The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-30

breast OF even the most 10lOJlc or brutal
which gives to death its awe and soiemnity.
''When God speaks the kings of the earth
keep silence" Jeames alone, however,
skips and frisks victoriously. over any such
old-fashioned prejudices. The ape of
fashion wears a shield of vulgarity, mail
proof against even deaths arrows. He re-
pairs to the awful tryst with the dread
silent monarch on buoyant wings of expec-
tation. 1t was given, he tells us, with an ex-
ultant cacxle, in one of the largest and
most elegant houses in most fashionable
thoroughfare.
1t was child who was dead-a little girl,
dearly beloved. Her father and mother stood
over her coffin. Here, one would think, was
matter to silence the most frivolous. Even
his footlnan-soul might have warned him to
lay his hand upon his mouth and know that
the place whereon he stood was holy ground.
With his handkerchief over one eye, however,
he notes with the other the parlor, the car
pets, the friends. "Such friends. The Rev.
DIR. -! Authors Artists Two Yer
monters from Vermont! Men of Wealth l.
There were, in fact, no ordinary persons pre-
sent. Jeames becomes q very ''card and
calendar of gentry" in rolling their titles like
sweet morses under his tongue. Even the
mother, who had lost three little ones in three
weeks, is "a Vermont gentlewoman." When
he reaches the appointments of the funeral
duu bu6 luTulbuT6 VI JH6 house, however, ne
positively stammers from the excess of his
rapture and emotion. We fancy we hear Mr..
Mould himself assure us of "the unspeakable
depth of affectionate regret. Nolimitation, actu-
ally no limitation to the expense !" The only
cause of surprise and disappointment to our
reporter is, that ''the dead child was wholly
unmindful of her magnificent surroundings,
even of the paintings which hung on the
wall She-not Twas regardless of the
original oil painting of The Secret of Chin
borazo." She was also, it appears, 'un-
mindful of the authors, the artists, the men
of wealth, and women of fashion" This last
immobility which strikes amazement into the
soul of Jeames he apologies for by surmising
that ''she had gone on dd dStrG before !"
Jeames has not studied Mr.. Mould on Death
in vain. cit is the laying out of money!"
says that astute observer, "that can bind the
broken heart and shed balm upon the wounded
spirit" Authors artists men of wealth and
fashion! ''Why should we call gold dross
when it can soothe our loss with things like
these?"
Seriously, to put the Yellowplush reporters
aside for moment, there is no place where
the tawdry vulgarity of half lf-educated people
is so grossly aggressive among us as in the
presence of death. The natural impulse of
the refined or nobler nature is to 90 apart
with its dead, to hide from its fellow-men
where only God can see Its pain. SO, doubt
less, it was in this case, dragged, with such
vulgarity, before the public. But nowadays
the possession of a dead body seems often
rather to be accepted in house as an apology
for calling in the world to see our display of
money and fashionable acquaintances. Not
only is this the case among the plebeian rich,
but the infection is spreading among those
classes who have neither money nor the COM
mon sense to keep them from such follies. A
poor man has hardly time to grieve for his
dead wife or child, in the more exacting
anxiety of finding money to give them a
snowy funeral. 1t is one of those subjects
upon which sermons, however, are useless.
The man, rich or poor, who sacrifices his life
to Mrs. Grundy will be comforted in his
death if sure of her approval of his exit. The
only cure we see for the evil is few more
letters from this Rutland reporter. Jeames as
mourner would terrify any man from his
coffin.