Obituary

“ I feel as if I ought to follow these two personages of my sermonizing story until they come together or separate, to fade, to wither,—perhaps to die, at last, of something like what the doctors call heart-failure, but which might more truly be called heart-starvation. When I say die, I do not mean necessarily the death that goes into the obituary column. ”

“ Obituaries. Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In such a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the light which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meaning which he shall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and the judgments which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you understand: that is the danger-line. ”

“ Confining myself to some points which seem left out of sight in most of the admirably appreciative obituary notices in last April’s newspapers, I have tried to say here, in a fragmentary way, a few things about a man of whom many things—infinitely many—might be said without exhausting the total. ”

“ We are reminded of the truth by obituary notices in newspapers, by the spectacle of funerals passing quietly along the streets, by the silent departure of friends. “The sentence of death has passed upon all men.” However long life may be protracted in individual instance, it never suggests the question whether they will be exceptions to the general rule. ”

“ We can never forget that our life here will have its ending, our friends, companions, and neighbours are constantly leaving us, our daily paper has its daily obituary column, and surely no artificial method is needed to remind us of this fact. ”

“ A journal of our day announces the death of a distinguished claquer, at his country-seat, and the event is signalized by an obituary notice, declaring him 'master of the art of expressing feeling according to the subject!' A eulogy nowhere else applicable to any but an author, composer or artist, thus celebrates one whose vocation it was to testify approbation and blame at the theatre! ”

“ Pathetic phases of illness or death sometimes give value to news that otherwise would be of slight interest. The seriousness of the subject demands dignity of treatment.
In writing an obituary the purpose should be not only to give biographical facts but to bring out the significance of a personality. A well written obituary is a constructive interpretation of the meaning of a person’s life and work.
ILLNESS
Kansas City Star
New York, Nov. 23.—Ye Olde Caxton Book Shop, Brooklyn, was closed long after 7 o’clock yesterday morning. ”

“ Apart from a certain vanity and pettiness that is always joined therewith, this is an innocent exit to life, and the world is as a rule lenient toward it—if for no other reason, at least for the reason that these people no longer stand in anybody’s way; therefore it gladly gives them a handsome burial and a few fitting obituary notices in the papers on the day of the funeral, and with that its concernment is definitely fulfilled. ”

“ News stories of deaths, with the biographical sketch, or obituary, which usually accompanies such announcements in the case of men of more or less prominence, constitute another type that differs somewhat from general news stories. The essential facts for the lead are the name of the person, his position, his address, the cause of his death and the duration of his illness, the names of the members of his family that survive him, and any important circumstances connected with his death. ”

“ Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. ”

“ Remembering her many virtues, we are indeed mourners at her grave and in the house of sorrow we would drop the tear of affectionate sympathy.
Sisters, brothers and friends, as we stand in this solemn presence we may hear the voice of this Providence speaking to us.
Not long shall we wait ere we obey the inexorable decree of Death and follow our sister.
How brief and full of mystery is human life! Who can fathom its purpose or discolse its issues. We entered life, as it were, but yesterday; to-day we perform our allotted task and to-morrow we go—who knows whither? ”

“ Each person in waiting takes it by turn to improvise some verse in praise of the deceased." But "the professional singers will give minute details of the history of his ancestry, his deeds, character, and even his property." When the deceased person is a conquering monarch, this funeral laudation by professionals, the first step in apotheosis, begins a worship in which there are united that account of his life which constitutes a biography and that account, of his deeds which forms the nucleus of primitive history. ”

“ At your death-bed how boldly might we comfort and encourage your departing souls! And at your burial, how comfortably might we leave you in the grave, in expectation to meet your souls in heaven, and to see your bodies raised to that glory! ”

“ How much better to have a small funeral! a funeral remarkable for nothing but its modesty and simplicity, to which only the few are called who knew the dead and loved him, who follow him to his long home with serious thoughts, like thinking men and Christians, remembering that before long they must go with him into the grave and lie down beside him, and who return home to remember his soul before God as often as they kneel down to pray. ”

“ A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death,—“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.” ”

“ Years they had marked for the joys of the brave,
Years they must waste in the sloth of the grave.
All the bright laurels that promised to bloom
Fell to the earth when they went to the tomb.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their merits forecast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.
Cover them over—yes, cover them over—
Parent and husband and brother and lover;
Crown in your heart these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers! ”

“ The funeral service was held in the Methodist Episcopal church, which was filled with friends who loved and honored my mother in life and sincerely mourned her death. A funeral sermon was preached by her pastor, Rev. M. N. Olmstead, from Acts xxvi, 8,—"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?"—in which the sorrowing family were led for comfort to the glorious certainty of the resurrection; and afterwards the sad procession took its way to the cemetery on the hillside. ”

“ His Oraisons Funèbres preach, for the uses of the living, the doctrine of death. Nowhere else does he so fill the mind with a sense of the greatness and the glory of life as when he stands beside the bier and reviews the achievements or presents the characters of the illustrious deceased. Observing as he did all the decorum of the occasion, his discourses do not degenerate into mere adulation; some are historic surveys, magnificent in their breadth of view and mastery of events. ”

“ A funeral train comes gliding by your bed, in which Passion and Feeling assume bodily shape and things of the mind become dim specters to the eye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing a sister's likeness to first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her melancholy features and grace in the flow of her sable robe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet how many as young and brave and beloved as they have died like them, and, like them, are remembered and mourned! They, too, let us believe, smile still above us, and bend over us with serene joy at this happy time. Let their sweet memory hallow our jubilee! Let us take care that our lives are worthy their glorious death. ”

“ Sweet, patriarchal, innocent, creditable family friendship, [Pg 120] your age is past! We no longer cling to the soil by a multitude of blossoms, sprouts and roots; we are born and die singly nowadays. The living are in haste to fling the deceased to Eternity, and to be rid of his corpse. Of his friends, some go and await the coffin at the church, grumbling the while at being put out and disturbed in their habits; others carry their devotion so far as to follow the funeral to the cemetery: the grave once filled up, all recollection is obliterated. ”

“ Far through the gloomy perspective of the grave, I see the cheering, the delightful, prospect of immortal life, of a reunion with those beloved ones, an eternal reunion, and a rapturous vision of joys which eye hath not seen, and before which the momentary pangs of death dwindle into nothing. ”

“ More than once we started quickly to the seeming motion of life, hoping it might be real, but the pure spirit had passed on, while the frail body rested with a pleasant smile, calmly, as if tended by the friends of home and the formalities of a last funeral service for the dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Again, a funeral always takes my attention and I find myself wondering whether the mourners could be helped or comforted by me, and I note whether the dead is young or old by the funeral trappings, and too often see that it is some tender child, though the grief is as great or greater when it is some dear wife or mother, or may be the father—the stay of some family. ”

“ But when outward danger had been safely passed, and nothing but a feeling of perfect security could naturally be realized, the object of this memorial became sensibly alive to the impressiveness of the solemn sentiment of our Church’s funeral service—“In the midst of life we are in death!” ”

“ Funerals.—When a death occurs in a family, as soon as the day and hour for the funeral are fixed, a member of the family should write to those relatives and friends it is desired should follow, and should ask them to attend, unless the date, time, and place of the funeral, and the train by which to travel to the cemetery, are mentioned in the newspaper, together with the announcement of the death. ”

“ The medicine man, or conjurer, having enjoined silence, then pronounces a funeral oration, during which he recounts the exploits of the deceased, his valor, skill, love of country, property, and influence, alludes to the void caused by his death, and counsels those who remain to supply his place by following in his footsteps; pictures the happiness he will enjoy in the land of spirits to which he has gone, and concludes his address by an allusion to the prominent traditions of his tribe. ”

“ It is pleasant to notice that this essentially humane habit of taking off the hat and behaving gravely as a funeral goes by, which is universal upon the Continent, is at last becoming more and more general here. The homage of the living to the mortal remains of even the humblest is excellent, and one which should be earnestly encouraged, being far more beneficial in its results than the heaping of costly flowers upon a hearse, which no one notices as it passes, laden with its ephemeral offerings, to the cemetery. ”

“ The chief mourners, at best, are generally true mourners, for they have lost a brother with whom “they sat but yesterday at meat;” and whilst they are comparing memories, recalling how merry they had many a day been together, and the solemn tones of that sublime music float upon the air, we can imagine the freed and satisfied soul wafted on those harmonious breathings to its heavenly home; and our hearts are melted, our imaginations exalted, our faith invigorated, and we come away the better for what we have seen. ”

“ It has been said with truth that no funeral oration has ever been pronounced, in any age, and in any language, which exceeds this in eloquence and simple grandeur. Happy the country that possesses two citizens of whom such praises can be uttered, and happy the nation that can find an orator of such transcendent genius to pronounce their eulogies! ”

“ We unite with this dear family in sensibly lamenting the departure of our experienced friend, our guide, our comforter." Here he mingled his tears with those of our attendant friends. After a long pause, he proceeded: "Fellow mourners, the greatest respect we can pay to the remains of our inestimable, our heavenly guide, is to pass our time together in this house of mourning, not for him, but for ourselves, in the way which would be most pleasing to him, were he present; we will therefore appropriate our hours to reading, and to prayer. ”

“ And the birds overhead sang their hymns to unite in the service—happy songs of gladness they sang, that seemed to convey to the boys' hearts the grand lesson of all funeral services—that death is not all sadness, for we know of the joy that follows. ”

“ Eternal exequies.—One might fancy to hear a continuous funeral oration beyond the confines of history: we have ever been and are burying all that we love best, our thoughts and hopes, obtaining in exchange pride, gloria mundi, that is, the pomp of the funeral oration. ”

“ It is singular that a funeral consequent on an unusual death should be attended by greater numbers than an ordinary one. On this occasion, I may safely say, that my little retired burial-ground, and its immediate vicinity, were occupied by thousands. ”