In Memoriam

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

IT has been paradoxically affirmed that “ no man who deserves a monument ever ought to have one, ” which is a puzzling way of saying that the deserving man has one already, erected by his genius, his originality, or this philanthropy, and that, in view of this, his friends and countrymen may well refrain from setting up a petty marble slab in memory of the departed.

What is more sadly comic or incongruous than the imposing medley of stone and marble in a great cemetery ? The towering columns loom over the resting places of such small citizens. The “dove of peace” alights where it would never have brooded of its free will. The guardian angel bends over the vixen’s tomb, while mediocre bits of slate denote the graves of many saintly and gifted pilgrims.

Yet it is best to pause before one attempts to criticise the apparent inconsistency and incongruity and strange misrepresentation spread out before him. Well is it to reflect that these same monuments are not the emblems of the departed, but the insignia of the living.

These awkward blocks and heathen urns and dreadful graven images are the expression of living human hearts. This mournful medley of badly sculptured marbles is but their pitiful endeavor to render final tribute to their beloved ones, and to insure perpetual remembrance of names and dates that mean so much to them.

The monuments have naught to do with those that rest beneath them ; they speak not of the travelers gone, but of those left behind. These blocks and columns belong not to the city of the dead, but are the property of living architects. They tell us naught of the departed, but merely something of their friends. Have they good taste ? Much money ? Are they pretentious, or sentimental ?

So with the epitaphs. We read them and take note that the remaining relatives were fond of scriptural quotations, or poetry. This composition was done to show the rhymer’s skill rather than to set forth the merits of the dead. These sorrowing friends doted on decorative scrolls, those, upon ornamental lettering. The owner of this lot does not forget to bring his individual offering of potted plants, while the proprietor of that grand iron-fenced inclosure leaves the selection of flowers to the gardener.

Let him who gazes at the innumerable monuments of stone and marble fail to exclaim, “Behold the city of the dead! ” Rather let him muse on this curious description of the surviving multitude. This inartistic and conglomerate mass of ugly slabs voices their sentiment and pictures them alone.

These are their crude and primitive devices. Some day perchance they will look back upon it all and wonder.

The city of the dead lies all below the surface of the earth, wrapped in the tender folds of nature’s burial shroud. Over this peaceful vale mother earth spreads a delicate green verdure. Wild roses waft their fragrance upon the gentle breezes. Up from stout hearts spring sturdy oaks and splendid pines. The weeping willows droop over the gentle sleepers, and maples, birches, and aspens murmur their soothing lullabies above the weary and the heavy laden. Life more abundant and more beautiful everywhere thrills and has its being. This is the city of the dead that are not dead, but have awakened.