Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-11-20
Aiseellamu.
About Epitaphs.
BY FRANCES POWER COBBE.

Do institutions make men, or men in
Institutions? Is it few degrees of cal
oric, or varied rainfall, on which de-
pends The moral character of nations
Was there time when families of men,
allied in blood and language, and dwell !
ing for unknown ages on adjacent lands, |
suddenly received the sharp marks of
distinctive race, and evermore transmit
ted them to their posterity? How is it
that the amalgam of Briton, Roman,
Saxon, Anglo, Dane, and Norman, after
eight centuries of welding makes the
sound but dull and heavy metal, we call
the English race? And why is that
very similar mixture across the channel,
of Gaul, Roman, Frank, Burgundian,
and Norman, the absolutely different
light and glittering metal which we call
the people of France? None of these
queries seem easy to answer; and yet,
without replying to one or the other in
the affirmative, how are we to look at
the fact of the immeasurable, indescrib-
able difference between the men, women
and children, the houses, the shops, the
churches, the carriages, the cattle, the
food, the drink, the furniture, the crock
cry, the very sounds and smells which
float upon the air, say, in a village in
Sussex, and in another village just over
the way in Normandy?
To take only one feature in the inf
mite variety. If there be any place
where we might deem that human ma
ture would constantly show itself the
same, it is a cemetery. We may build
different houses, wear different clothes,
travel in different guise from the cradle
to the grave; but when we come there,
and only need the same narrow trench
in the soil of earth, only make the same
little mound in the soil-Greek or Bar
barian, bond or free, shall not our burial
place be always alike? VIII not the
same bereaved affections of father, moth
er, husband, brother, child, choose the
same forms of tenderness for the pool
relics below? Strange to say, it is no
so! Nowhere do nations show their di
vergencies more than in the treatment o
the dead; nor does it seem possible t.
classify, under any head of race or creed
the tendency of some to display tender
ness and respect for the dust of the de
parted, and of others to show callouS
, ness and indifference which we woul
t hardly feel for their worn-out apparel.
), The tawdriness of a French buria
/. ground is an amazement to the SaXo
mind. The reverence for the dead, whic
shows itself in hanging on gilt iro
cross little pictures of fashionable ladi(
= kneeling at tombs, inscribed ma mer
= or mon cousin, is strange, to say ii
y least. Bead-fowers and wreaths, tw
e penny gilt vases containing paper foN
ers, all in frames duly glazed, thingsth
look like chignons and ringlets done
black beads, garlands of inmortett
bought in shops ready inscribed to t
lost relation, little wooden stools stuck
the ground ready for kneeling friend
above all, plaster casts, large and sma
of the eternal Infant Samuel, planted
IA the middle of a grave-all these are
mote enough flom our rendering Of
solemn tenderness of death. The ad
q rations to the departed to pray for
living may, of course, be accounted
my by Catholic doctriues; but even th'
are singular in our eyes. On lal
. number of French tombs we have {
served the entreaty to the dead child,
dead young girl, to intercede in HeaV
OR for their afflicted survivors; but ha
}. never happened to find any full-gro
. man followed to the other world by
same request Now and then there
epitaphs of the most touching kind, i
IoT the following:-
ED Ne me paignez pas
act 81 yous saviez combien de peines
&c tombeau ma epargneesl 7
Or this, little more assuming:
Seul mon aurore,
SeuI q mon couehant,
\ Je suis seul encore lei.
9. But in general, it must be admitted,
sentiment is very foreign to our teelr
On the grave of an infant, of four n
i EBl tn old. we have read the startling armour
1S9t past ment. Son ame etat agreeable D
arms :" and so He took it back to Himselfl
T. But meretricious as the ornament;
= a French cemetery commonly are,
y =" sentimental, if net silly, as are often
,R. inscriptions on the graves, it must be
II the mitted that the utter absurdity, the