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The question arises some time or other in the mind
of every man as to the best means of disposing of
that corporeal skin which falls like a cerement when
the chrysalis bursts and the Psyche soars into the
sunshine of the eternal. Biblical tradition and
modern custom have sanctified carnal interment; but
there is no one who comes to revolve its fitness and
propriety that does not instinctively feel the
natural principle shuddering at such a disposition
of the mortality of man. If antiquity were to hallow
and prolong a custom, interment, as at present
practiced, would take precedence of all others; but
this is an age not to be frightened by the voices of
the past; as we rush onward through the ever-opening
skies of knowledge, mild facts and habits drop from
our back and are swiftly lost in the receding wake.
All who have beheld the ostentatious processions of
sorrow that every day defile through our streets,
cannot but have felt that the sanctity of death is
profaned by the exhibition of such phantasmagoria of
grief.
Funerals have degenerated from their pristine
solemnity into advertisements of sorrow. The regrets
of the mourners for the deceased may be computed by
the number of horses to the hearse, and ostrich
plumes on the canopy. The elaborate ceremony, from
its beginning to its end, is conducted not so much
for the gratification of private grief as to realize
the expectations of public curiosity. Hired
lamentation is doled out by the undertaker in
proportion to the wealth of the deceased, and those
who give that functionary the most liberal order,
will ensure the most respectable sorrow. There is
something inexpressibly sad and unfit to me in the
sable phalanx of professional mourners that compose
the procession of death. In that last hour when the
lingering type of what we loved is on the eve of
annihilation; when the corporeal likeness through
which the immortal lamp once shone transparently is
about to be defaced, none save the reverential gaze
of friends should overlook the sacrifice. Nor do I
think that lowering that tenderly-loved and
sadly-recollected image into the damp and corrupting
earth, satisfies the instinctive desires of our
nature. If we want to cogitate on eternal life we
turn our face to the skies, hunt the winds through
space, and smile to the smiling stars. And to
resolve and dissipate into the soaring air the
inanimate form that lies so heavily on the tressels,
would seem to me the hopefullest and sublimest way
of launching the mortal hull into eternity. It may
be sweet to know that here your father lies, and
there your mother. To watch the budding of flowers
upon the grave, and know that at a certain hour each
day the sunshine steals through the trees and
girdles the little mound with gold. it is the poetry
of sorrow to seek such a spot and mourn, amid the
long grass, the flowers, the falling leaves; all
emblems of an inevitable decay, but all preachers of
a glorious resurrection. Thus graves are sweet upon
the surface. But let fancy pierce the turf, rout out
the loathsome secret of the coffin; gaze upon the
terrible process of corruption, and the shuddering
heart will scarce admit that carnal interment is the
sublimest way of disposing of the dead.
Taking it in a sanitary point of view modern burial
is in some places absolutely objectionable. The
distressing evils which it led to in the city of
London are too well known to all who have perused
Lord Ashley's Reports on Intramural Burial places.
The masses of corruption into which some of the city
grave yards had been converted defies description.
The air that hung like a pall over the devoted
neighborhood seemed poisonous to pure lungs. The
instant a stranger entered the dominions of
corruption he sickened. The vapors of putrefaction
rose night and day from the choking burial place
where corpses in every stage of decomposition were
bursting from mockeries of graves. In the space of a
very few years some of the city grave yards were
known to have changed their level and risen ten feet
from the number of bodies thrust in. This was
obvious to a casual observer, as in most places the
grave yards were bounded on at least two sides by
houses and it was no uncommon sight to see the first
floor windows altogether covered by the rising soil.
The unhappy inhabitants of these pestilential abodes
described the stench with which their rooms were
constantly filled as something beyond conception.
This state of things was in a great degree
attributable to the fact that the officials of the
adjoining church derived considerable emolument from
the burial of bodies in their enclosure. The most
horrible means, therefore, were resorted to by these
wretches, to accommodate as many corpses as
possible. When the graves, in which a dozen bodies
were lying, became so full that no more could be
accommodated, the fiendish officials of the
churchyard were absolutely known to have constructed
a machine for pounding the coffins and their
contents into a smaller compass, and thus gaining a
few inches for the reception of the new comer. These
fetes are not in the least exaggerated. On the
contrary, I hesitate to give all that was stated in
the reports issued at the time, they being far too
revolting for presentation to the public, unless
some urgent necessity called for them.
A curious proposition was made at the time, by a
London architect. This was the establishment of a
general burial place for the inhabitants of London
and its vicinity. He proposed to form a joint stock
company, and erect a vast pyramidal mausoleum, some
ten or twelve miles from the city. This pyramid was
to be double the size of the great Pyramid of
Ghizeh. It was to contain vast numbers of
compartments, some private, some public property__in
which the remains were to be deposited, on the
payment of a small burial fee. I forget exactly the
number of coffins it was computed it would hold; but
the amount was very large. This scheme excited some
attention at the moment, but eventually ended in
nothing. I believe that very little reform, in spite
of the vigorous efforts made in Parliament and
elsewhere, has as yet taken place in the burial
places of London. Country cemeteries have long been
established but he mass of mortality still continues
to be deposited daily in the reeking graveyards east
of Temple Bar. There is little fear of our suffering
from a like evil to any great extent. Wisely taught
by such examples, extramural interment has become
the rule. Our City is not canopied by clouds of
poisonous gases fatal to health and beauty. The
wind, as it rolls from the sea across the slopes of
Greenwood, does not come to us laden with the breath
of corruption. We can traverse the soil sacred to
the dead without fear of the consequence of being
ourselves added to the number.
Full of these thoughts upon burial places, I walked
out the other day to Greenwood. It was scarcely a
March day. The sun seemed full of Summer passion and
poured out floods of light across the waters of the
Bay. The hypocrite! well knowing that next morning
would find him hidden behind black clouds from which
issued all the rain and snow and cutting wind, of
which March was capable. I allowed myself to be
deceived however, and left my overcoat at home. My
confidence in the day was not ill-founded. I was not
betrayed, and reached home in the evening perfectly
unharmed. On reaching the office of the Cemetery and
making known my wish to inspect the grounds, Mr.
Scrymkgeour, the intelligent and polite Keeper,
expressed his willingness to accompany my friend and
myself over the place and point out all that was
worth seeing. Beautiful as Greenwood certainly is,
and interesting as my journey through its burial
mounds may have been, it confirmed all my previous
prejudices against Cemeteries. These prejudices are
more of a theoretical than a practical nature. I
have felt them among the flower-planted avenues of
Kensall Green. They have come upon me while gazing
upon the theatrical monuments and dramatic
inscriptions in Pere la Chaise, and even now in the
quieter and unostentatious solitudes of Greenwood
they were strong upon me. Let the world be ever so
practical and utilitarian in its tendencies, a
certain amount of poetry must always linger around
death. As long as we believe in immortality a dim
religious light of sanctity must hover around the
temple that once housed the fiery particle. With
such feelings for the dead the natural impulse is to
symbolize them in the last resting place. I do not
think that p public cemeteries and obtrusive
monuments realize those delicate ideas of veneration
and respect. In Greenwood, I saw nothing beyond the
natural beauty of the grounds to excite solemn
thought; square or oblong lots railed off with iron
posts, and adorned inside with the inevitable urn,
half covered with a cloth in brownstone or marble,
are not very well calculated to inspire with sublime
or noble reflections. Everything about me was
artificial and executed according to law. it seemed
as if people were buried according to the rule of
three, such arithmetical exactness was there about
their last homes. Then at every step some glaring
instance of bad taste in the shape of a monument
started up to tear rudely from our hearts what
little poetry had been growing up there. On great
numbers of the graves were deposited little plaster
images of nude boys in the attitude of prayer. Made
of such paltry material, easily stained and broken,
and defective in design as such pieces usually are,
it may be easily imagined that these defaced and
noiseless cherubs created an effect very different
from what was doubtless intended. In one instance,
by the mound that swelled over the bosom of a child,
sat a white plaster dog, watching with a fidelity
only to be found in chalk, by the grave. The idea, s
supposing it to have some foundation in real life,
such as a companionship between the dead child and a
pet dog, was a pretty one enough, but on drawing
near to examine, what was my horror to discover that
the plaster guardian was nothing less than a cast of
a French poodle, half-shaven and elaborately curled!
A little further on, we came to a white marble
obelisk, where there was so much artificiality, we
drew close. Half-way up the face of the pillar was
sculptured a wreath of lowers. In the midst of the
garland was carved this one word, "Smith."
The pillar bore no other visible inscription. This
certainly was simple, but not very provocative of
gravity. Had it been any other name in the directory
it would not have been so bad.. Webster-Clay would
have dignified it; even Robinson would have been not
amiss; but Smith_nothing could have been less solemn
or more absurd. Throughout the entire grounds was
exhibited the same want of taste in these funeral
decorations. Sometimes p pillars elaborately adorned
as a bride-cake in a confectioner's window, would
start up, while again it would be some bas relief of
an angel, with arms as thick as its body, and a
waist that Ariel himself would have been puzzled to
put a girdle about. There was one gentleman in white
marble, connected, I presume, with the sea, who,
quadrant in hand, was taking an eternal observation
of the sun. What he did when that luminary
disappeared, and there happened to be no moon, one
cannot readily imagine. An anchor, miraculously
supported, stood on its end behind him, while at his
feet, as if thrown aside with contempt, lay a
mariner's compass. Thus surrounded by the emblems of
his profession, and standing upon the quarter dock
of his tomb, this worthy navigator is continually
becalmed. Let us hope that when the great gale comes
he will sail safe into port. For sea-faring people
who may want a better allegory than this I beg to
suggest one. If the deceased has been to sea let
there be carved on the tomb a sailor climbing up the
ratlines, and write underneath "Gone Aloft."
In all cemeteries expense seems to be a principal
object. If a proprietor can spend ten thousand
dollars on a mausoleum his family pride is
satisfied. it is often said that the grave is the
great leveler, and equalizes all men. Owners of lots
do not so interpret it. On the contrary, in
Greenwood, as elsewhere, you find Fifth-avenues of
tombs, as proudly distinguished from the humbler
graves, as the habitations of our merchant princes
from the hovels at the Five points. Even the City of
the Dead has its fashionable quarter.
There was one spot in Greenwood, that pleased me. It
was on the summit of a piece of rising ground called
Chestnut Hill. it was apparently a deserted spot,
and only one or two tombs were visible. These were
quiet, unobtrusive little ones that peeped as
timidly out of the earth, as once did the children
they covered, from out of the mother's arms. Large
trees shaded the place, and from neglect the moss
tufted the ground thickly, making a pleasant
wildness. Wild vines trailed their leafless cords
from tree to tree, like dusky serpents gorged and
still. In and out between the trees flashed the
blue-bird, lighting up the shady places with
glimpses of Spring. here, I thought, it would
perhaps be pleasant to rest; at the foot of one of
those large trees with plenty of moss on the grave,
and no tombstone to call a blush upon my moldering
cheeks by challenging the world's esteem for virtues
that I never possessed. Here where the distant sea
gleams through the branches, type of that endless
ocean on which all sail here, where the robin sings
in Summer sweet carols for the dead__here, where
there is no brick and mortar splendor to attract the
vulgar crowd. Here_here,interrupted Mr. Scrymeckour,
a lot sells for one hundred and ten dollars.
But, says the reader, return, Sir, if you please, to
your subject. Tell us, as your title promises, "The
Way to Get Buried." The Scythians, reader, made
their graves in the air, believing, as they did the
Wind to be the vital principle. The lehythyophagi,
fish-eating nations about Egypt, cast themselves
into the sea, as being the grave most consonant to
their habits. The Balearians, as mentioned by
Diodorus Siculus, bruised the flesh and bones of the
dead, thrust them into great urns and heaped wood
upon them. The parsees, a tribe of India, exposed
their bodies as a prey for the eagle and the
vulture. These were the eccentricities of burial,
and scarce would suit the civilized funeral tastes.
But if we want a mode of burial at once sublime,
poetic, and free from all those physical objections
applicable to other kinds of interment let us adopt
cremation. Hercules sublimating his body upon the
blazing pyre, and the Homeric funerals of Patroclus
and Achilles, give us vividly all the sublimity of
such an end. some people will object that these are
pagan examples, but how eagerly the Christian
martyrs rushed to the stake to indicate their faith,
inwardly exclaiming, amid smoke and flames, as the
Indian Brahman who burned himself at Athens, "Thus
do I make myself immortal."
Viewing it materially cremation is an admirable
means of disposing of the remains of man. By such
course all the loathsome progress of animal
corruption is passed at a single stride, and the
corpse is in a few moments reduced to its primal
dust. Were such a temple or pyramid as we have
described some paragraphs back to be erected near
every city, and adjoining it were to be established
a well regulated place for universal cremation, how
much superior it would be to present arrangements.
The body taken there would be calcined
instantaneously in a furnace constructed for the
purpose the ashes carefully collected and placed in
an urn, which might be niched in the great
sepulcher, or retained by the family of the
deceased, as choice or necessity would dictate. The
animal remains would occupy a very small space in
this shape, compared to the ordinary coffin, and we
should have no more desecrated graves or loathsome
church vaults, poisoning the atmosphere with their
hideous breath, and adding new terrors to the
spectacle of Death. With such a system there would
be little room for the exhibition of that solemn
ostentation seen in cemeteries. The ashes of the
wealthy man would repose in a little urn, costly in
execution perhaps, but scarcely bigger than that
which enclosed the mortality of the poor mechanic.
His virtues could not very well be thrust
pertinacious before the public, and the fresh fair
slopes of Greenwood would no longer be desecrated by
gilt clock-cases, and plaster of Paris poodles.
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