden lilies mingled with the rose; We give to each a tender thought, and pass Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass, Unto these scenes frequented by our feet When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet. ”

“ I do not want to see tombs—not your tombs. Why should I? We have graves of our own, our family has. Why my uncle Podger has a tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery, that is the pride of all that country-side; and my grandfather's vault at Bow is capable of accommodating eight visitors, while my great-aunt Susan has a brick grave in Finchley Churchyard, with a headstone with a coffee-pot sort of thing in bas-relief upon it, and a six-inch best white stone coping all the way round, that cost pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places that I go and revel. ”

“ At frequent intervals along the roadside up-rises the ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these structures are immensely high and broken mounds of conglomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten by time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite. When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt, with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought bas-reliefs, and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered majestically beautiful by grand architectural designs. ”

“ The head-stone, reared by the hand of pious affection, instead of pointing to the remains it was erected to commemorate, stands over the graves of strangers, and we shed our tears over those whom we never knew; while the sexton and the grave-digger grin at us behind the neighbouring tomb-stones, chinking the silver in their pockets, and laughing to think that the paupers whom they shoved into “our” grave on the previous night in a “huggermugger” way should be wept over by the broken-hearted mourner whom they have thus cheated. ”

“ Sometimes, instead of a grave suitable for a single body, the excavation is made deep enough into the rock to admit of two, three, or four bodies being placed side by side,--family graves. And sometimes, instead of the simple _loculus_, or coffin-like excavation, there is an arch cut out of the tufa, and sunk back over the whole depth of the grave, the outer side of which is not cut away, so that, instead of being closed in front by a perpendicular slab of marble or by tiles, it is covered on the top by a horizontal slab. ”

“ I have always looked upon grave-monuments as stony barriers, shutting out the world from the form that slowly moulders below. When the wild moss and verdant sward alone cover the grave, 'tis easy for us to imagine death only a sleep; but the grave-stone, with its carvings and frescoes, seems a sort of prison, cold and grim in its aristocratic splendor. For the grave of those whom I love, I ask no other decoration than the redundant grass, the enamelled mosaic of wild flowers, a stream rolling by with its dirge-like chime, a weeping willow, and a moaning dove. ”

“ Earlier [Pg 43] tombs built of brick were found, revealing a more ancient state of civilization, when men were ignorant of the ways of working stone, or found it too difficult to devote their energies to shaping stone to be built into a tomb. Going back and back, the brick tombs get smaller and smaller, until they disappear, and only the grave remains in which the dead lie doubled up. These were the things that years of work taught, but the earliest graves of all long eluded the eyes of modern workers. ”

“ It was buried in full dress, and surrounded by a number of articles pertaining to the deceased—both personal ornaments, domestic instruments and vessels, and other things—and that had been used or valued by him or her. Sometimes the body was enclosed in a wooden chest or coffin before being placed in the grave. The grave, in either of these cases, was then filled in—usually with a tempered or “puddled” earth, which formed a close and extremely compact mass—and the mound raised over it. ”

“ This mound is not even a Christian symbol. It is a mere survival of Paganism, being a small copy of the barrow or tumulus, of which we have specimens still standing in various parts of our islands and the Continent, to mark the sepulchres of prehistoric and possibly savage chieftains. No compunction should be, and probably none is, suffered when we remove the grave-mounds, which is indeed the first essential to the protection and beautification of an obsolete burial-place. But, if possible, let the churchyard remain a churchyard ”

“ It is not asserted that all our ancient stone monuments are of this character, but some, at least, of those which are claimed as “temples,” were primarily graves; hence they come under our survey. Here, too, it seems fitting to notice another matter, dependent to some extent on the orientation of graves, and illustrative of the persistency of unconscious folk-memory.
The modern sexton, having filled up the grave, banks up the surplus soil in the form of a long, neatly-finished mound. ”