Ashes to ashes, a cremation Prelude

Google

This is a digital copy of a book lhal w;ls preserved for general ions on library shelves before il was carefully scanned by Google as pari of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

Il has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one thai was never subject

to copy right or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often dillicull lo discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher lo a library and linally lo you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud lo partner with libraries lo digili/e public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order lo keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial panics, including placing Icchnical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make n on -commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request thai you use these files for
personal, non -commercial purposes.

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort lo Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each lile is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use. remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other

countries. Whether a book is slill in copyright varies from country lo country, and we can'l offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through I lie lull lexl of 1 1 us book on I lie web
al |_-.:. :.-.-:: / / books . qooqle . com/|

ASHES TO ASHES

$2! the same Author.

MUSIC AND MORALS.

Fifth Edition y with Portrait of the . lui/tor.

Post 8vo, I2S.

44 Wc cannot commend too highly Mr. Haweis's general exposition of
the theory of music as the most profound and subtle artistic instrument
for expressing emotion. Criticism of this sort has hitherto, for the most
part, been confined to Germany." — Saturday Review.

" Mr. Haweis' book is well fitted for the reading of the general musical

Sublic. He has with great wisdom and skill avoided, on the one hand,
lling his book with the tough, dry details of musical syntax, and, on the
other, that condescending kindergarten spirit of instruction which tries to
sugar the bitter pill of musical learning." — Atlantic Monthly.

"This thoughtful, richly stored^ and graceful book will charm and
gratify all who can find pleasure in the exercise of thought aided and
stimulated by the delicacies of refined literary composition. — Guardian.

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LUDGATIi HILL, K.C.

ASHES TO ASHES

& Uttcmation ^rdubc

By REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A.

LONDON
DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO.

56, LUDGATE HILL
•875

23Z . £ . Z ^

loxdox :

PfWKTRD BY YUITUB AND CO.,
CITY BOAD.

INDEX.

I. AFTER THE STORM
II. WITH THE DEAD

III. "WITH THE LIVING

IV. BY FIRE .
V. TWO R08ES

VI. AN8WERED
VII. BY MOONLIGHT .
VIII. VIEWS AND OPINIONS
IX. A PERILOUS SPHERE
X. CONFIDENCES .

XI. vale!

XII. COMFORTABLY BURIED

XIII. alone!

XIV. AFTERGLOW
XV. AN EMPTY GRAVE

APPENDIX :

REFERENCES

THE PYRAMID AND THE WALL

PAGE
1

7
52
76
116
122
139
146
165
174
187
200
225
229
250

256
258

N.B. — The Author requests any of his Readers to
send him corroborative evidence, information, or cor-
rections of any kind, for use in a future Edition.

"vKHMiiiis Kitiirn, runo coxbumimur ioni

»»

I.

AFTER THE STORM.

L

|T was a melancholy autumn night.
I had strayed on to the beach,
and stood watching the foamless but still
heaving waters as they lifted up great
masses of tangled sea-weed and shells,
torn from the rocks during the late
storm. The last glimmer of lilac from
the sunset had faded out upon the
sea.

The moon rose in a watery mist, and
lighted up dimly the little bay. The ruined
church-tower stood out dark against the

B

2 ASHES TO ASHES.

pale sky, as if deprecating the encroach-
ments of the hungry ocean. The air was
damp and warm. I turned and walked
slowly along the shore, in the direction of
St. Ansclm's Tower. When that saint had
been chosen as patron of the place, the
modest little church was built on a hill
inland, at the back of a small fishing-
hamlet. The graveyard sloped down the
hill to the hamlet, and the hamlet sloped
to the sea; but by degrees the huts and
cottages had been swallowed up by the
ever-encroaching tides.

In one terrible night, seventy years ago,
thirty houses had been swept away. The
villagers deserted the rest, and retreated
to the centre of the bay.

The church had been forsaken, and was
falling into ruins, and the relentless ocean

AFTER THE STORM. 3

had already begun its work of desecration
in the graveyard.

Whilst the authorities were debating what
steps should be taken, a gale of unusual vio-
lence blew along the west coast. Fishing-
boats were dashed to pieces, and many who,
having left St. Anselm's, had put well out
to sea to avoid the rocks never returned.

For two days the storm raged with
unabated fury. On the evening of the
third all was calm and peaceful again, —
only the quiet ground-swell rose and fell
without a breaker, bearing on its cruel
bosom fragments of planks and waifs and
strays of wreck.

As I neared the churchyard, I noticed
that the last barrier of mouldering wall had
been completely swept away. I could not

4 ASHES TO ASHES.

even tell where the beach ended and the
graves began. My foot stumbled against
what I thought was a spar or plank. I
stooped and picked it up. At that moment
a black cloud drew across the quivering
moon.

The intense loneliness of the place — the
dark gloomy tower, from whose ruined
turret flapped a huge black-looking cor-
morant with a loud scream — the tumbled
tombstones close by me — the smell of rank
sea-weed in unaccustomed places — the deso-
late company of the uncared-for, uncomforted
dead, — all this unnerved me strangely for
the moment; but I had picked * up some-
thing. I sat down upon a still-undisturbed
mound, holding it mechanically in my hand.
I then noticed the presence of several other
companions. They were sea-birds and other

AFTER THE STORM. 5

birds of prey — doubtless kites and cor-
morants. They were too busy to notice
me at first. I dared not think why they
had assembled there; I remembered that,
long after the church had been disused,
grkves had been opened not far from the
beach, and new bodies deposited there.
Sea- weeds covered them now, and the birds
were ravenously tearing up the sea- weed.

I sat motionless like one spell-bound.
I felt as if I w;as the intruder — as if I had
no place there, and must remain unobserved,
and leave the night-birds to their ghastly
work: it was like a strange, disordered
dream.

I started ; — something rustled close to me
and tumbled or rather leaped forth, out of a
great rift in a hollow stone tomb. It was a
large rat. I watched it in a kind of stupefied

6 ASHES TO ASHES.

Tray; it, too, seemed quite at home. Pre-
sently it stopped : it had found something.

The moon shone out more brightly again,
and the birds stirred uneasily. They saw
mo, and flew away screaming. I was left
alone, still holding something, which I had
picked up, in my hand. It was white and
dry- I examined it closely by the light of
the moon. Being a fair anatomist, I saw
immediately what it was; it was a human
bone.

HE.

WITH THE DEAD.

SUPPOSE I looked somewhat pale
and shaken when I regained my
lodgings ; for my friend Le Normand, on
opening the door, started back as though he
had seen a ghost. Then laying one hand on
my shoulder and removing a half-consumed
cigar from his lips with the other, he said
with an almost caressing solicitude peculiar
to him, " Dear friend, what has happened to

you ? Come in ; are you not well ? "

" You have often spoken to me," I said,
sinking into an arm-chair, " of the horrors

8 ASHES TO ASHES.

of Christian burial,— of what has happened,
of what may happen, to any graveyard
in the long run. Xow I believe you ; " and
I had soon told him my ghastly adventures
in the churchyard of St. Anselm.

Le Normand was a Frenchman by birth,
but he had been educated in England ; and
both his parents being dead, he had been
thrown on the hands of guardians at an
early age.

He was a man of remarkable attainments,
with an omnivorous appetite for books.
Whatever he took up he soon became
absorbed in, and in conversation would
pour forth stores of information upon almost
any subject.

He had taken up the medical profession
with all his wonted ardour ; he loved it for

WITH THE DEAD. 9

its own sake; and its varied and exciting
scenes suited well his, impulsive nature and
restless imagination.

I had known him watch the stages of
putrid fever as though witnessing the most
exciting of dramas, whilst he would tend the
sufferer with the patience and tenderness of
a woman.

I had seen his face glow with enthusiasm

and triumph, in the atmosphere of a dissect-
ing-room in which I nearly fainted, when
some post mortem proved that his diagnosis
had been correct. "Is there any excite-
ment," he once exclaimed, " equal to watch-
ing the ingenuity of disease ! " And at
another time : "To remove pain — to hunt it
from one place to another and expel it — to
see the smile return to the troubled brow,
and the colour come back to the cheek;

io ASHES TO ASHES.

Nature rise and shake herself from the dust,
and say to Death, c Not yet — -pas encore P "
and he would lay both hands on my arm
in his excitement, until I could not resist
the glow of his enthusiasm.

This may explain to some extent the
fascination which Le Normand exercised
over me ; why I was glad to spend part of
my vacation with him in a kind of rambling
walking tour, staying sometimes for a few
days or weeks at any retired and romantic
spot that pleased us, ready to pack up and
be off at any moment ; and never, whilst in
his society, at a loss for conversation or
amusement. How could I be with Le
Normand ? Every question of the day he
was up in, and especially every question of
sanitary reform ; but the one subject which
had lately attracted him powerfully, was

WITH THE DEAD. 1 1

the question of inhumation or the burial
of the dead. Upon this he had collected
an immense store of information; and he
eagerly seized every opportunity of descant-
ing upon the danger, the horror, and upon
what he called the generally pestilential
practice of our burial system.

To-night, of course, our conversation
drifted that way, and as I lit my pipe and
revived my nervous energies with the aid
of a steaming tumbler cunningly mixed by
Le Normand, " You will never get our
people to adopt your favourite Cremation,"
I said.

"It is not yet a question of Cremation :
the first thing is to disenchant the world
with burial. You have seen something to-
night which has given you a little shock.
We must make others feel what you have

12 ASHES TO ASHES.

felt. With people in general this will
never be a question of health or utility
first; but first a question of sentiment.
The churchyard sentiment is false — the
vault-sentiment is false — it is untrue to
facts. You think of the body in its-
quiet hermetically sealed vault, but time
knows of no such seal. You think of-
its protecting slab, of the solemn arches
and the consecrated ground, but to-morrow
all this may be changed. You think of
the churchyard sown with flowers, with
its groves of weeping-willows — the quiet
graves, each with its silent denizen walled
off from the rest: it is all a dream, a
fancy ! In the past there has been no
auch seclusion, nor will any amount of
legislation make it possible in the future ;
the world is not the world of the dead, but

WITH THE DEAD. 13

of the living, and every attempt to make
it a dead-house will break down, as it has
broken down.

"Listen," he continued, drawing hi&
chair closer to mine, whilst his whole coun-
tenance seemed strangely animated by the
force of the accumulated facts he was about
to pour forth in defence of his thesis.
"The history of vaults, graveyards, and
cemeteries is one long history of desecration
and outrage. They do not sleep well, tljey
cannot sleep well, those who arc buried
there. Where are the thousands who were
laid in the heart of Paris, and who slept
for centuries in the graveyards of the
Innocents, St. Eustache, St. Etienne des
Pres? Every tourist who takes a return
ticket to Paris may gaze upon their bones,
speculate upon their skulls, and finger

i 4 ASHES TO ASHES.

their dust. 1 By order of the Minister of
Police, they were all dug up in 1787 and
carted off to the catacombs. The bones
were cleaned and arranged in grim and
picturesque symmetry. In one gallery are
the arms, legs, and thighs, intersected by
rows of skulls ; the small bones are thrown
in heaps behind them. Whose dust is
separate there? — whose ashes are sacred?
and yet they were borne to this grotesque
sepulchre with priests and tapers !

"But have not roads and railways been
often driven through churchyards? TSo
funeral rites can save us from the navvy's
spade, or prevent the remains of our dearest
relatives from being carted away at some
future period, and mixed up indiscriminately
with others. They are not even always
respected, these poor bones, as the relics of

WITH THE DEAD. 15

the dead. Nay, your Quarterly Review
(No. XLIL, p. 380) affirms * that many tons
of human bones every year are sent from
London to the North, where they are
crushed in mills constructed for the pur-
pose, and used as manure ! ' You think they
are safe in their graves? Your church-
yards have not even protected the dead
from the most ghastly exposure by the
elements.

2 " In 1854, at Herrenlauersitz, upwards
of one hundred bodies, most of them
still in their coffins, were washed out
of their resting-places by an inundation.
They were found lying amongst the flower-
beds in the neighbouring gardens, and the
reapers came upon them in the corn-fields.
But the brutality of the elements is nothing
to the brutality of man. I repeat, you can-

ib ASff£S TO ASHES.

not preserve the buried dead securely from
the outrages of the living. The people who
dig graves, or are employed to remove bones,
are not as a rule scrupulous, but they are
very often drunk. 3 The other day only, a
number of wild Irish were so employed, —
says a correspondent at New York, — the
bodies were offered for sale on the ground
to a party of medical students. These
young fellows had the grace to shrink from
the horrors they then witnessed. One
coffin was found full of a heavy decom-
posed mass, like spermaceti: it was used
to grease the axle-tree of the cart. Another
coffin contained the body of a woman, aged
twenty, as the inscription announced. She
had rested for one hundred and seven years
— laid there with what tears, what tender
regrets of husband, or lover, or mother!

WITH THE DEAD. 17

but now her head was rudely seized and
kicked like a football from one ruffian to
the other."

"Stop, Le Normand," I said; "such
atrocities cannot happen in England. You
cull, it may be, baseless and horrible ro-
mances from sensation prints beyond the
sea. Perhaps, after all, these are only
the invention of unscrupulous newspaper
writers."

"I tell you," said my friend, rising in
his excited way, "that in England and
Scotland such things have happened. In-
deed, until the passing of .the Burial Acts
in 1852-56, the violation of graves through-
out Scotland, England, and Ireland was
systematic. I speak not now of body-
snatching : that had been successfully sup-
pressed. But in most crowded burial-

c

1 3 ASHES TO ASHES.

grounds there was a bone-house, and in
many a burning-ground — not for the bodies,
but for the coffin-wood. You paid for
your grave ; you were laid decently with
solemn ceremony in your last (?) resting-
place ; your friends thought you would lie
undisturbed. If you were in a vault, your
coffin might still be there ; but, after a cer-
tain number of years, not your bones. If
you were in a grave, your tombstone might
survive both you and your coffin for many
years. Your bones would be in the bone-
house, or sold for manure ; your coffin
burnt. 4

" In many low parts of London coffin-
wood was used habitually for firewood;
and 6 coffin-furniture, ' consisting of second-
hand plates, nails, &c, was a well-known
item with marine-store dealers. No, I am

WITH THE DEAD. 19

not speaking at random : as you will have
facts, facts you shall have. Mr. Walker,
surgeon, visited the burial-ground in Por-
tugal Street, on 27th April, 1839. He
found two graves open, several bones lying
about, and heaps of coffin-wood, some quite
fresh, waiting for removal for firewood. A
gentleman writes to the Times, 25th June,
1838, 6 I was shocked to see two men em-
ployed in carrying baskets of human bones
to the back of the ground through a small
gate. I have twelve of my nearest and
dearest relatives consigned to the grave in
that ground (Portugal Street), and I felt
that perhaps I might at that moment be
viewing, in the basket of skulls which
passed before me, those of my own family
thus brutally exhumed.' "

Le Normand read from a book of scraps

• i

tlu-ir

I'nlic

pidi,
llu- .
row
in :
sop:
and

S<»]

oil
In

s l
f

)EAD.

21

i< . .

r'

a wheelbarrow the
jites of the smashed
)n the north side was
grave. He was quite
od, were all the grave-
Ac.
iuto is the evidence for the
. units, even in this century : —
kor who had charge of a funeral
a friend into the vault of a
A coffin recently deposited was
at his arm with the greatest ease.
u, doubting, poised the coffin, and
it-ctod to tears from the conviction
;:• body had been removed. Several
. iffins were in the same condition.' —
'■■' r, p. 202.

* \nw soo," continued Lc Normand, with
^nppy French faculty of arranging

22 ASHES TO ASHES.

everything under heads, "there axe two
chief causes for these outrages on the dead.
The first is Love of Gain, and the second is
Want of Space. Love of gain nerved the
body-snatcher for his ghastly trade. It has
driven many a professional grave-digger
before now to dig up the bodies of high-born
ladies, in the hopes of finding rings still on
their fingers. Coffins have been rifled for
treasures from time immemorial. There is
hardly a museum in Europe which does not
bear witness to this kind of spoliation.
Cupidity tempted men to steal the coffin-
plates, nails, and coffins themselves for
firewood, and to sell the bones of the dead
for manure; and the love of gain, in the
shape of burial fees, has shamefully over-
crowded all our intramural and many other
burying - grounds ; and this is the point

WITH THE DEAD. 23

where the love of gain touches the Want of
Space — second cause for the desecration of
graveyards.

" The dark caravans keep pouring in
/ their hosts of silent applicants, but the
ground is already full : full, say I ? — more
than full. See, there is not one old church-
yard that has not risen high above the level
of the intersecting walks. The mould in
many places, as in the old Cimetiere des
Innocents at Paris, or in your horrible St.
Giles or St. Pancras, London — the mould is
literally saturated with corpses ; yet long*
after this was the case the hearses streamed
in to deposit their ghastly freight of human
merchandise, — but where ? It was an out-
rage upon the dead by the living — the
living who loved gold better than decency,
better than health, — ay, better than your

24 ASHES TO ASHES.

much -vaunted sentiment, which, extols
churchyard burial as the most Christian
and poetical of institutions."

" And surely, under right conditions," I
interposed, " there is much to be said for
it. Its outward aspect is at least soothing
and peaceful."

" Neither within nor without is it clean,"
burst in my friend. " I will show you that
by-and-by. But even were it so, the ' right
conditions ' you allude to, and which arc
many, arc seldom realised at all, and never
realised for long, that first condition of
ample room will and must fail over and
over again. I still attack your sentiment
for burying-grounds on that weak point.
You build your church; beneath it are
vaults, around it is a graveyard, beyond
are open fields; but in those fields arc

WITH THE DEAD. 25

houses; they creep nearer and nearer to
the church, they surround the churchyard ;
they are a close, dense mass — row on row
of houses; perhaps, narrow, unwholesome
streets between them — no possibility of
enlarging the churchyard with this rapid
growth of the population, — on each side it
is hemmed in. Go through London and .
many another large town, once a rural ham-
let, now a crowded city with a pest-house
in its centre. That is the history of your
burial-grounds; that in time must be the
history of all burial-grounds. Look at your
Brompton, your Kensal Green, your Nor-
wood Cemeteries, and others — but yesterday
in open fields, now the centre of a growing
population, — now fast filling, nay, full to
repletion. Look at those other hundreds of
plague-acres closed by the late Acts of Par-

26 ASHES TO ASHES.

liamcnt ! — think what overcrowding came to
there. Yet sentiment was satisfied, down
to the last, with any kind of burial that
could be obtained within those foul but
consecrated precincts.

11 And how was it done ? I shudder to
relate, my friend. It was done by what the
grave-diggers called ' management.' This
6 management ' resulted in facts the most
incredible, the most appalling.

5 "I will again refer to my notes. At
Southwark, in making a grave on one oc-
casion, I find that a body was dug up. A
shovel of earth was thrown over it : it lay
by the side of the open grave. They were
6 managing ' for the next occupant. The
funeral arrives; a mourner steps by mis-
take on the thinly covered corpse, and
nearly falls into the grave.

WITH THE DEAD. 27

"A young woman visits the sacred spot
where a short time before her mother was
laid to rest ; but the grave again had been
6 managed/ and the poor girl recognises
the finger of her mother amongst a heap
of rubbish ! (See "Walker, c Gatherings from
Graveyards.')

" Want of space ! love of gold ! As long,
as these exist, your burial sentiment never
can be free from the fear of such outrages.
I will allude to but one more case in the
past. The 6 management system ' probably
culminated in the burial-vaults of Enon
Chapel, Clement's Lane, London. The
vaults measure 59 ft. 3 in. by 28 ft. 8 in.
Allowing an average of nine feet per per-
son, we shall quite overcrowd the whole
area once with about two hundred bodies.

2& ASHES TO ASHES.

Fill that area six times ; then the coffins lie
in tiers six deep, and that is quite an
extreme allowance: the whole space then
could not possibly contain more than 1,200
of them; and yet, my friend," continued
Le Normand, gesticulating with unusual
earnestness, as though he had at last
arrived at his crowning fact, "instead of
twelve hundred, between ten and twelve
thousand bodies were crowded into those
vaults at different times. What became of
them ? They did not, they could not, all
rest there. Thousands of them had to bo
1 managed.' And what becomes of senti-
ment or sacred regard for the relics of the
dead?"

He paused for a few moments, and re-lit
his cigar, which had long ceased to show

WITH THE DEAD. 29

any signs of life ; and now he continued
to blow off his own excitement and rest
himself by puffing large volumes of tobacco.
As he stood with his back to the fire-place,
his note-book tumbled on the floor, his light
curly hair thrown back with a peculiar
gesture, his bright intelligent eyes looking
out straight before him fixed upon vacancy
and still dreamy with thought ; I could not
help admiring his earnestness, and the evi-
dent sincerity of his strong convictions.

I had listened patiently to his exposure
of the systematic outrages to which Chris-
tian tombs had been exposed, even during
the present century ; but I thought he had
allowed his excitable mind to dwell too
morbidly upon these past abuses. I saw,
indeed, that graves were, and always would
be, liable to natural catastrophes, which

3 o ASHES TO ASHES.

know no distinction of time or place, and
one of which I had witnessed that very
evening under circumstances unusually
impressive and horrible. But I now re-
flected with complacency that all abuses of
" management " were effectually put an end
to by the stringent burial laws passed in
1852, 1853, 1855, 1857, and 1860.

As I began to describe our supposed im-
munity from desecration under the new
Acts which forbid intramural burial in
London, and lay down all kinds of stringent
regulations in connection with vaults,
graves, and cemetery management through-
out the three kingdoms generally, I saw my
friend smile incredulously, and with a
slight impatient wave of his hand —

" Your Acts of Parliament are so much

WITH THE DEAD. 31

print. Your new burial code is a paper
constitution."

"But," I rejoined, "are the Acts null
and void ? "

"Worse," lie replied; "they are valid,
but futile."

I was sure now that he was overstating
his case, and I said, "Explain yourself. Is
it not true that during the last ten years,
since the passing of the first Burial Act, a
great sanitary revolution has taken place?
Have not four hundred local Burial Boards
been constituted ? Is not every large town
at this moment engaged in providing ade-
quate means for the decent interment of
the dead beyond the dwellings of the
living, and that under conditions which
will make * management ' or future desecra-
tion impossible? Have not 500 orders in

32 ASHES TO ASHES.

Council been issued, and nearly 4,000 old
burial-grounds been closed or placed under
regulation? Are not all the new ceme-
teries commodious and well drained ? And
are there not government inspectors to pro-
tect the Acts ? And have not £1,400,000
been raised for the provision of the various
parochial cemeteries ? And have not these
beneficial Acts been extended to Scotland
and Ireland ? "

" Valid, but futile," repeated my friend,
who would never recant whatever he had
once affirmed.

"Hundreds of Burial Boards to thousands
of parishes ! Besides, how can you expect
these to be efficient when local improve-
ment means self-taxation ? You know how
that is met in England. The clearest laws
are evaded, and the Government winks : the

WITH THE DEAD. 33

minimum will be done, and the community
will suffer. You run your engines till they
burst, — you leave your roads till they are
impassable, — your public edifices until they
tumble down, — your Temple Bars till they
crumble, — and will your graveyards fare
any better ? Will your Local Boards pro-
tect your graves from desecration? They
will not see, — they will not smell ; they
will only think of their pockets, and the
law will let them alone as long as ever it
can. This is your noble self-government.

"You passed several Acts from 1852 to
1860; you appointed government inspectors.
There was to be no more crowding of
graves, — no more digging up of bodies, —
no more c management ' of any kind.

"Well, in March, 1874, I read in all your
papers an account copied from the Scotsman

34 ASHES TO ASHES.

relating to events that happened at Edin-
burgh in March, 1874. It there came out
before the Sheriff's Court what had been
going on under the very eyes and noses of
the local officers, and in the very teeth of the
Acts of Parliament. The burial-ground of
St. Cuthbert is situate in the centre of the
city of Edinburgh; it is one of the oldest.
In the last fifteen years 10,800 bodies have
been placed there. Graves were re-opened
up to 1874 ; some every seven, some every
three years (although your Act prescribes
fourteen and twelve years as the legal
period, and even then only in cases where
decomposition has been complete). Coffins
with no plates were usually broken open;
the remains were often not 'ripe,' that is
undecayed, — the coffin-wood was burned,
the remains heaped back pell-mell upon

WITH THE DEAD. 35

others, to make room for more. At last
but one or two inches of earth could be
placed between the coffins^ (your Act
requires one foot as a minimum).

"When all this came out in court the
Sheriff observed that, although these revolt-
ing practices were freely carried on in other
churchyards, that was no reason why they
should continue in the heart of Edinburgh.
It appeared that the yard was overcrowded
with dead, and that revolting scenes in
consequence took place. The Act of Par-
liament spoke of regulating graveyards;
it might be possible to 6 regulate ' St. Cuth-
bert's. It was said to be unhealthy, and
the inhabitants complained of it as a
nuisance. Crowded graveyards were no-
toriously unhealthy, and generally a
nuisance. It was not actually proved

36 ASff£S TO ASff£S.

that St. Cuthberfs was unhealthy, &c.
In short, the Sheriff's address amounted
to a mild defence of St. Cnthberfs, and
a vague suggestion that it might still be
6 regulated '—and this in 1874 ! 6

"Look again at that portentous modern
scandal, the burial-ground of St. Mary's,
Sheffield, closed several years ago as being
unfit for burial, and re-opened by the desire
of the inhabitants. They have been burying
there ever since, and are burying there at
the rate of about 1,000 bodies per annum.
No one will even pretend that the Acts
of Parliament are observed there; they
might as well have never been passed. In
the Times of August, 1874, I notice the
following paragraph :—

" ' Lambeth Cemetery. — A special committee of
inquiry in reference to the cemetery has reported

WITH THE DEAD. 37

unanimously: — 1. There was a deficient quantity of
earth — namely,' from four to five inches, instead of
one foot — placed between the coffins in what are
called the common graves in the third-class ground ;
and on the re-opening of private graves, it is the
custom to expose the lid of the coffin, without leaving
the foot of earth prescribed by the Secretary of State's
regulations. 2. It had been proved that gratuities
were received, but not verbally asked for. 8. That
disturbances might occur without the knowledge of
the Superintendent, and that disgraceful scenes have
occurred despite police supervision* 4. That the
clerk had admitted that any infringement of the
regulations of the Secretary of State and the by-laws
of the Burial Board might happen without his know-
ledge. 5. The Superintendent admitted that as many
as three bodies in one day had been interred in a third-
class common grave, the regulations of the Secretary
of State prescribing only one per day. 6. It had been
stated in evidence that in one instance, a few days ago,
in the belief of the witness, there was only three feet
of space between the lid of the coffin and the surface
of the ground, and the superintendent declined to
examine the witness on this point, and would not
undertake to say that there were no adult coffins
within a distance of three feet from the surface.'

" The closing of old burial-grounds, pro-

38 ASHES TO ASHES.

vided they are not re-opened," continued
my Mend, " is good as far as it goes, but it
does not go far enough. Tour Government
is the laughing-stock of Europe in these
matters. It is jealous over the liberties,
but regardless of the lives, of its subjects*
It allows them to be free, but forbids them
to be healthy.

"My friend, the supineness and inca-
pacity of your administration is incredi-
ble. 7 In 1850 your Board of Health con-
demned the cemeteries of Highgate, Kensal
Green, Norwood, Nunhead, Brompton, and
declared that they must be closed in the
interests of public health. A central
burying-place at Abbey Wood was to be
purchased, and Parliament was to buy up
the old cemeteries. It bought Brompton,
Cemetery alone, arid-closed it ? Oh, no I

WITH THE DEAD. 39

— used it, and is using it at this moment.
Your own Government is using, mark you,
at high, pressure and remunerative rates a
graveyard condemned by its own board
twenty -four years ago. A Government
that will do this is capable, you conceive,
of passing Acts without enforcing them;
and there is therefore, under your im-
proved legislation, the same danger and
the same desecration as before.

"As to the cemeteries in general what
says your greatest authority, who was
charged to report to your Government?
6 The only cemetery company which com-
bines in its practice a proper regard to
public health and decency is the London
Necropolis Company.' — (Br. Sutherland's
Report addressed to the Secretary of State
for the Home Department) And why?

4 o ASHES TO ASHES.

Simply because at present it is beyond the
reach, of temptation : that is all. It
secludes for the burial of the dead two
thousand acres of land, and renders them
unproductive for three or four hundred
years, — and then — and then? Why the
Necropolis will probably be another plague-
spot in the middle of another city; and,
possibly, long before that time most of the
old evils of management will be rife there,
— not in the lives of the present managers,
but after. But your advocates for burial
are like ostriches; they hide their heads,
eyes, nose, and all, in the sand, and defy
the enemy, who is some way off, and
whom they cannot see. You produce
with greater and greater difficulty, here
and there, a cemetery less poisonous and
indecent for a few years than its con-

WITH THE DEAD. 41

demned neighbours, and cry Eureka! — we
are safe ! But wait — and the yard is full,
and your great - grandchildren have to
recommence the same old story of cor-
ruption and abuse over and over again —
and so on.

" Time, time — it is all a question of time;
there is no such thing as an eternal Necro-
polis — an eternal burial : the living want
the land, and the dead must make way.
All this would be otherwise with Crema-
tion, but with burial — never.

"You speak of government inspectors;
but when the Government itself is in-
different, what is the use of inspectors?
Nay, how can they inspect? — how can
they really test the registries? how can
they test the ground? How do they

42 ASHES TO ASHES.

know, how can they find out, that
hurials in old overcrowded churchyards
never take place when their backs are
turned ? They do take place.

" I could produce you cases in country
churchyards, where the good rector, who
pockets his fee, has never even heard of the
Acts which forbid such interments. I could
show you vaults here, there, and every-
where, where the coffins are not bricked up
or cemented up, as the Act directs, but are
lying exposed. 8 So notoriously is this the
case, that at Norwood Cemetery there they
lie in the vaults; each has its compart-
ment, but each compartment is open and
exposed at one end, &c.

"The only adequate inspection is an
impossible one, and one which, if it were
possible, would be worse than the evil it is

WITH THE DEAD. 43

sought to cure. The inspector must go
round with a probing-rod and dig up the
doubtful grave, to see whether the regula-
tions have been complied with.

"No: sentiment is not really on the

side of burial; burial does not, and never

can be respectful to the dead. What has
been, will be. All the conditions are bad.

Love of gain and want of space will sooner

or later operate to procure the evasion of

laws which weigh too heavily on the pockets

and the convenience of interested classes.

What is going on at Brompton, Sheffield,

Lambeth, &c, in England, and at Pere la

Chaise in France, will, in the long run, go

on in every cemetery, however spacious and

well planned.

"Mind, my friend, I do not say that

44 ASHES TO ASHES.

you are blind to the evils of burial in your
country, — you cannot be ; nay, every move
you have made has been in the right direc-
tion. You have closed your vaults — well;
you have closed your urban cemeteries —
well ; you have closed, or will shortly close,
several of your suburban cemeteries — well ;
you have at least made regulations about
graves which, though not kept, are intended
to shield the dead from desecration and the
living from disease, — well: but the last
change has still to be made — the change
from burial to Cremation."

Knowing that my friend would continue
on the same tack, I thought I might as
well divert the stream of his discourse to
one branch of the subject specially interest-
ing to myself; so I said, "I have often

WITH THE DEAD. 45

had a great horror of being buried alive.
Do you think that people have often suffered
this dreadful doom ? "

I could see from the working of Le Nor-
mand's mobile features that I had touched
some deep chord ; there was a restless light
in his eyes; he was extremely agitated.
He came close to me, and clasping my arm
tightly, as was his wont in moments of
unusual excitement —

"Buried alive ! it has happened — it will
happen. It is my horror. Listen ! I my-
self have fallen into lethargies which looked
like death. Once after a long fever, as I
was recovering, I relapsed, and lay for forty
hours like one dead. I heard, but I could
not move. I felt them measure me for my
coffin, but could make no sign, I recovered
in time to save myself. But I know that

46 ASHES TO ASJIES.

all this may occur again, and therefore I
charge you now, dear Mend, if I die before
you, to see that a deep incision be made in
each of my arms, and that the jugular
vein be also severed before my burial — if
burial be my doom."

I promised faithfully to obey my Mend
in these particulars, on condition that he
would perform the same kind office for me
in case of his survival.

"But," I asked, "are your fears well
grounded ? Do you know of many cases of
premature burial ? "

" Undoubtedly I do. I will not say that
in our temperate climate they are frequent,
but they do occur. Hardly a graveyard is
opened but coffins are found containing
bodies not only turned, but skeletons con-
torted in the last hopeless struggle for life

WITH THE DEAD. 47

underground. The turning may be due to
some clumsy shaking of the coffin during
burial, hut not the contortion.

"At Bergerac (Dordogne), in 1842, a
patient took a sleeping - draught : he fell
asleep, but he woke not. After several
hours they bled him; the blood scarcely
flowed, and he woke not. At last they
declared him to be dead, and buried him.
But after a few days, remembering the
sleeping-draught, they determined to re-
open the grave. The body had turned —
and struggled. 9

" The Sunday Times, December 30, 1838,"
continued Le Normand, turning the pages
of his voluminous note-book, "relates that
at Tonnens, Lower Garonne, a man was
being buried, when an indistinct noise
proceeded from the coffin; the reckless

48 ASHES TO ASHES.

grave-digger fled in terror to seek for aid.
A crowd soon collected. The coffin was
hauled up and burst open. A face stiffened
in terror and despair, a torn winding-sheet,
contorted limbs, told the sad truth — too late.
" But only the other day I read in your
Times (May, 1874), that in the August
of 1873 a young lady died soon after her
marriage, in the intense heat : she was
buried the same day. Within a year the
husband married again, and the mother of
his first bride resolved to remove her
daughter's body to her native town, Mar-
seilles. They open the vault, and find
the poor girl's body fallen prostrate, her
hair dishevelled, her shroud torn to pieces.
She had risen, my friend ; she had burst
her narrow prison, to find herself in one a
little larger, but far more inexorable. How

WITH THE DEAD. 49

long did she cry piteously for help? how
long did she struggle and pray, this poor
young mother, never destined to clasp her
child to her bosom — hurried alive out of a
sunny world into the dark and pitiless
tomb ? We cannot tell ; we can but guess
her agonies. Twelve months after they
found her where she fell."

"Enough, Le Normand," I cried, rising
and beginning to pace up and down our
room, whilst my friend stood once more
with his cigar perfectly extinct, staring at
the wall as if he saw ghosts. "These
horrible tales oppress me; I will hear no
more. Already I feel as if I were under-
ground : I awake — all is dark : what is this
air ? Ah ! I cannot breathe. Where am I ?
I raise my head; my forehead strikes a
board; my elbows strike the sides of —

E

50 ASHES TO ASHES.

yes ! my coffin. Horrible ! I cannot move
— I stifle : I feel the hot tears of terror and
despair in my eyes— the last tears I shall
ever shed. My loudest cry. is muffled and
dumb with death. Have pity on me, Le
Normand: see what you have brought me
to!"

" All this," he answered eagerly, " could
never happen in Cremation. The body ex-
posed at first, if you will, to a gentle and
genial warmth, under due vigilance might,
at the last moment, revive. Or entering at
once into the fierce heat, life (if any) would
instantly become extinct. . . ."

" Come, dear friend, it grows late; I feel
an oppression in my chest — I want more
air."

I went to the window and threw it wide
open; a gentle night breeze stole in from

WITH THE DEAD. 51

the sea. Le Normand joined me, and laid
his hand gently on my shonlder. We both
looked ont on the great expanse of moon-lit
water. The clonds had broken; all was
calm and peaceful, and the air was deli-
ciously scented with seaweed. We heard
the ripple break upon the shore.

tt^ffis&fc}? 3^

ra.

WITH THE LIVING.

N the following afternoon I proposed
to my friend a stroll along the
cliff. Whenever we settled down anywhere
for a few days, it was our custom to study
in the mornings, and spend the rest of the
day in exercise and recreation.

As we sallied forth we met several men
with spades starting for the further end of
the bay, where lay the old graveyard. I
turned away. "Let us go up yonder
path," I said, "and walk right along the
top of the cliff."

WITH THE LIVING. 53

We soon stood looking down from a
great height at the sea beneath, the distant
horizon rising np like the line of an im-
mense wall in front of ns. The air was soft
and pleasant, the light was veiled, and thin
clouds went to and fro, intercepting the
sunshine. Every now and then a great sea-
bird flapped by, coasting along the rocks, or
sank with its white bosom breasting the sea
below.

Anything less suggestive of death could
hardly be imagined. The fall peacefulness
of life, the gentle summer witids, the lazy
lights of a warm autumnal sun, — all these
might have made us pensive, but could
hardly account for the strange discourse
upon disease, decay, and mortality that we
were about to enter upon.

But I knew what was uppermost in Le

54 ASHES TO ASHES.

Normand's mind. He had been inflamed
by reading that morning an elaborate de-
fence of the burial system in an American
paper, in which Cremation was denounced
as unchristian, and all the evils of burial
were denied.

As we sat down upon a hillock overlook-
ing the sea, I plucked a stem of the yellow
corn which grew nearly up to the edge of
the cliff.

"You said last night," I continued,
picking out the grains one by one, "that
burial was not respectful to the dead ; but
you only hinted at its unwholesome effects
upon the living."

10 u They are denied, you see," cried Le
Normand, " in this American journal. In-
deed, I have often been told that only

WITH THE LIVING. 55

decomposed vegetable matter, and not ani-
mal matter, is injurious to health. This
delusion must be swept away. It is true
that neither dissecting-rooms nor slaughter-
houses are necessarily injurious to health;
coroners 5 inquests are worse. But, in the
first case, the body is not usually exposed
in its earlier, but in a certain later and less
dangerous stage towards decomposition, and
only after the veins have been injected. In
the second case, the carcasses of beasts are
fresh ; and, in the third, proper precautions
are taken. But in graveyards and vaults
the emanation of gases from the dead are
the deadliest poison.

"We talk vaguely of the earth and trees
absorbing this poison. Under favourable cir-
cumstances this undoubtedly often happens
to some extent, but there is no security.

56 ASHES TO ASHES.

I will, from this point of view — the sanitary-
point — once more glance at the past, and
then will show yon how far the past is
actually the present state of things, or is
rapidly tending to become so.

"I say the living have, over and over
again, been poisoned by the buried dead.
The undertakers and sextons are first to fur-
nish evidence. The surgeon, G. A. Walker,
who has written a book on this question, de-
clares that, of all the grave-diggers he has
spoken to, not one has wholly escaped.
Many had been overpowered by the gases
on commencing to dig.

" At Paris, in 1852, three men died from
inhaling an escape of gas from coffins.
M. Fourcroy declared that all the grave-
diggers he had examined showed signs of
slow poisoning. M. Patissier records several

WITH THE LIVING. 57

deaths from grave-digging. Mr. Chadwick
affirms that the sexton's vocation entailed a
loss of one-third of the natural duration of
life. Only the strongest men could bear it,
and they drank habitually to resist the
mephitic vapours. The escapes from leaden
coffins are the worst : the longer the gases
are confined, the more fatal they become. 11

12 "When the coffin of Francis I. was
opened at the end of the last century, the
dreadful vapours drove the men back,
although he had lain there two hundred
and fifty years. 13 In 1845, the burial-pits
closed up at Lewes during the Black Death,
in the fourteenth century, were opened, and
the navvies employed were overpowered by
the smell. And we re-open graves freely
after fourteen years by Act of Parliament !

"Now realise, my friend, the effect of

i
f
<

5 8 ASHES TO ASHES.

such gases not concentrated, but diffused
through the air. You may not smell them,
but they are there ; or you may smell them.
Your Marylebone graveyard, closed for
more than thirty years, smells ; your
St. John's Wood graveyard smells ; 14 your
suburban cemeteries smell.

15 "Dr. Selmi, of Mantua, has lately
taken the trouble to bottle the air of some
cemeteries in calm weather. He finds it
to contain an organic corpuscle, which he
calls septo pneuma. This corpuscle, ad-
ministered in a solution to a pigeon, de-
veloped putrid fever, and destroyed the
bird on the third day. You may breathe
this air without smelling it, just as you
may drink clear sparkling cholera -water
without tasting it, — but it may be poison
for all that. And water brings me to the

WITH THE LIVING. 59

wells and springs. There is no limit to the
poisoning of these in the neighbourhood of
graveyards. It is true that in most large
towns our water comes from surface springs,
or is regulated by water companies; but
this is not the case in thousands of country
villages — and remember the old village
churchyards have, many of them, been open
for one thousand years — they are densely
crowded— they are often on the slope of a
hill — wells are sunk indiscriminately in the
neighbourhood- — the evil consequences are
incalculable.

16 "Dr. Pietra Santa lately reports that a
fearful epidemic decimated the villages of
Eotondella and Bollita, which could be
clearly tracted to the water which had been
drained into the wells through the neigh-
bouring hill-cemetery. At Leicester, wells

60 ASHES TO ASHES.

were found tainted. At Versailles, the
wells near the Church of St. Louis stank.
A well is sunk in the middle of the church-
yard of San Miniato at Florence. At Paris,
M. Ducamp discovered a spring that filtered
entirely through cemeteries, and tasted
strongly ; and Dr. Pappenheim declares that
springs tainted with the organic matter of
graveyards have been found at great dis-
tances from those sources of pollution."

"But," I said, somewhat impatiently,
" you speak of a state of things which is
surely very rare now. Well-water is seldom
used in our towns now ; and the poisonous
escapes of gas and other exhalations belong
only to thoroughly ill regulated vaults and
overcrowded cemeteries."

" I admit the town water is better than it
was, but by no means safe ; but how about

N

WITH THE LIVING. 61

the country? Then, as to vapours and
gases, have I not affirmed, on the best
authority, that vaults are still mismanaged,
and notoriously mismanaged; that ceme-
teries are overcrowded, and notoriously over-
crowded, and are still kept open; so that
evils which ought to belong to the past are
present evils? But I will go further. I
will say that there is nothing, even in our
model legislation, which can ensure us
against mephitic vapours and poisoned
wells.

"Are you aware that your greatest legal
authority, Mr. . Baker, in his l Laws relat-
ing to Burials, 5 states (p. 297) that ' there
is no law to prevent houses being built,
and wells sunk, close to a burial-ground ? '
and he goes on to point out that there is
a growing tendency to build near ceme-

62 ASHES TO ASHES.

teries. Of course there is. Land is
wanted. Houses in time will creep round
every cemetery, and the dead will continue
to poison the living. Why, at the present
moment, it is proposed to open a cemetery
for Hampstead within five hundred yards of
a reservoir constructed in 1871 ; and an-
other company is being formed to work a
cemetery at East Ham, two miles nearer the
City than Ilford. And what is true of
London and its environs is true, more or
less, of Birmingham, Manchester, Liver-
pool, and thousands of other towns and
villages throughout the land.

"Burial-grounds have been ruinous to
health. Under the best conditions they
are not without danger, and all experi-
ence shows that your best conditions are
every year more difficult to realise. Bead

WITH THE LIVING. 63

the conditions {Baker, p. 293) — light
porous soil, secluded, yet ample space, dry
neighbourhood, &c, &c. — which alone fit
ground for wholesome burial. You will
at once see that seldom, if ever, can all
these conditions be met with, and, with one
exception, they are not met with, as Dr.
Sutherland affirms. And then the very
light porous soil, which most promotes
speedy decay, is the most poisonous to the
neighbouring houses.

"On whichever side I turn, I find nothing
but fresh evidence against the practice of
burial. Not one section, but many sections
of the population suffer annually disease and
death. Allowing an average of but two
grave-diggers to every important place in
Great Britain, and we have a class of the
population, to be counted by hundreds of

64 ASHES TO ASHES.

thousands, steadily kept, for the benefit of
the dead, for the most part in a chronic state
of enforced drunkenness, ruined in health
and morale, and prematurely poisoned, after
spending but two-thirds of a natural life,
and a good portion of that literally in the
grave !

"But all engaged in this unwholesome
system suffer — the men who trim the gar-
dens, the men who repair the vaults and
tombstones, especially the men who keep
the vaults, the men who dig and drain the
land, the men who lower the coffins, the
friefids who stoop over the graves and
swallow the effluvium whilst taking a fare-
well look into the unwholesome pit, which,
as soon as it isr dug, fills rapidly with foul
gases from the neighbouring graves; and,
lastly, the whole of the funeral corUge,

WITH THE LIVING. 65

who stand very often bare-headed in the
pelting rain. There is, I repeat, no re-
deeming feature about this Christian burial
of ours — degrading to the dead, pitiless to
the living : delenda est inhumatio ! "

In his eagerness, Le Normand had not
observed the approach of two other persons,
who now stood behind him and listened to
his last few sentences. A middle-aged man
with grey hair, whose white tie proclaimed
him to be a clergyman, but whose costume
and bearing in every other respect were
remarkably free from anything like the
affected stiffness of his class. By his side

stood a sweet English girl of eighteen, such
as may be met with in many a quiet
rectory-house throughout England.

Her cheeks were bright with that glow

66 ASHES TO ASHES.

of perfect health which has a charm of its
own; her eyes were shaded with long
lashes; and a profusion of dark hair was
gathered up in loose folds at the back of
her head, just showing two little shell-like
ears, and forming a lofty cushion for quite a
fashionable modern hat of the period.

But she was no girl of the period, for a
close observer might see that, although
those red lips were ready at any moment to
break into laughter, they could be firm and
serious enough on occasion. It was the
thoughtful expression that was in her face,
as she stood eagerly listening to the last
few sentences of Le Normand, it was the
sunny smile habitual to her, that greeted
him when he turned suddenly and recog-
nised in his two new listeners the rector of
the parish and his daughter.

WITH THE LIVING. 67

If the truth must be told, that kindly
and intelligent man and his beautiful
daughter had more to do with our prolonged
sojourn in that sea-side village than either
of us chose to admit.

Mr. Morant was an enlightened man,
who, having been fellow of his college, in
due time came in for a good living, which,
like many others, combined a large salary
with a small cure of souls. At first he
fretted over what he called his banishment
from civilization; but in point of fact he
took up his favourite pursuits, discharged
his parochial duties creditably, kept up his
reading, and settled down to make collec-
tions of sea-birds, fossils, and local an-
tiquities, as many others have done before
him. His wife was dead; his son was at
college; he lived alone with his young

68 ASHES TO ASHES.

daughter, who entered eagerly into her
father's pursuits, and soon became his apt
pupil.

Soon after our arrival we had met the
rector. He seemed to take a great fancy ta
both of us. We found him thoroughly up
to all the questions of the day; and we
were often glad to stroll up to the Eectory
in the evenings, where we frequently met
a retired sea-captain who had plenty to say ;
a middle-aged lady, who had been a poetess
in her youth, and now busied herself with
schools and soup-kitchens and coal-clubs;
and besides these there were occasionally
one or two other parishioners. But the
flower of the company was always Miss Ellen
Morant, and Le Normand and I were never
tired of extolling her charms to each other.

My friend's extraordinary power of con-

WITH THE LIVING. 69

versation and range of information soon
attracted her attention, and it was quite
obvious to me that she began to watch
for those occasions when, feeling his audi-
ence thoroughly sympathetic, he would
pour out upon some subject of general in-
terest his rich store of argument and illus-
tration.

What happy evenings were those at the
quiet but hospitable Eectory! The bow
windows opened on to the green sloping
lawn. In full sight lay the broad expanse
of sea, flushed with the last rosy hues of
sunset, or silvered with the rising moon.
On a low seat at the window would sit our
sweet hostess, before her steaming urn;
and those who would, dropped in and were
cordially greeted by the rector.

7 o ASHES TO ASHES.

How varied was our talk ! Now a dis-
quisition on coins, or comets, or Darwinism
from the rector, conveyed with that tact so
rare, which contrives to impart knowledge
pleasantly without making others feel their
ignorance ; then some question of poor laws
or School Boards, started by our genial
ex-poetess ; or politics, invariably started by
the captain, who was, of course, a staunch
Tory, as all good captains should be.
These last discussions were the only ones
thoroughly distasteful to Ellen. The rector
being an advanced Liberal, the debate wa»
always narrowed into an excited duel be-
tween the Eadical priest and the Con-
servative officer. Ellen would often rise
unobserved by the disputants, and glide out
into the garden.

" When papa begins fighting," she would

WITH THE LIVING. 71

say, "I always run away. They get so
dull and rude to each other."

Need I say to whom these confidences
were addressed? Of course we had fol-
lowed Ellen ; and equally of course I found
myself playing dummy, as usual, to Le
Normand, who had soon absorbed Ellen's
whole attention with his brilliant schemes
for the reconstruction of society generally,
or his description of Victor Hugo's last
romance, &c, &c.

But we left the rector and his pretty
daughter listening to my friend's excited
denunciation of burial, or inhumation, as he
called it,

"Well, gentlemen, you have selected a
genial topic for this lovely afternoon; but
after the havoc which the late storm has

72 ASHES TO ASHES.

made in our poor little churchyard yonder,
I understand your thoughts."

"He can talk of nothing else," I said;
"he is mad about Cremation. It appears
that for eighteen hundred years the Chris-
tian world has been quite wrong in bury-
ing its dead."

"Not the only thing in which the Chris-
tian world has been wrong," interposed the
rector. " But, although I agree with much
that has of late been advanced against
burial, I confess I cannot quite see my way
to Cremation. I think there are too many
practical difficulties in the way. You will
have to fight popular sentiment. Many
would give their own bodies to be burned
who would not burn their relations. Then
how is it to be done? What will be the
expelise? How will you combine Crema-

WITH THE LIVING. 73

tion with a religious rite ? What will you
do with the ashes ? Our friend here " — in-
dicating Le Normand — " may have thought
all this out, but I think there are several
points that have to be cleared up before I
see my way to substituting Cremation for
burial."

"What do you say, Miss Morant?" I
observed, turning to that young lady.

"Oh, I am in favour of Cremation. I
am sure Mr. Le Normand explained it all
beautifully to me the other evening, whilst
papa was talking politics."

" Oh, so Mr. Le Normand let you into
the secret alone, did he?" said the rector,
smiling.

. "Yes, papa, and you would all have
heard if you hadn't been talking those
horrid politics ; and I asked him to write it

74 ASHES TO ASHES.

all down. Did you write it down?" she
asked, turning with a slight flush towards
my Mend.

"I began to write out what I could
recollect, Miss Morant. It will only be a
poor little fragment of a better work which
I hope to produce before long."

"And may I see it and copy it for my-
self?" she asked eagerly.

"You can keep the manuscript if it is
worthy of your acceptance," replied Le
Normand, with a little French bow peculiar
to him ; " if," he added, " you can decipher
my illegible handwriting."

"Come," said the rector, "we are not
going to be left out in the cold whilst you
two keep all this wisdom to yourselves.
Come you up to the Rectory to-night,
Le Normand; bring this same manu-

WITH THE LIVING. 75

script on Cremation along with you, and
read it out to us. I warrant you, who-
ever is there, you shall have an attentive
audience."

IF.

BY FIRE.

HAT very evening we repaired to
the Kectory, Le Normand carry-
ing with him a bundle of notes.

We found the captain already there,
taking his pipe on the lawn. We saw Miss
Morant sitting by herself at the bottom of a
long garden-walk, and Le Normand soon
found it necessary to walk in that direction.
I accordingly fell into the hands of the
rector, who, at that moment, sallied forth
from his study-window, which opened on
to the garden.

BY FIRE. 77

"I think," he said, "Miss Molesworth
(the ex-poetess) will probably look in after
tea. Although she is not likely to side
with our clever young friend's opinions, she
is always interested in new ideas, and
fortunately, never scandalized. Captain
Douche," said the genial rector, with a
sly look at that excellent retired officer,
"will of course be in opposition; so I
think we shall form an extremely fit and
impartial audience."

"I suppose," said the captain, knock-
ing the ashes from his pipe, "we may
interrupt sometimes. These young fellows
seem to think they can set all the world
to rights without consulting their elders.
"Why, damme ! (beg pardon), I for one
am against Cremation. Why, sir, Nelson
was buried in a vault, so's the great

78 ASHES TO ASHES.

Duke; and a vault's good enough for
me."

"You can be Cremated first and buried
afterwards," said Le Normand carelessly,
strolling up with Miss Ellen.

" Oh, you must not Cremate the captain,"
oried she, laughing; "it would break his
heart."

"Boast his heart, I should say," growled
the opposition.

" Come, Ellen," broke in the rector, " we
have got a formidable subject to deal with
to-night. Ring the bell for tea."

Soon after tea Miss Molesworth made her
appearance. She was the very model of
what a middle-aged young lady ought to
be — always sweet and cheerful and ready
to fall into everything that happened to be

BY FIRE. 79

going on. She was an acquisition to every
company: she knew how to make herself
liked by every one. In the parish she
was indispensable, with quite a genius for
organizing; and yet none felt that they
were being meddled with, or domineered
over, by her. She ruled, it is true, but by
a silent gift of ruling — a kind of natural
right; and no one complained, because
every one felt the better for her rule. And
there were even rumours that she ruled the
rector, too, and would be likely to rule him
more ; in short, people said that she would
ere long be installed in the Eectory as per-
manent home-ruler, — of all which rumours
Miss Molesworth appeared to be profoundly
unconscious.

"My dear child," she said, coming in
suddenly and embracing Ellen like a mother,

8o ASHES TO ASHES.

"I'm so tired. I've been standing up at
that cutting-out and dressmaking club all
the afternoon ; but do give me a cup of tea,
and I shall be all right. Your father looked
in at my little cottage, and left word that
your friend, Mr. Le Normand, was going to
read something about Cremation. Dear me,
there he is. So we are all to be burnt, are
we, Mr. Le Normand ? Well, I suppose we
shall get accustomed to it like the eels.
I really do not think it much matters, my
dear, turning to Ellen, what becomes of
me when I'm dead ; but I shall be so in-
terested to hear what Mr. Le Normand says
— he has the gift of making one understand
everything"

Le Normand bowed, and, taking his seat
at a little table where he could command a
full view of Ellen as she sat on her low

BY FIRE. 8 1

stool by the window, lie laid his scattered
notes before him, and began as follows : —

" CEEMATION.

" As I have not had time fully to write
out my essay, you must allow me to put my
notes together after the manner of an in-
formal address, as I go on.

" You would hardly imagine the number
of different ways that man's ingenuity has
devised for the disposal of the dead.

"The Jews adopted simple entombment,
or inhumation, although Cremation was
occasionally adopted to do honour to their
kings (Jeremiah xxxiv. 5). 17 The Greeks
and Eomans burned; the Egyptians em-
balmed; the Parsees expose their dead
upon the tops of lofty pillars, called the

G

8z ASHES TO ASHES.

Towers of Silence, where they axe visited
by the fowls of the air ; the Kaffirs convey
their dead to some lone spot in the bush,
where wolves and jackals do 'the rest;
the Pans bury them first, and afterwards
dig them up and eat them; other savage
tribes place them standing or sitting in
vast caves; the Hindoos burn. Modern
science has suggested a quick solution of
quicklime and caustic potash. A Floren-
tine professor lately exhibited a process of
petrifaction. A lamentable attempt to petrify
tlie body of the illustrious Mazzini ended
recently in utter failure, and, after many
months, the corpse had to be committed to
the earth. Other petrifying experiments
have been more successful, but the best
exhibit nothing but a hideous and waxen-
looking parody of life. 18 The sentence is

BY FIRE. 83

inexorable. It is ordained that you shall
not stay the fleeting grace of life when
once the hour has struck; it must pass
beyond recall. Burial in the ocean has had
its advocates."

" I have seen many such," remarked the
captain approvingly; "and, providing I
were quite dead, I for one should not object
to be food for fishes."

"But only remember," interposed Miss
Molesworth, "who the fishes are food
for."

" Nature's laboratory, my dear Miss
Molesworth," said the rector philosophi-
cally: "we must not inquire too closely
into the various steps of resolution and
reconstruction."

" I am sure," said Ellen, seizing instinct-
ively the poetical side, "nothing can be

84 ASHES TO ASHES.

more solemn and beautiful than Turner's
Burial of Wilkie at sea."

" Live burial at sea is not so pleasant
though," remarked the captain, falling
back on his recollections. "Man over-
board — and sharks ! or even ladies bathing
in the tropics have been attacked, Miss
Morant."

"I have heard," I added, "of river
burial of the same sort. Children on the
Nile are occasionally snapped up by croco-
diles; and inside these beasts are not
unfrequently found their indigestible play-
things, or even women's ornaments; — but
go on, Le Normand."

"I next come to burial in the earth, or
inhumation. When the world was thinly
populated, and there was plenty of earth for

BY FIRE. 85

each person, there was nothing to be said on
the score of public health against inhuma-
tion. To this day the Jews, who fold
the body in a cloth and oppose the fewest
obstacles to its speedy decay, are wiser than
the Christians who encase mortal remains in
wooden and even leaden and iron boxes;
for the longer you withhold from Mother
Earth her own dead children, the worse it
will be for her living ones.

" On the many evils of burial as it
habitually takes place in our midst I shall
not now descant ; I shall take them as
proved." (The rector here nodded assent.)
" I can assure you that so great are those
evils, so impossible is it to prevent abuses
of all kinds, so increasingly difficult is it
to find appropriate sites for cemeteries, so
inexpedient is it to seclude and render un-

86 ASHES TO ASHES.

productive large spaces of land for long
spaces of time, that the abolition of burial
in fte recognised sense is only a question
of time, and Cremation will soon become,
nay, has become, the question of the
day.

" It is the fortune of England to be often
before the world in suggestion : it is her fate
to be behind it in practice. Since the
appearance of the pamphlet of your great
surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson, Cremation
has been discussed with renewed ardour
in Prance, in Italy, in Austria, Prussia, in
Switzerland, and in America ; and what we
are disputing about, they across the Channel
have adopted. This has been the work of
those governments who not only aid but
actively direct the formation of public
opinion."

BY FIRE. 87

"You are a terrible Bismarck," said the
rector.

" In matters of the public health — yes :
I would not leave that to companies, to
local boards, or still worse, to what you
call your private enterprise."

"But is Cremation an accomplished
fact?"

" It is. The Presse of Dresden records
that on the third day of Pentecost, 1874,
the first body was burned at the Establish-
ment for the Incineration of the Dead, Eue
de Tharand.

" In Austria, February, 1874, the com-
munal council of Yienna adopted unani-
mously the following proposal : — c Eeferring
to the buildings which it will be necessary
to raise in the new Central Cemetery, the
superior administration will take immediate

88 ASHES TO ASHES.

steps to introduce Cremation with as little
delay as possible.' 19

" America is following in the same track ;
bnt strange to say, for the moment, both
London and Paris hang back. It is a curious
spectacle; the most revolutionary and the
most conservative nations in Europe pause
nervously before opening the door : the good
Angel of Fire is still kept waiting without.

"But already the public mind is being
won by the logic of facts — the logic, nay, the
poetry of facts, so much more beautiful, so
much more pure, than the poetry of
fiction.

" Nature lends you an earth-envelope for
a little while; you pay her interest for it;
but you must not try and retain her capital,
and render it unproductive, by arresting the
decay of matter, as the Egyptians have done

BY FIRE. 89

for three thousand years; and with what
results ? — to be pillaged by Arabs, trampled
on by travellers, and gaped at through glass
cases in all the museums of Europe !

"No, put it what way you will, life is a
flame, and what of the body has been left
unconsumed by human life is still owed to
life of some kind. This body is a mere
wick ; at one time your life is the flame, at
another the life, of animals and vegetables ;
and when this bodily structure has become
unfit for your own use, you have no right to
withhold it from others. You must burn :
the water will burn you, the earth will burn
you, the air will burn you, and the fire will
burn you; you must, sooner or later, give
your body to be burned for the life of the
world. Nature calls. 'When,' says Sir
Henry Thompson eloquently — 6 when shall I

9 o ASHES TO ASHES.

follow? "With quick obedience or unwil-
lingly, truant-like, traitor-like, to her and
her grand design?' He has put the question
in a nutshell, when he states his problem thus
in its simplest terms : — ' Given a dead body,
to resolve it into carbonic acid, water and
ammonia, and the mineral elements, rapidly,
safely, and not unpleasantly.' I see you d.o
not think the problem so simple."

Le Nbrmand paused for a moment as
though to elicit a reply.

"Is it not difficult," said Miss Moles-
worth, "suddenly to regard a form which
we have associated for years with love — a
face, every expression of which has been
connected with intelligence and affection —
as simply an inert mass to be reduced as
speedily as possible into gases and minerals ?

BY FIRE. 91

We know that this will be the action of
time. We commit the body to Mother
Earth, there to be dealt with by silent and
tmseen processes, but we do not like to lift
our own hand actively to mar the beloved
features ; it is even natural to delay that
process as long as possible."

" You delay no process which saves even
the appearance ; you merely cheat the earth,
and poison the living, when you entomb the
dead. Can any of us bear, even in imagina-
tion, to raise the coffin-lid after a very short
time? Nay, the last appearance of the
beloved often lingers in the memory as a
hideously passionless parody of the breath-
ing rosy life that we love to remember.
Wherever your beloved are, they are not
there; they would shrink to be associated
with that decaying envelope, now grown so

92 ASHES TO ASHES.

loathsome, which, has indeed ceased to belong
to them.

" But you say we must not lay our hands
upon the dead, — you might as well say we
must not lay our hands upon the living.

"Are, then, the processes of Nature so
sacred that they are never to be regulated
or withstood ? When I see a living body
growing corrupt with fever or catarrh, I
interfere with the natural process of decay.
I stop Nature, or I hasten the process by
which she seeks to expel disease. And
when I see a corpse on the point of decay
am I not to step in to hasten its dissolution
and thus render it innocuous ? That at least
is better than encasing the body in lead
or even wood, and thus rendering decay
perilously slow and unspeakably loathsome.
Yet this is called leaving the dead to

BY FIRE. 93

Nature. I call it standing between Nature
and lier dead.

" If the dead still hovered sympathetically
earth-bound about their former tenements,
think which would they rather contemplate ?
—the horrible mass for which, as Bbssuet
says, there < has been found no name in any
human language/ or the pure white ash in
the memorial urn of porphyry or alabaster?"

" I think," said the rector, " Miss Moles-
worth will find it difficult to answer you;
but still the feeling which forbids us
actively to destroy the bodies of those
whom we love, belongs to a class of
associations which, in many minds, will
carry weight against your very excellent
arguments."

"But an opinion based upon feeling,
upon custom, upon prejudice ! " replied

94 ASHES TO ASHES.

Le Normand warmly. " A feeling without
facts is no more respectable than a forged
note, and it will fare in the long run no
better; it may impose upon many, but in
the end it will be dishonoured. See," con-
tinued the young speaker, who, in his
excitement, had risen, and now stood
grasping with one hand the back of an
old Spanish chair, "we must bow to
Nature : we are her children ; her decrees
are inexorable; when we obey them we
prosper, when we thwart them we suffer.
But we can hasten her beneficent work.
Medical art assists Nature, and you ap-
plaud; surgical art hastens or anticipates
her salutary processes,, and saves pain or
disease, and postpones death, and you
applaud; the chemist, who hastens the
impaired digestion, who expels poison from

BY FIRE. 95

the system with which the forces of life
are struggling, the operator, who cuts
away in a moment what Nature would but
slowly reject by putrefaction, you applaud.
Their efforts, you say, are lawful and good;
but when science steps in to render in-
nocuous a process loathsome at all times
and often dangerous, — when, for the slow
action of air and water and earth upon a
decaying body, we propose to substitute the
rapid and absolutely inoffensive action of
fire, — when we interpose after repeated
warnings and awful experiences, summoned
alike by the importunate cries of civilization
and science — to desecrate? no, but to save
the living from the dead, — we are repulsed,
we are met by sentimental objections, we
are even called monsters without religion,
without reverence for the dead! But too

96 ASHES TO ASHES.

long, too long, has the fair earth been made
a reeking charnel-house; too long has preju-
dice ridden the broken-down horse of senti-
ment, and love for the dead brought death
to the living. The fires are kindled, and
the purification has already begun."

Le Normand's eyes, fiery with enthusiasm,
had insensibly met those of Miss Morant,
whose whole face, glowing with the orange
light of the evening sky, was upturned
towards Mm with an expression of uncon-
scious but almost passionate admiration.
As he paused her eyes fell, and I could
notice that her long eyelashes glistened
with something like tears, which made her
look strangely lovely in the deepening twi-
light.

" Oh," she said, " how pure, how beauti-

BY FIRE. 97

ftd ! All that is mere earthly about us to
be taken and purified by fire, instead of
being left to the mouldering corruption of
the grave ! " and as the first little chill
wind blew in across the dewy fields, she
shuddered as with the cold breath of
death. "No more long terrible months,
with wind and snow and rain above, and
the lonely dark prison-house of decay be-
neath; nothing but fair golden fire for
half-an-hour, and a delicate white ash — at
once a symbol of earth-life, and heavenly
purity ! »

"You anticipate my thoughts, Miss
Morant," said Le Normand, gazing at Ha
youthful enthusiast with undisguised ad-
miration. " You are indeed well qualified
to continue the lecture."

"Oh, please forgive me; I was hardly

H

98 ASHES TO ASHES.

thinking of the silly things I was saying.
I cannot bear to interrupt you."

" We should like to hear how all this is
to be done," said the captain, who had been

9

tolerably unimpressed with the rather French
flights of eloquence by which Le Nor-
mand had a tendency to be carried away.
" Facta non verba. I believe that's good
Latin " (the captain's Latin did not go very
far) ; "at all events, it's good sense."

" I agree with my friend so far, that we
should be glad to get some idea of the
actual process."

20 " I can give you a general 'idea of the
process advocated by Sir Henry Thompson.
He used one of Siemens's furnaces, consist-
ing of a generator, in which thfe coal or
wood generating the gas mixes in certain
proportions with the air; a regenerator.

BY FIRE. 99

or square chamber intersected with per-
forated brick walls, which receives the gas
at a high temperature, and becomes quickly
heated through ; a calef actor, or actual com-
bustion-room. This chamber is flooded with
gas and air at a temperature of 700° Fahr.
It contains a cylindrical vessel, about 7 ft,
long by 5 ft. or 6 ft. in diameter; into
that vessel is slid the body : the whole is
at white heat. The gases of combustion
rush off, but are not allowed to taint the
air ; they are caught and carried over
cunningly disposed surfaces of heated brick ;
tfcus they are winnowed and winnowed
among thousands of fire-bricks. The oxid-
ization is soon complete. Not a particle of
smoke at length issues from the Siemens
chimney: nothing but a little perfectly
harmless gas reaches the outer air.

ioo ASHES TO ASHES.

u Throughout, nothing repulsive or in the*
least degree unpleasant has been smelt or
seen: simply the body, conveyed to the
hidden furnace or crematory, has been
placed in its shroud — or, if you will, even
in its coffin — at the mouth of what seems
to be a small cave at the entrance of a
Gothic edifice; the door has been closed;,
and, whilst the mourners enter the funeral
chapel to hear the usual service read, tha
body glides into the crematory by the-
simplest machinery, and is returned, in the
words of your English Burial-service, "dust
to dust, ashes to ashes," — words culled, i^
well may be, from the old Greek or Eoman
Cremation ritual, misapplied for centuries to-
Christian burial, but which ere long will
find their place in a new and a better
Cremation ritual." 21

12Y FIRE. 101

" But," interposed the rector, " our usage
is to bring the body into the chapel."

"Bring it in, then, deposit it on a bier,
shroud the bier with a close canopy and
pall. The canopy and pall will remain, but
the body will have sunk silently and unseen
into the crematory below. Let your ser-
vice but last fifty minutes : at the close, let
the mourners remove the pall ; they will
find, not the corpse, but lifted into the
place of the corpse will be literally the
ashes of the dead, which may then be
deposited in any urn brought for the pur-
pose, and conveyed by the procession to
the niche or vault destined to be their last
unsullied resting-place.

" Under no conceivable circumstances should
the body be seen or touched after being placed
upon the bier in the mortilary chapel. The

io2 ASHES TO ASHES.

simplest mechanical contrivance should suffice
to transfer it silently to tfie crematory , and to
restore in place of the lifeless tissue^ already a
prey to decomposition^ the Jiarmless elementary
white ash.

"Those who have family vaults in
churches should brick up with cement that
part of the vault already occupied by
mouldering ancestral coffins, admit plenti-
ful light and air, and adapt the remaining
space for the innocuous funeral urn, contain-
ing from three to six pounds weight of
ashes.

"Then, once more, our chapels and
churches might be extensively used for the
dead. Instead of hideous tablets and effi-
gies, instead of bare walls, our architects
would provide rows of sculptured niches,
giving rise to quite a new feature in church

BY FIRE. 103

architecture. Each niche would contain an
exquisitely carved urn of some costly ma-
terial. The rows of niches would be
allotted to different grades of society, and
the fee would vary according to the position
of the niche. Thus," said Le Normand,
turning to the rector, "Cremation would
inunediately bring in an increased revenne
to the clergy, whose intramural interments
in so many vaults and churchyards have
been stopped."

"You have left the Cremation-cemetery
too soon," said Miss Moles worth. "We
should like to know how those are to fare
who have neither family vaults, private
chapels at family seats, or niches in
churches. There are the vast poor popula-
tions, and many of the richer classes who

104 ASHES TO ASHES.

would require cemetery accommodation.
This would still make large demands upon
space."

"I will reply to your question. Our
Cremation-cemetery would contain an orna-
mentally designed furnace, called the cre-
matory, which need have no conspicuous
chimney, as no foul vapour would ever issue
from it. Not far off would be situated
the chapel. But there is another far more
conspicuous object. It is a pyramid. It is
built of masses of brickwork, each brick of
which is a Cremation coffin."

" "Why," asked Miss Morant, " is it to be
a pyramid?"

" Because a pyramid is the one indestruc-
tible form of architecture. Every crumb-
ling of a pyramid is along the line of its
elevation. You will see this if you knock

BY FIRE. 105

over a loose pile of stones; they fall at
once into tlie pyramid shape. You might
case your pyramid with cement or granite.
The Egyptian pyramids would have all
been perfect still, had it not been for man's
ravages.

"We therefore construct a solid pyramid,
oach block or stone of which is to contain
the ashes of one person. This quadrilateral
pyramid — fifty feet high, with a base
covering an area of 9,801 square feet, i.e.,
99 feet square, would have a solid content
of 166,650 cubic feet, and allowing an
average of one cubic foot for each person,
whether infant or adult, one pyramid would
then contain the ashes of 166,650 persons ;
erect only two such pyramids and you will

m

accommodate 333,300 persons.

" But, I have not nearly done yet. My

106 ASHES TO ASHES.

cemetery occupies, let us say, twenty acres ;
of these four are covered by the two pyra-
mids, by the crematory, by offices, and by
mortuary chapels. "We may also deduct one
for pathways. "We then have left fifteen
acres for a third mode of sepulture — the
burial of the ashes.

" If we bury these twenty feet deep in
layers (a not unheard of depth in ceme-
teries), we shall then have thirteen million
sixty-eight thousand cubic feet of space
(13,068,000), — and giving an average of
a cubic foot to each person, infant and
adult, we shall bury 13,068,000 persons
in the earth.

" But now let us run cloisters round the
outside of our twenty acres. Let the
cloister walls be ten feet high. The outer
wall is fitted with niches for funeral urns

BY FIRE. 107

on one side only, — but the inner wall might
be fitted on both sides. Obviously, the
length of wall would depend upon the sur-
face of the cemetery-ground and the general
shape of the cemetery ; but on a very mode-
rate reckoning, allowing two square feet fdr
each urn and niche, you would have ac-
commodation for 50,000 exposed urns. It
is quite obvious that I have not exhausted
the resources of our Cremation-cemetery,
for the mortuary-chapels themselves, with
their vaults, might be utilized to the extent,
say of 5,000 more, and cloister walls multi-
plied indefinitely over the ground. But
leaving out this last indefinite item, we
have now in our cemetery of twenty acres,
with its double cloister wall, room for
13,118,000. Now, supposing that an aver-
age of 80,000 who die annually in London

io8 ASHES 70 ASHES.

wore all buried in this little cemetery it would
suffice for at least one hundred and sixty
years for the whole of London. It is true
that the gigantic Necropolis at "Woking,
measuring 2,000 acres, undertakes to bury
the whole of the dead of London for some
centuries, but a Cremation cemetery of 2,000
acres would accommodate the whole of
London for about 16,000 years !

"You can see at once that these figures
may be handled in a variety of different
ways. I have said enough to show you the
enormous economy of space. I need not
dwell upon the fact that in exchange for
many acres of ground saturated with cor-
ruption, you have a compact plot here and
there devoted to the burial of innumerable
dead, no inch of which need be the source
of any baleful influence whatever to the

BY FIRE. io?

living, for whether you bury or expose
ashes they are equally inoffensive.

"By the time the Cremation cemetery
was full, it would be valuable as an open
space for the people, — situated probably by
that time in a more or less densely popu-
lated neighbourhood."

" I think," said Miss Morant, " I should
like to be buried near the surface ; say in

the last layer, close to the grass and
flowers."

"Yes, and that reminds me of a beau-
tiful suggestion, made, I think, by a
Sicilian poet, that along with the ashes of
some beloved one should be deposited the
seeds of some flower, so that when it sprung
up the Mends and relatives might gather
the blossom as a dear memorial of the life
that lasts beyond the tomb ! "

no ASHES TO ASHES.

"Oh, that is a beautiful idea!" ex-
claimed Ellen ; " wo could sow the flowers
again and again from their own seeds, and
we should then have, as it were, a new
token of the departed every year."

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Moles worth, "to
gather fresh flowers sprung from the pure
ashes of the dead would be so much more
lovely than to lay bright flower-wreaths to
wither above their mouldering corpses. There
is nothing more depressing, in its way, than
to see beautiful flowers lying, in various
stages of decomposition, upon fresh graves.
We are forced then to think of death and
corruption, instead of life and immortality."

" I must not engage your attention much
longer this evening," rejoined Le Normand,
in his calmest accents ; " but I will ask you

BY FIRE. 1 1 1

now to observe the variety of ways in
which Cremation sepulture may be carried
out, each method equally inoffensive, and
more or less economical, appropriate, orna-
mental, often impressive and touching.

. " L Ashes bricked up, marked by tablets
in pyramid or church, or in long covered
arcades carried right round and across the
Campo Santo.

" II. Ashes contained in urn, in pyramid,
or church-niche or covered arcade.

" III. Ashes entombed in parish vaults:
" IV. Private vaults at family seats.
" V. Mortuary-rooms in houses/
"VI. Earth burial, without urn or
coffin, in layers; the topmost layers being
retained for flower-burial, with or without
urn.

" VII. Borrowing from the great Eoman

ii2 ASHES TO ASHES.

highways, many a solitary road might
stretch beyond our great cities, lined with
graceful mausoleums.

" VIII. Miles of soft chalk cliff might be
quarried for catacombs.

" IX. Thousands of useless and deserted
gravel, clay, or sand pits, and worked-out
mines throughout the land, might be
utilised as urn-cemeteries.

" These are only a few of the practical
hints that might be given."

" It is too late now," said the rector, " to
enter upon quite another branch of the sub-
ject. You have had it all your own way,
and we are much obliged to you for the
information you have given us, which I
think has interested every one of us ; but I
propose that we should all meet here to-

BY FIRE. 1 1 3

morrow night, on which occasion a list of
objections shall be handed to you, and you
shall be bound — without being personal to
any one, for they will be in writing and
with no names affixed — then and there to
reply to them."

" I agree, on condition that I be not
obliged to go over ground already traversed,
or notice at length objections which I have
already answered to the best of my ability."

"We won't be too hard on you," said
the rector, smiling.

As we rose, there was a general move
into the garden. The moon had risen, and
shed a soft splendour over the lawn and
colourless flower-beds ; beyond, the silence
was broken by the low wail of the nightin-

i

ii 4 A SIZES TO ASHES.

gales in the little copse below. The rector
paced slowly up and down with the captain.
Miss Molesworth had already hurried away
home. I turned naturally to seek for some
companion. Against the dim bushes across
the lawn, I thought I saw the gleam of
Ellen's white dress. Presently even that
vanished. Le Normand I could not see.
I was not indiscreet enough to seek any
further, but I had my own ideas. Pre-
sently the rector's voice was heard calling
" Ellen!" and Ellen soon appeared, bring-
ing a shining glow-worm in her hand ; but
she was alone. As I passed her, however,
I came upon Le Normand. He seized my
arm in a hurried and excited manner. I
felt his hand tremble.

"What is the matter?" I asked, with
affected surprise.

BY FIRE. us

"I have fever in my head, my Mend:
the air suffocates me; these nightingales
oppress me. What faint, heavy perfumes
rise from these flower-beds ! I shall re-
member them to my dying day."

"You are excited," I said; "you have
talked too much."

We walked home in silence.

I

V.

TWO ROSES.

E met, the rector and Ellen, in the
lane next evening. Had I not read
between the lines, I should have been sur-
prised to find Ellen so cordial with me and
so constrained with Le Normand ; but then
she cared for Le Normand, and she did not
care for me. Certainly a change had come
over this young girl. She had lost some of
her natural frankness, and a little of her old
easy, graceful, laughing manner ; but then,
as I hinted above, she was in love, — that
was plain to me ; and her slight embarrass-

TWO £OS£S. 117

ments and sudden blushes were not one
whit less wiping in my Mend's eyes than
her simple cordiality to every one had been
before ; but then Le Normand was also in
love.

I might have found Miss Ellen more in-
teresting personally to me before ; but then
she was not in love with me. Not that I
was jealous — far from it ; at least I am not
aware that I was. Perhaps I might have
had a slight feeling of what a middle-aged
spinster experiences when called upon by
some blooming girl to play what I believe
is vulgarly called " gooseberry," in the in-
terest of some young lover, who looks upon
her, by way of return, as a necessary
nuisance. I do not wish to be bitter — far
from it ; indeed, the case suggested is not
really a parallel. I was not an old bachelor ;

us ASHES TO ASHES.

and I am certain Miss Ellen did not detest
me, — she did not think enough about me for
that ; and I declare I was never in the way.
I can't bear getting in the way of young
people under circumstances which it is
needless to specify.

Then I was not in love with Miss
Morant ; at least, not exactly in love — not
at all in love; a little smitten, perhaps.
Anyone is apt to be a little smitten when
a beautiful girl puts her hand in yours, and
says, with all sorts of looks—

" You will come and have tea with us to-
night, won't you? and — and Mr. Le Nbr-
mand will com,e too, won't he ?"

"Oh yes, of course, — I should rather
think he would; at least, I'll try and
induce him."

" Oh, don't press him to come."

TWO JZOSES. 119

"He won't want pressing,— at least, not by
me; but perhaps I shall not be able to
come myself."

"Oh, tfocome!"

Well, what had I to complain of?
Nothing; only, as I said before, Miss
Morant was not in love with me. A girl
can't be in love with two men at the same
time ; at least, she ought not to be. Cer-
tainly, I was not bad-looking ; I was young
— older than Le Normand, but young; I
was thought clever ; and, I repeat emphati-
cally, I was not in love with Miss Morant :
so there the matter rested — exactly.

So we met the rector and Ellen in the

lane. After greeting us, Ellen turned to

gather a wild rose. I might have helped

»

her, but I did not choose to be quick

120 ASHES TO ASHES.

enough. I said before, I hate getting in
people's way.

Le Normand was there, and he gathered
the rose for her; he gathered two roses
and gave them to her. How was I to
know what was going on ? I was talking
to the rector, with my back to both of them.
I did know though ; she gave him back
one flower; his hand touched hers. Well,
I happened to turn just then; they were
looking at each other, — how absurd ! I
don't think they said anything at all; it
was all over in a minute. There was abso-
lutely nothing to remark upon, and yet I
went over the silly little episode again and
again. It seemed to worry me. " She
tried to gather a wild rose — he helped her
— he gave her two roses ; she gave him one
back; he touched her hand; they looked

TWO XOSZS. 121

at each other." Pshaw, what a fool I was !
What did it concern me ?

We all walked up the hill together, the
rector dilating eloquently on the several ob-
jections which were to be made to Crema-
tion, and Le Normand not hearing one word
of it all. I was there. Those two were
behind again. Ellen had got a stone in her
shoe, or something. I don't know what
happened then ; I believe she sat down on
a stile. The rector walked on, absorbed in
his conversation with — I believe it was me.

120 ASHES TO ASHES.

enough. I said before, I hate getting in
people's way.

Le Normand was there, and he gathered
the rose for her; he gathered two roses
and gave them to her. How was I to
know what was going on ? I was talking
to the rector, with my back to both of them.
I did know though ; she gave him back
one flower; his hand touched hers. Well,
I happened to turn just then; they were
looking at each other, — how absurd ! I
don't think they said anything at all; it
was all over in a minute. There was abso-
lutely nothing to remark upon, and yet I
went over the silly little episode again and
again. It seemed to worry me. " She
tried to gather a wild rose— he helped her
— he gave her two roses ; she gave him one
back; he touched her hand; they looked

TWO XOSZS. 121

at each other." Pshaw, what a fool I was !
What did it concern me ?

We all walked up the hill together, the
rector dilating eloquently on the several ob-
jections which were to be made to Crema-
tion, and Le Normand not hearing one word
of it all. I was there. Those two were
behind again. Ellen had got a stone in her
shoe, or something. I don't know what
happened then ; I believe she sat down on
a stile. The rector walked on, absorbed in
his conversation with — I believe it was me.

FL

ANSWERED.

S we sat after tea that evening wait-
ing for Le Normand to begin the
discussion of certain objections that had
been handed to him on different slips of
paper, I fancied I did not notice the
same interest and ardour in his face as he
turned over the papers. There was even
a slight look of ennui and impatience as
lie resumed —

" First, the sentimental objection is again
urged. I must really be pardoned for say-
ing no more upon that head." Indeed, he

ANSWERED. 123

had spoken strongly enough, even fiercely,
against it on the previous evening.

" It does not weigh with me. It is not
true to really deep feeling, founded on facts,
this talk about destroying beloved linea-
ments and desecrating the sanctities of
death; it is only sentiment, pardonable it
may be, natural apparently to some minds,
but shallow and inconclusive.

" Secondly, that Cremation is contrary to
Christian practice. To which I reply,
many Christian practices are no parts of
Christianity, and many distinctly Greek and
Eoman, %.e n heathen practices have been
adopted approvingly by Christians. Tou
teach boys from the classics; you teach
artists from the models of Greek art ; much
of your philosophy is heathen, more of your
jurisprudence. When the Greeks or Eomans

124 ASHES TO ASHES.

knew better than you know, you do as they
did without compunction. They were wiser
than you in practising Cremation; confess
it, and imitate them. The only reason the
Christians buried was, first, because the
Jews buried, and Christianity was originally
nothing but a Jewish sect.

" The Jews buried because they had
inherited the custom from ancient times,
when there was plenty of room in the
world; and being the most conservative of
people, they had never altered. ]

" The only other reason why the
Christians buried, was because it was a
cheaper and quieter rite than Cremation
in those days, with its costly asbestos
shirts and aromatic woods and spices.
They used the Catacombs, and hid away the
beloved dead from a persecuting heathen

ANSWERED. 125

world. Christ, indeed, was entombed; bnt
in this He is no example to ns, for according
to Christian belief He rose from the dead
and saw no corruption. But for me this
question of Christian practice is soon settled.
Postulo. — Burning is better than burial in
the old sense : that is my premiss.

"The heathens burned; the Christians
bury. Conclusion: — Either heathenism is
in this respect wiser than Christianity, or
burial forms no essential part of Chris-
tianity, but remains strictly a question of
circumstance and expediency.

" Thirdly, that Cremation interferes with
the doctrine of the Eesurrection, or tends
to loosen its hold over men's minds. Then
what becomes of the holy army of martyrs,
or many worthy people who have been
reduced to ashes by great public conflagra-

126 ASHES TO ASHES.

tions, such as the burning of Kome under
Nero? No sane persons believe that we
shall rise with the old framework of bone
and the particles of flesh which have been
dispersed by death through & thousand new
forms of organic life. Those who plead for
the survival of our individual selves after
the shock of death, simply mean that
life, instead of being the mere product of
force and matter in certain combinations,
is the subtle thing which builds itself a
mortal tabernacle by the aid of force and
matter, and can survive again and again the
shock which destroys that special envelope
called the human body, using new elements
for self-expression adapted to the altered
conditions of another life. This is the
utmost that the advocates of Eesurrection
must now be permitted to claim, and our

ANSWERED. , 127

German physiologists have denied them
even that.

"But even if the old literal Eesurrection
doctrine be held, Cremation cannot affect
it. For any power capable of recalling and
arranging the atoms of a body consumed in
one hundred years by earth, air, and water,
could equally collect and re-arrange the
atoms which, in one brief half-hour, have
been dispersed by fire.

" Fourthly, that the exhalations from
Cremation are unwholesome. Hindoo Cre-
mation and the old heathen funeral pyres
doubtless were; but not the modern cre-
matory, as I have described it.

" Fifthly, it is argued that future palaeon-
tologists would have no skulls to examine,
if we burned all our bones. The objection
is farcical. But in fact, however prevalent

i28 ASHES TO ASHES,

Cremation may become, some people are
certain to be buried still in all ages and
countries; and secondly, in all civilized
museums skulls and skeletons of each age
are certain to be preserved as anatomical
specimens. Besides," lie added, with the
contemptuous laugh of a man who felt that
to argue the point was wasting time, " pos-
terity has given me no bones; why should
.1 give my bones to posterity ?

"A sixth objection is that Cremation
would be impracticable in thinly populated
country places: furnaces enough would be
too expensive, — would either have to be kept
burning, or constantly relit for an inade-
quate supply of bodies ; on the other hand,
reduce the number of furnaces, and you
would enormously increase the distances
which the dead would have to travel.

ANSWERED. 129

However just may be such objections, they
still leave the question of crematories for all
the large towns untouched. I may say here
that I am confident this rural difficulty can
be met, although such a question of detail
would be too tedious to discuss at present.

"Seventhly, some worthy people dislike
the notion ef fire, as too suggestive of the
fire that 6 should never be quenched.' In
short, they seem to look upon Cremation as .
a kind of symbolical anticipation of the final
doom assigned by popular theology to im-
penitent sinners. But, surely, if Crema-
tion suggests the fires of hell or purgatory,
burial serves to remind us still more of
' the worm that never dieth.' But why not
think of the fire of love instead of hell fire ?
If it comes to association, choose the most
agreeable, since you are free to choose.

*

1 3 o ASHES TO ASHES.

But such fancies axe too childish : as is also
that other fancy, that somewhere in the
brain is the subtle germ of the after-life;
burn that, and you destroy the soul. Alas !
then, for shipwrecked mariners devoured by
fishes, and, as I said before, for martyrs
consumed by flames, and thousands of other
good and innocent victims of fire,

" Again, it is objected that Cremation is
no better than burial as a guard against
desecration, for in time the ashes of the
dead after Cremation may be scattered, as
well as bones after burial. Granted; but
if so, how infinitely less shocking is the
sight of a few ashes than the exposure of
bones and skulls, which are the very frame-
work of the human body, recalling its shape
and fashion, and which are ever felt to be
intensely personal. I, for one, could view

ANSWERED. 131

without disgust a few white ashes cast by
some mishap abroad in the fields;, whilst
the sight of a skull or a thigh-bone, or a
skeleton hand and wrist lying on a road or
meadow, could never fail to shock the most
insensitive. Cremation thus places the
human form for ever beyond the reach of
that species of desecration, to which the
chances of burial must ever expose it.

" I have now left three rather more
weighty objections — the Costliness, the
inducement to Poison, and the Legality.
I will say a few words on each.

"First, the costliness. This is also a
question of detail; but let me say that
although Cremation would be cheaper, it
is not on the ground of cheapness that it is
admirable. From the highest to the lowest,
the one thing which people, as a rule, are

i 3 2 ASHES TO ASHES.

willing to spend money on is a funeral.
I need not fatigue you with many calcula-
tions which have already been made ; I will
only state enough to prove to you that Cre-
mation is not the costly affair that some
persons have supposed.

"The original i plant' of a Cremation-
cemetery would of course be large, — the
erection of furnaces expensive ; but the
present original outlay of cemeteries is very
large, and in any case there would be the
expenses of transit and the cost of vault,
niche, or grave.

22 "As to the actual cost of the process
itself, Professor Gorini states that it would
cost from two to three pounds to cremate a
single body; but, once lighted, several
bodies might be cremated in their separate
cells simultaneously. Ten bodies would

ANSWERED. 133

reduce the price of Cremation to between
five and six shillings apiece. The con-
sumption of fuel would no doubt be con-
siderable; but as we do not grudge its
incessant expenditure — I had almost said
its scandalous waste — for the transit of
citizens by land and sea, and the produc-
tion of wealth in all our manufacturing
cities, so neither ought we to object when
it is proposed by Cremation to invest
fuel in the health and safety of the com-
munity.

"Leaving to experts more abstruse cal-
culations, I notice another objection. It is
thought that by destroying the evidence of
crime in the intestines you would increase
poisoning.

" Let us have the courage of our opinions
and say at once that, for so grand a benefit

134 ASHES TO ASHES,

to mankind, a few more cases of poisoning
would be a small price to pay.

"The objection, though not futile, is
positively inadequate. Who thinks of
stopping fairs, races, and public holidays,
because theft, debt, and drunkenness are
increased thereby? who would make it
illegal to wear purses for feax of increasing
the number and skill of pickpockets, or to
sell razors for fear of promoting suicides?
But still the poisoning objection has seemed
important enough to induce Sir Henry
Thompson to suggest that the materials for
a post mortem should be retained in each
case."

"I hardly like to interrupt you," said
Miss Molesworth, in her very decided but
quiet manner, " but I do not think that you
medical gentlemen estimate the opposition,

ANSWERED. 135

I might say disgust, which such a proposal
is certain to meet with from the general
public, even the objections to a reasonable
post mortem are in many cases absolutely
insurmountable; but as regards the syste-
matic treatment which you mention as a
precaution against poison, the advocates of
Cremation had better keep it quite in the

background, — the remedy would be thought
worse than the disease."

23 " A more subtle remedy has been sug-
gested by Dr. Persifor Fraser. He proposes
that in each case of Cremation, or at all
events in every case of sudden or otherwise
suspicious death, the incandescent gaseous
products should be examined by a govern-
ment spectroscopist appointed for the pur-
pose."

"That," said the rector, "would indeed

!

/

136 ASHES TO ASHES.

be a new and brilliant triumph for science ;
but somehow it has not the ring of pro-
bability about it."

"Then I have done my best with the
poison argument."

"I think," I said, "you had better fall
back on your first bold sentiment, with
which I heartily agree. In the great pro-
gress of social and sanitary reform I cannot
conceive what it signifies whether or not an
additional Smith or Jones gets poisoned here
and there."

"In short," said the rector, " you would
have him swallow his hemlock-cup quietly,
and leave others to sacrifice cocks to
iEsculapius ? "

" I would," said Le Normand, evidently
taking less and less interest in the discus-
sion. "One only question remains — Is Ore-

ANSWERED. 137

mation legal ? The opinions of your highest
authorities have been taken upon this sub-
ject, and they all agree that, providing it be
accomplished without creating a nuisance,
violating decency, or injuring the health
of the community, there are no legal objec-
tions to Cremation."

The yawning by this time had become
pretty general: even Miss Morant showed
signs of ennui. Le Normand was evidently
preoccupied, he was not up to his usual
mark, but his statements to-night seemed
more in accordance with the captain's
taste; there were, in short, no flights of
eloquence.

" I don't agree with any of your answers,
my friend," he said, with amusing and
innocent bluntness; "but I followed you

138 ASHES TO ASHES.

to-night: I understood what you meant,
you know. I like things plain and smart,
you know, and, as we used to say at school,
c longum et breve hujus est hoc.' "

TSnEL

BY MOONLIGHT.

ND thus matters stood when we
sallied forth into the garden. It
was not nearly so late as the last night, for
the discourse had been more brief. Le
Normand put his arm this time carelessly
within mine. Ellen was trying to find her
glow-worm in a geranium bed where she
had placed it. We naturally joined in the
hunt, but in vain. My friend stooped
down, and said to her in a low voice —

"Might we not find another?" She
did not answer.

1 4 o ASHES TO ASHES.

u Come," he said, decisively, and, to my
surprise, he dragged me in the direction of
the little wood at the end of the lawn.
Ellen was by his side. I felt myself
miserably de trop, but still Le Normand
held me tight. We reached the wood.
Suddenly I felt his grasp loosen. He
whispered in my ear, "Dear boy, do not
go back without me."

I understood my role again. I paused
to mark the noiseless flight of a white owl.
I was alone. They were both lost together
in the deep shadows of the wood; still I
heard their footsteps ; suddenly they stopped.
Glow-worm hunting indeed! How long
they were there I do not know. My owl
did not come back again, and they found no
glow-worms. Ellen's name was not shouted.

BY MOONLIGHT. 1 4 1

Were we not all three absent ? Yes, alas !
but only two were together.

I forget how I passed my time. I
think I can guess how they passed theirs ;
but perhaps that is all my fancy. At
last we all emerged in the most natural
manner into the clear moonlight again.
Ellen's eyes were certainly unusually
bright ; but she did not look at all unhappy.
The captain was sparring loudly with the
rector as usual; but Miss Morant seemed
indisposed to join them. She ran into
the house by the study-window without
saying good night to any one (perhaps
she had said good night to him in the
wood); at any rate we saw her no more
that evening; and it is a very remark-
able thing that, although Le Normand

i 4 2 ASHES TO ASHES.

and I had talked over Miss Morant very
freely at first, neither on that night nor
on the previous one did her name once
pass our lips.

All this of course had an end. It was
about four o'clock on the following after-
noon. I missed my friend ; he had doubt-
less gone out for a stroll by himself.

I went out for a stroll, and, without
knowing why, I strolled towards the
Eectory.

There was a short cut through a field
leading to the little filbert wood at the
bottom of the Eectory garden.

I found myself going mechanically to-
wards that wood. I entered it. The
air was deliciously warm and fragrant. I

BY MOONLIGHT. 143

plucked a bunch of nuts, and sat down
idly on the grass to crack them. Presently
I was aware of footsteps; I was aware of
Ellen's dress through the trees. I have
said I hate being in people's way ; but I
was aware of Le Normand's arm round her
waist; I was aware of one long embrace,
and then I rose hurriedly, and the lovers
started asunder ; and I — I know not why,
but I took to my heels and never stopped
miming until I had reached my lodgings.

When Le Normand came in, I said, " If
you are trifling with that girl, Le Normand,
it is an abominable shame!"

" I have never trifled with her," he said,
flushing up fiercely.

"Do you mean to marry her then?" I
asked, as impressively as I could.

i 4 4 ASHES TO ASHES.

" Certainly, I will if I can."

" Have you asked her father ? "

" If I love a girl, I don't ask her father ;
I ask her first."

"It is contrary to the practice of your
countrymen, who usually ask the parents
before proposing."

" D my countrymen ! "

He certainly used a strong expression ;
but he was growing impatient with my
calmness and apparent indifference.

"My dearest fellow," I said, breaking
through the ice, "if you have proposed
and been accepted, may you be happy:
you have got a rare jewel, and I con-
gratulate you with all my heart."

BY MOONLIGHT. 145

Le Normand was not a man to do things
by half. He was a man of talent, with good
prospects and some means, and had lately
received an excellent appointment at one
of the metropolitan hospitals.

The lady was willing, the rector not
inexorable, and in a few days Le Normand
left the little seaside village, with its ruined
graveyard and its genial Eectory, the happy
and openly accepted lover of Ellen Morant.

VIEWS AND OPINIONS.

WEEK or two after the last-men-
tioned events, Le Normand was
summoned to London. There had been a
recent out-break of low fever in the neigh-
bourhood of the hospital to which he was
attached. The study of fever had always
exercised a peculiar fascination over his
mind. It is of all bodily sicknesses the
one which constantly exhibits the mind in
the most abnormal conditions.

" The psychologists," he would say, u are
for over analyzing the normal and healthy

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 147

processes of mental activity ; but if yon
want to find out about any organ, you
should study it in disease, not in health:
two minutes of eccentric activity will often
reveal more than a lifetime of healthy
action.

" Your metaphysicians are for ever abusing
us for viewing everything physically, and
neglecting what they call mental phenomena.
They may be right; special studies no doubt
generate special habits of mind; but they
forget that every mental operation is accom-
panied by a purely physical movement ; and
all the recent progress that has been made
in the study of mind has been made not by
the analysis of its thought, but rather by
examining the different physical movements
which accompany thought.

" Study the common phenomena of a hasty

148 ashes to ashes.

temper; hear the intemperate language;
scrutinize the motives: you advance not.
one step until you perceive that it means
a tendency to congestion of the blood
vessels of the brain. You can alter that
by attention to diet, and so forth. You
then perceive that the intensity of thought
depends largely upon the flow of blood to
the brain. When that is below par, mental
energy languishes ; when it is above par,
within certain limits, there is an increase
of mental force; beyond that limit eccen-
tricity, incoherence, delirium; but in any
case it is the abnormal state which has
taught you the conditions of healthy action,
and has therefore put you in the right way
to restore and to maintain it.

" There is nothing more exciting in science
than the pathology of disease. Metaphysics

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 149

and physiology must shake hands over
many a corpse before the true science of
mind is reached. Too long has the pro-
duct we call thought been analysed; too
long has its special organ been neglected."

In this way Le Normand would run on,
expounding to me what he called the
physical philosophy of mind, and he asserted
that the fever-bed was pregnant with reve-
lations for mental science which invested
it with an interest at once dramatic and
profound. The outbreak of enteric fever
in Marylebone, in 1873, had specially at-
tracted his attention; but he was so well
satisfied by the persistent ingenuity and
enthusiasm with which the evil demon on
that occasion was tracked to his layer in the
milk-farms, that he took no prominent part

ISO ASHES TO ASHES.

in the discussion, although repeatedly urged
to do so ; for, young as he was, he was be-
ginning to be looked upon as an authority
on such questions.

But Le Normand's devotion to science
was touched with that genuine modesty
which made him never put himself forward
to meddle with what was being well done
by others. Yet he never recoiled from what
he conceived to be the duty of saying im-
portant but unpopular things when no one
else cared to say them. He would, for
instance, denounce in no measured language
the abuses of hospital management, an<J
indicate with remarkable clearness the kind
of reforms most urgently required.

I am glad to note these things now that
I have nothing of him to fall back upon but
the memory of them.

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 151

After his engagement we not unnaturally
prolonged our stay, and were constantly at
the Eectory; and as the lovers had plenty

of time to themselves during the day, our
evenings were still frequently devoted to
discussions of subjects specially interesting
to Le Normand, and, as I think, generally

interesting to the public.

t

It was on these occasions that I noted
how wide and, as it seemed to me, wise
were his views and opinions on all questions
connected with his profession ; and although
upon almost every subject that could be
started he could generally speak more in-
terestingly than most men, yet upon medi-
cal and sanitary topics he possessed, as it
seemed to us all, a clearness of vision which
was at once destructive and constructive in
a remarkable degree.

152 ASHES TO ASHES.

Perhaps it was the latter quality of
constructiveness, so rare and yet so all-
essential in reformers, which led me to
retain so many of his conversations and
monologues.

I bitterly regret that I did not retain
more. But I had latterly another recorder
in the person of Ellen Morant, who, after an
unu.udly interesting evening, would fre-
quently note down and write out after-
wards the substance of what he had
said. One of these brief sketches of hers,
corrected in red pencil by himself, and
which came into my possession, I can-
not resist the temptation of inserting
here.

He was never weary of talking about
hospital reform; and the question of the
Hospital Sunday Fund, introduced by the

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 153

rector, called forth, from our friend the fol-
lowing remarks, which seem to me to be
much to the point : —

Le Normand on Hospital Blots.

There are two grave blots on your
English hospitals and dispensaries; one in-

volved in the constitution, the other in the

administration, of most of them. And all
V, who are connected with them as subscribers
* and patrons should bear those blots in mind,
and try and wipe them out.

The first is the blot of patron-power.
Tickets are issued to subscribers, and they
expect an equivalent for them in the power
of selecting patients. They dictate to the
medical officers throughout the land, —
directly, whom to treat (by letter), in-

154 ASHES TO ASHES.

directly, whom not to treat (by occupying
the ground).

There should be no hospital letters at all,
or rather there should be none conferring
such power as this upon patrons. The
hospital authorities alone should decide who
are the fit objects; but what doctor cares
to overrule a patron's letter ? He fears to
damage the hospital funds ; he dare not
tamper with privilege. At present a noble-
man's servant, suffering chiefly from an
ample salary and high feeding, can apply
with a letter, and be treated over the head
of a poor deserving mechanic who cannot
get one. Keal charity seeketh not her own
— thinks not of the power of patronage,
but of the fittest objects for relief. The
hospital, not the patron, should be left to
decide that.

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 155

People who can pay ought to pay. Hos-
pitals should exact a payment, however
small. Dispensaries should all be provi-
dent, that is, supported by a small weekly
or monthly donation by all who claim their
aid. Cases too poor to pay should be
regularly and systematically taken up by
the parochial, lay, clerical, or governmental
authorities, or by private charity, and be
provided with small sums needful to satisfy
the hospitals or dispensaries.

Under these wholesome restrictions, all
hospitals and dispensaries should be free, and
the objects always selected by the medical
officers. This system has been adopted,
more or less, throughout Scotland, and
works admirably.

Hospitals suffer in two ways from patrons'
letters. The letters issued are out of all pro-

i 5 6 ASHES TO ASHES.

portion to the subscription. If all subscribers
used all their letters, the hospital would be
bankrupt, just as a bank is in a panic when
all depositors want their money out at once.

These patrons' letters overcrowd hospitals
— the wrong people often get served, the
right objects rejected; but both classes
suffer from the overcrowding.

This overcrowding is the second blot,
and it is one of administration. It may-
be met in three ways.

1st. Sift the crowds, either by restricted
use of letters on one side — the patrons, or
by restricting the number of patients to be
seen at the other side, i.e., at the hospital.
This might lessen the quantity of advice ;
but would materially improve the quality,
as no man can treat patients properly at the
rate of two minutes apiece.

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 157

2ndly. Lengthen the hours for medical
attendance: but this would be hard upon
the medical man, who often gives his
services.

3rdly. Increase the staff and accommoda-
tion; but this involves increase of ex-
penditure, and therefore suggests at once
the expediency of some such institution
as the Sunday Hospital Fund.

Prom the foregoing remarks arise three
hints for practical action —

1st. As regards the Fund itself;

2nd. As regards the Public ;

3rd. As regards the Hospital.

As regards the Fund, let us insist upon
a clear and public exposition of the prin-
ciples on which the committee of distri-
bution act, and let us demand an account
of their stewardship. Let us above

i 5 8 ASHES TO ASHES.

all things take care that no medical men
be on the committee of distribution: no
such, committee could be satisfactory to the
hospitals or the public. A judiciously
selected consulting council of the medical
profession might be used advantageously
by the committee of distribution ; but once
put medical men on the committee, and
questions of privilege and party purposes
instantly arise; and the committee should
be impartial, above all suspicion.

As regards the public, let them waive
their rights as patrons, seek to give without
expecting an equivalent ; that would be real
charity — to leave the hospitals free to choose
when they send their letters — to select care-
fully their applicants — to avoid, when pos-
sible, issuing all their letters, and to advocate
the abolition of all letters, as in Scotland.

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 159

As regards the hospitals and dispensaries,
let a fearless scrutiny and selection of
patients be made; let hospitals require a
small donation according to circumstances;
let all dispensaries be on fee provident
system, and let overcrowding be dis-
couraged—chiefly by discouraging applica-
tions from persons who can well afford to
pay, and ought to pay for private advice,
and ought not, therefore, to crowd out
fitter applicants.

Le Normand was equally strong on the
present system of parish doctors. I re-
member him saying indignantly—

" You take a poor man who has probably
a young family to support. You pay him
an absurdly inadequate salary, out of which
he is obliged to provide drugs. What will

i6o ASHES TO ASHES.

you ? The drugs are absurdly inadequate.
There are only a few drugs which really
do any good : these are constantly in
demand, but they are expensive. Quinine,
cod liver oil, iron, etc., cannot be got for
nothing; yet, as a rule, when fit to be
given at aU, they should be given in
abundance. What is the natural substi-
tute ?— peppermint-water and imagination.
What is the result? It is negative, my
friend: the people do not get well.

" I will tell you what happened to me
not long ago in an East-end parish in
London.

" The clergyman was an enlightened man.
He visited his people ; he knew their sick.
He said to me one evening after dinner, i I
have had a large sum of money given to
me for my sick poor, and if you will

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 161

undertake to help me to make a charitable
experiment, I have determined what to
do with part of it, at least. I will give
yon one side of a street. There is a good
deal of fever in the district just now ; the
parish doctor is over-worked. I will also
give you carte blanche on a good chemist
for the drugs : let him send his bill in to
me. I am curious to compare the work
of the parish doctor, on the south side of
the street, with yours on the north.'

" I accepted his offer, and gave my
services gratuitously. I'm afraid to say
how much quinine and cod liver oil I
ordered; but at the end of the year the
rector came to me and said, 6 Frankly I
tell you, that whereas on the parish doctor's
side an unabated reign of mortality and
disease has prevailed, on your side there

M

1 62 ASHES TO ASHES.

has been something like a series of resurrec-
tions.'

" ' And this,' I replied, c is not owing to
my superior abilities — your parish doctor
is a clever man — but owing to the excel-
lence of the drugs that I have been able to
administer.' Doctors are often depressed
at the little impression produced by the
most powerful drugs upon the upper classes.
The opposite experience is made with the
poor. When you treat the poor you treat,
as a rule, raw and untried constitutions.
You sow your drugs as it were upon a
virgin soil, and the results exceed your
expectation. Dr. Livingstone noticed the
same thing in connection with savages.
Small doses of good drugs produced effects
little short of miraculous.

" One of the great difficulties which thp

VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 163

poor man's doctor lias to contend with, is
the improper and inadequate food supply;
but even good food is useless unless there
is the appetite for it ; and that can often be
restored only by a judicious use of good
drugs ; and those drugs the parish doctor
-cannot afford to give, — ergo, he fails. He is
over-worked; he is under-paid; he is un-
applied. Go to him, he will be the first
to confess it ! "

Le Normand's views on special and
general hospitals seemed to me to be equally
just ; for whilst he was fully aware of the
dangers of professional puffery and the
abuses of irresponsible management, and all
the other objections which have been brought
against special hospitals, he urged very
sensibly that the public were, in the long

1 64 ASHES TO ASHES.

run, the best judges of what did them good.
People with some special complaints went
to some special hospitals, because they got
cured better there than elsewhere ; they got
cured better there because they were at-
tended by men whose special attention had
been turned to their special maladies. And
whilst he fully admitted the narrowing
tendency of special studies, he still main-
tained that studies, to be worth anything,,
ought to be special; and declared that it
was quite as possible for a man who had a
special acquaintance with diseases of the
throat, or the skin, or the eye, to be an
excellent general physician, as for a great
animal painter to be a good general artiste

tV. :

IS.

A PERILOUS SPHERE.

UT it is time to return to my nar-
| rative, although I would fain linger
over these and many other instructive
memories of my friend.

I said that fever had broken out in the
neighbourhood of his hospital, and that of
all maladies fever cases seemed to possess for
him the most powerful attractions.

But there were circumstances connected
with the present outbreak which rendered
it especially interesting to him ; and, with
that keen professional ardour which was

1 66 ASHES TO ASHES.

one of his most admirable characteristics,,
he hastened from the side of his affianced
bride to the sick beds of the sufferers who
so sorely needed his skill.

On arriving in town he soon followed up
some of the clues that had been given him*
He found, after several domiciliary visits to
those streets which sent up most fever cases,
that the water-butts supplying the back
premises were in a filthy condition, and
that the sewage in many cases leaked into
the pipes connected with various drinking-
cisterns and pumps.

On reporting these cases to the medical
officer of the district, he was surprised to
find that days passed before that func-
tionary could be induced to inspect the
premises complained of. At last he went,

A PERILOUS SPHERE. 167

and the utmost he could be prevailed upon

to advise was that the leaky pipes should

be cheaply soldered, and the foulest tubs

cleaned out. For this purpose the landlord

entrusted each of his tenants with a few

shiUings, and they were directed to carry

out the repairs themselves. Of course in

many cases the poor tenants neglected the

repairs and pocketed the shillings; and in

no single case were the pipes properly

isolated from sewage, or the repairs properly

executed; consequently in a few weeks

everything was just as bad as before.

Astonished and shocked at this criminal

neglect, Le Normand went to the health

officer, and spoke in the strongest manner

of the disgraceful condition of certain

houses under his charge.

He was heard respectfully ; but he was

i68 ASHES TO ASHES.

told that the repairs called for had been
executed, and that any other repairs
would shortly be made after a fresh in-
spection.

My friend soon found that all this was
talk; that for some reason the sanitary
officer would not press the landlord, and
the landlord was not likely to act of his
own accord. It finally appeared that the
medical officer had married the daughter
of the man who owned the houses com-
plained of, and that he dared not speak
out.

This was not the only occasion in which
. Le Normand complained that' local govern-
ment broke down in the face of crying
abuses. " Your local people," he would say,
"respect the pockets of their friends and

A PERILOUS SPHERE. 169

their own. If a drain has to be cleaned
out, your vestry mil oppose it ; if a nest
of rotten houses has to be pulled down,
your vestry will prop them up rather than
incur any greater pecuniary risk. If work-
house food is bad and dear, it is some
member of your Guardian Board that sup-
plies it, and it must not be scrutinised ; and
in nine cases out of ten, if an old graveyard
has to be shut up, your local powers, who
get fees or would have to provide a new
ground, show cause why the old plague-spot
should be still used.

" I do not say that local government has
not its merits; but it has its great evils,
which you in England under-estimate. You
cannot get men to sec that abuses should be
put down, if the money is to come out of
their own pockets. The convenience of

i-jo ASHES TO ASHES.

many will be invariably sacrificed to the
interest of a few. It is natural, but it is
not well."

In the present instance, Le Normand
traced the local outbreak of fever partly to
the prevalence of tainted water; but there
was another cause — foul air.

An old burial-ground had recently been
disturbed. It is true it had not been used
for several years, but it was one of those
that had up to 1850 been shockingly over-
crowded. 24 Under the new Acts it had .been
recently sold for building purposes, and the
remains were (nominally), as the Act
directed, removed to one of the suburban
cemeteries ; but the work had been roughly
done. At the request of the inhabitants,
the men worked chiefly at night, and

A PERILOUS SPHERE. i 7 r

the bodies were usually removed in the*
twilight. It was said that many leaden
coffins had been broken open, and the gases
that had escaped had seriously affected the-
men employed, and been the source of great
discomfort to the surrounding houses. Then
several large holes used for pit-burial wer&
opened, and found to be in a terribly
poisonous state. The thick clay soil had,,
in fact, materially suspended decomposition,
and the overcrowding of bodies had further
complicated matters. The effluvium from
these places was fearful; and it was, in-
deed, a very difficult matter to know what
to do. The remains could not well be re-
moved in their present state. Burning in
the close proximity of houses was thought
to be unsafe, as well as a public nuisance.
Finally, it was resolved to use large quan-

172 ASHES TO ASHES.

tities of chemical dissolvents and disin-
fectants, and to close up the pits.

It was generally supposed that all the
bodies had thus been either destroyed or
removed before the ground was handed
over for building purposes to the purchaser;
but those who knew declared that vast
quantities of bones had been sent off to
be ground up for manure, numbers of
leaden coffins stolen for the sake of the
lead and plates, whilst every one seemed
agreed it was safest at last to leave off
hunting for more coffins in the densely
packed ground for fear of coming upon
those awful pits.

Probably only a small minority of the
dead ever found their way to the suburban
cemetery ; and, in deference to a generally

A PERILOUS SPHERE. 17 j

expressed feeling the surface of the yard
was flattened as quickly as possible, and
declared to be a perfectly disinfected and
highly eligible building site !

However this may be, it is certain that
before it became so it was the source of
disease and death to the neighbourhood
cursed by its sacred precincts. 25 The old
inhabitants had long complained that their
cellars were not fit to use owing to. the
foul gases which filtered into them, frojn
the churchyard, and to this cause, a&
well as to the recent disturbance of the
crowded graves, did Le Normand ascribe
much of the general unhealthiness of thfr
district.

m H«$8§&r*

X-

CONFIDENCES.

S I was left alone and had only a
short time more before I returned
to my chambers in London, I felt it was
hardly worth while to move away from
the little village where I had passed my
time so happily, and where I had stayed
so much longer than I had dreamed of at
first.

Somehow the Eectory and its inmates
had become very dear to me. How much
of the pleasantness was connected with
Miss Morantj how much with my friend,

CONFIDENCES. 1 7 5

how much with tho other good genial folk,

and how much with the general loveliness

of the spot, I need not now pause to inquire.

No doubt in one way and another Miss

Ellen took up a large share of my thoughts.
My feelings about her since her formal

engagement were much more settled and

comfortable; and now that I could be

nothing to her but a friend, she kindly

contrived to fit me into the circle much

more conveniently than before. Indeed she

was quite affectionate. Perhaps she felt a

sort of reflected glory of Le Normand about

his most intimate Mend in his absence;

perhaps the summer love of her fresh young

nature, beginning for the first time to

unfold, overflowed upon everything and

everybody about her. She looked twice

as bright, she talked twice as much; she

176 ASHES TO ASHES.

had all sorts of sympathy and to spare
for her poor people, her sick servant, her
school-children; nay, even her rabbits got
hugged unmercifully, and everything, in-
cluding a certain black cat, which she
detested before she was in love, came in
for a stray caress or a tender little word.

" Oh, dear Mr. Pomeroy," she said ta
me one day, as we sat on a little garden-
seat, by the side of a little artificial canal
that was dammed up at one end, and went
leaping down hill at the other. She never
said dear Mr. Pomeroy to me, except in
connection with Le Normand. The fact is
we had been talking over the days that
had just glided by, and all that had passed :
we were always talking of what had
passed before Le Normand . left.

CONFIDENCES. 177

" Oh, dear Mr. Pomeroy, you are so kind
and obliging: we never should have fallen
in love without you, you know."

The flattering part in that transaction
which I had been forced into taking was
certainly thus described in the most naive
and least embarrassing way.

" Upon my word," I said modestly, " I
do not know what I have done to deserve
your gratitude."

" Oh, you know, you were always in the
way when you were wanted, and you did
not bother or fuss, and prevent us talking
to each other."

" Except once," I said, rather mali-
ciously.

Ellen crimsoned, but tossing her head
gaily.

"That doesn't matter; we didn't mind

178 ASHES TO ASHES.

you: we thought it might be somebody-
else. But why did you run away in that
ridiculous manner ? "

"All out of true, true love."

" I did not know that true, true love
always ran away."

" When it is all on one side," I said, with
just an imperceptible touch of sentiment.

"All on one side!" said Ellen, with the
most provoking little pout ; " why we both
dote on you. You're never to marry at all —
do you hear ? — because we cannot dispense
with you. And I'm sure I should never
like your wife."

"Not if she were like you?" I said,
whimsically enough.

She burst out laughing.

" You nice, absurd creature ! how could
she be like me?"

CONFIDENCES. tyg

"Do you mean that no one could be as
good as you, or that any one as good as you
would be too good for me?"

"How you twist everything! I mean
you're not to be married, because then you
•can come and stay with us when we are
married in London."

"Why do you want me to stay with
you?"

" Why, because it would be so good for
Francis" (Francjois was the name of Le
Normand's father, and he was called Francis
after him); "and — and I like you too
$o much!" and she laid special and affec-
tionate emphasis on the last words, feeling
perhaps that the first half of her sentence
was hardly strong enough to express her
private regard for me.

"But why," I asked, "am I good for

180 ASHES TO ASHES.

Le Normand? He will have you; he
won't want me so much as before his
marriage. Wives always supersede old
friends, and quite right of course," I added
stoically.

" What nonsense you do talk ! you don't
understand."

"Well, explain."

"First, then, you know I like you very
much, and so does Francis — so we both love
you ; and it's good for Francis to have you
with him — you make him talk."

"Does he never talk to you, then, when
you are alone?"

" Of course he does. How can you be so
silly!" she said, digging up a daisy-root
with the tip of her parasol. " But that's so-
different."

"More cheerful?" I suggested.

CONFIDENCES. 181

" I don't know what you mean by cheer-
ful : people are not always cheerful."

"I should think not," I said, with a
comical sigh.

" How provoking you can be, Mr. Pomc-
roy ! Besides, you are very rude, and inter-
rupt me when I'm just going to explain."

" Pardon ! Continuez, s'il vous plait."

"You don't pronounce French like
Francis. Why don't you stick to English?"

" I was defeated in English, and called
rude. I thought French, being half his
native tongue, it might find more favour
in your eyes."

" When he speaks it — but I see you want
to pick a quarrel with me. Why won't you
be nice ? I was going to say so many nice
things to you."

"I can wait," I replied, leaning back in

1 82 ASHES TO ASHES.

my seat and contemplating leisurely a couple-
of wood-pigeons billing and cooing in a tall
horse-chestnut tree some little way off.

" Well, now, this is what I mean about
it being good for Francis to be with you,
even when he has got me" waving her
hands expansively, to indicate the vast
wealth and treasure of that possession.
" Francis wants a certain collision or a kind
of friction to bring out his mind. Another
man's mind, like yours, brings him out-
makes him think. A woman's mind and
nature, however incomparable — mine, for
instance — never acts in that sort of way:
I can feel it, and I am not jealous — there I
even now that he is dreadfully in love with
me. Yes, you may sneer, you sceptic, but
he is, I repeat it, dreadfully in love with
me; and yet I know he would miss you.

CONFIDENCES. 1 8 3

And then," she added, growing quite serious
at the very thought of possible ill, "if
anything happened, — if he got ill, or was
obliged to leave me for any time, or was
persecuted by those horrid routine people at
the hospital for his opinions, I don't know
what I should do. You would have to be
sent for ; and if we were not on speaking
terms," she added archly, "how awkward
it would be."

I could not help being inwardly gratified
by the confidence which this charming girl
placed in me, for her sincerity and simple
trust were quite transparent all through the
irony and serio-comedy of our dialogue. I
naturally waxed confidential in my turn.

"Dear Miss Morant, there is no one in
whose welfare and happiness I take a more
deep and lasting interest than in yours ; I

1 84 ASHES TO ASHES.

only ask that you may always be able to
speak to me about all that is dear and
interesting to you in this open and uncon-
strained manner. Tour confidence shall
never be abused; and if ever the time
should come when either of you, or both,
should need any slight service that I can
render, trust me freely, and give me the
happiness of helping you."

As I spoke, the loud cooing of the doves
ceased suddenly, and the first few heavy
drops of rain began to fall. We rose
hastily. She had left her garden-hat in-
doors. I helped her to draw her light
shawl round her neck, and pinned it close
for her, half over the silky profusion of
rich brown hair: she looked for all the
world like a soft moss rose.

CONFIDENCES. 1 8 5

Our dialogue had ended more gravely
than it had begun. I don't know why those
simple artless words of hers, " You would
have to be sent for," rang in my ears
ominously; I hardly noticed them at the
time, but they came back again and again
to me. The time when both would need me,
and I could help neither, was not far off.

One night on my return from the Eectory
a telegram was put into my hand. It was
from Le Normand ; it merely contained the
words, "Come up, if you can: I want you."

There was no train that evening. I
passed a sleepless night of conjecture. I
had a presentiment that all was not right.
If the truth flashed across me, as I* believe
it did once or twice, I would allow it no

1 86 . ASHES TO ASHES.

lodgment in my mind. A dozen things
might have happened : some disturbance
with the parish guardians; some quarrel
with the hospital authorities ; a question of
resigning his position, or how to fight it
out ; the death of some important relative —
or was he ill himself? Surely he would
have hinted this in the telegram. On the
whole, I managed to make up my mind that
some new post had been offered him, and he
wanted to talk it over with me, — and then I
fell asleep.

Early the next day I wrote a hurried line
to the Eectory, to say that I had been
summoned to town by important business ;
but, by a kind of instinct, I avoided con-
necting my departure with Le Normand, or
giving any hint of his telegram.

XI.

VALE !

HASTENED to my friend's lodg-
ings: they were dark and dingy-
looking enough after the bright country
air and clean dwellings I had left. I
knocked: the door was opened by a
slovenly girl with a sulky-looking face.

" Show me to Mr. Le Normand's room."

" He won't see nobody."

"He'll see me. Say Mr. Pomeroy wants
to speak with him."

She took a good look . at me from head to
foot with her stupid wet mouth half open.

1 88 ASHES TO ASHES.

"Go," I said; "make haste;" and I
pushed by her. " Come ! is this his room ?"

" Second floor," she said, pointing with
her grimy finger ; and before she could shut
the door or recover from her surprise, I had
ascended the narrow flight and stood at Le
Normand's door.

I knocked, but there was no answer.
I knocked again : I think a voice said,
4i Come in."

I entered upon a sitting-room ; it was
-empty, but a door leading into a back bed-
room was half open.

I was literally trembling all over, for I
now knew something was wrong — very
wrong.

I entered the bedroom without further

VALE! 189,

ceremony, and stretched on the bed I saw
Le Normand. He was dressed as usual-
He turned his head round, — raised it with
an effort : there was a faint smile, — his
eyes brightened; he was evidently very
glad to see me, but very weak, and hi&
head fell back immediately on the pillow.

He motioned with his hand; and said
eagerly, but with an effort, " Don't come
near me, dear boy, — and open the window."

" What is the matter ? "

" Typhoid," he replied ; "I caught it in*
the hospital. It is curious how indifferent
I feel to everything: I don't even care to-
get well for myself, — but I think I shall-
But there is Ellen, my poor darling, — she
must not know."

His eyes closed, and a sort of torpor-
seemed to be getting the better of him, from

1 9 o ASHES TO ASHES.

which he roused himself with a great effort
My grief and anxiety knew no bounds. I
inquired who was his doctor. He men-
tioned Dr. M , the noted authority on

fever. "Whilst I was there, that excellent
man entered. Before he left I heard from
him in the adjoining sitting-room how it
fared with my friend.

It appeared that he was stricken down
two days before in the midst of his un-
remitting labours at the hospital and at the
sick beds of the poor; indeed, he himself
traced his seizure to one particular house,
built close upon the old churchyard, the
cellars of which were even then too foul to
enter, and the back windows of which had
actually to be boarded up for a time because
they happened to give directly upon that

VALE! 191

portion of the yard containing one of those
dreadful burial-pits which had been recently-
opened.

"Do you think he will recover?" I
asked.

"At this early stage it is impossible to
say," replied Dr. M .

" The fever is now setting in ; his pulse
is rising. You must not be surprised if,
in a short time, he grows delirious. That
will last about a week, and at the end of
the fortnight we shall know more about it."

As I have always been peculiarly in-
sensible to the dangers of contagion, I
established myself at once as his guardian,
had a bed made up in the next room, hired
another room for a trained nurse, and
determined, come what might, never to
leave him.

iq2 ASHES TO ASHES.

The next night, knowing well the stages,
of the disease from which he suffered, after
sending the nurse out of the room, he called
me to him. I felt, somehow, as if he were
going to make his last will and testament,
though I knew, with his systematic fore-
thought, that had been done before. He
was restless; his lethargy seemed to have
left him, but he was hot and feverish. He
felt, however, that his head was quite clear r
and he wished to make use of his lucid
moments.

"The fever," he said, " is rising; I shall
probably get delirious. In a week more
you will see a change for better or for
worse. Now listen, and promise faithfully
to obey. I will not have my friends told
of my illness whilst there is any hope*
Promise ! "

VALE! 193

I promised.

" There is one, you know, whom I should
like to see above all before I die. If I die,
tell her," he continued, with great emotion,
" that I would not see her, — that you could
not persuade me to see her. She is one
whom fever would feast and revel upon.
Those fresh, childish bodies are the special
food for this typhoid demon ; he is ravenous
for them. Tell her," he continued, with a
trembling voice, "tell her that I died
loving her more than anything on earth,
and that is why I would not see her. It is
the first and last sacrifice I shall make for
her. If I get well, she will see the wisdom
and fitness of this resolution; if I die, why
should I imperil her young life? why
should I blight that dear rosebud ? "

"You lay a heavy responsibility upon

194 ASHES TO ASHES.

me, dearest friend : but for you I will bear
even this; only I ask one thing. Let me
at once record your formal wishes in
writing, and do you sign them, that my
conduct may be clear in this matter, what-
ever happens. But be not, I entreat you,
so gloomy : you will pull through."

"The worst is still to come," he replied
calmly.

" But yesterday you were hopeful about
yourself."

"My own feelings may be worth little in
the matter. Eemember the action of my
brain is growing diseased, — more so every
half-hour. Yesterday I was excited and
sanguine. To-night I am not hopeful."

His head fell back; he closed his eyes.
He was evidently exhausted by the effort
he had made.

VALE! 195

Presently lie opened his eyes with a look
of great earnestness.

"Kemember our compact. Leave it to

no other hand; your own hand, mind —

your own hand."

"I swear I will not fail you in this

matter," I said. " Trust to me." I knew

what he alluded to.

He, no doubt, had a sort of instinct that
these were his last lucid moments, for he
was trying to remember everything of im-
portance.

There was a little gold watch of delicate
workmanship on the table by his side.
Presently he pointed feebly to it.

"Take it now," he said; "let me see
you take it ; and after — give it to Ellen,
from me."

i 9 6 ASHES TO ASHES.

A jewelled gold pencil-case of exquisite
workmanship lay beside it.

"That pencil-case is for yon. Keep it
for my sake. It will remind you of our
happy times — by the sea."

" I know I shall have to give these back
to you again when you get well," I said,
trying to feel confidence in my own words.

"Dear boy," he answered, with his old
tender look running into a faint smile, as
his eyes rested affectionately upon me, " I
do hope you may ; but I fear, I fear ; " and,
in spite of my brave and sanguine tone, I
feared too.

The fever increased steadily. The next
day my poor friend was slightly delirious,
the day after raving, — and this went on for
a week. I shall pass over this dreadful

VALE! 197

time. We sometimes tried to speak to him,
but he was apparently quite deaf. At the

end of a week Dr. M gave no hopes of

his recovery. He sank into a stupor, in
which he remained until he died.

I need not dwell upon the rage and
apparent grief of his relations, who had
never treated him well whilst he lived,
when they found that they had not been
told of his illness until all hope was past.
His sister and an uncle came up to town ;
but hearing that it was typhoid, and learn-
ing also that he was quite delirious, did not
think they were justified in going into his
room for fear of infection. I knew of one
who would eagerly have rushed to his sick-
bed even then and died in his arms, if only

198 ASHES TO ASHES.

she had known of his deadly malady and
been allowed to sacrifice herself.

With the really callous relations I had
short work; but my communications with
others who had loved him were inexpres-
sibly painful.

I think that Ellen, though quite heart-
broken, had the sense to see that, in follow-
ing out to the letter the wishes of her lover,
I had done what was, on the whole, best for
all; and she bore her bereavement with
more fortitude than I could have believed
one so young and devoted capable of.
But the nature deepest for love is often
most strong to suffer ; and I saw with ad-
miration that Ellen's nature was made to
bear, without losing its balance, the severe
strain of sorrow, as it had borne sweetly
and worthily the strain of short-lived joy.

VALE! 199

Bat if I have drawn a veil over the last
monotonous and gloomy days of my poor

friend's life, I cannot treat some of the
incidents which immediately followed in
the same manner.

His own funeral seemed the one thing
wanting to give weight to the arguments in
favour of Cremation and against Burial,
which had occupied so much of his atten-
tion during the last year of his life; and
as the object of this narrative is to give
full effect to my late friend's views upon
these matters, I feel bound to record the
way in which his own last mortal remains
were disposed of.

SHE,

COMFORTABLY BURIED.

WAS soon given to understand
that I was to have no voice in
the arrangements for poor Le Normand's
funeral — and as it was not possible to
carry out the Urn-burial after Cremation
which he himself would most have desired,
it little mattered to me who undertook
the last rites.

As I cannot, from what I witnessed,
believe that all undertakers are such as are
here described, I am quite willing to sup-

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 201

pose fbat many funerals may be free from
the degree of coarseness and annoyance to
which I was subjected on this occasion,
and, indeed, we are well aware that there
are many honourable exceptions to the
vulgar irreverence that was once unhappily
the rule. Moreover, many intelligent and
respectable undertakers have themselves
been foremost in attempts to remedy the
defective conduct of funerals, and they have
doubtless to some extent succeeded. On
the other hand, I dare say that as some
funerals are less offensive than Lo Nor-
mand's, his, for aught I know, was not
worse than many others. The present sys-
tem of Christian burial is inevitably ex-
posed to the sort of thing I witnessed,
and here describe. Let those only whom
the cap fits put it on.

202 ASHES TO ASHES.

By the family I was treated with a cool-
ness bordering on incivility; and as for
the good rector and his bereaved daughter,
they were so absolutely ignored that they
were not even invited to the funeral.

At first Miss Morant, in her passionate
sorrow, expressed her earnest wish to be
present ; but at last I think she was wisely
deterred by the combined persuasions of
myself and her father.

"Kemember, dear Miss Morant," I
urged, a he is not there; nothing visible
now is left of him on earth : the form that
once clothed him whom we love has for-
feited every claim it ever had to the pos-
session of him; it is absolutely nothing
but a dangerous worn-out fabric, which he
himself would have had reduced instantly
to ashes. The kind of care and treatment

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 203

that is about to be lavished upon that inert
mass, from whose clutches he with so much
pain has escaped, would have been most
repugnant to him could he witness it.
Keep your memory of him bright ; let it
not be sullied by association with the
graveyard and the rites he so abhorred;
think of him as the pure, the loving, the
aspiring soul that we once knew, and
believe that goodness can never perishj and
that all noble deeds like his, all working
and suffering for others like his, shall bear
good fruit, and live in the memory of God
even as he lives in the life of God."

With such words I attempted to comfort
this poor child. "Whilst I spoke she would
seem to grow calmer. She was not like
some mourners, who reject sympathy and

204 ASHES TO ASHES.

nurse their griefs alone ; she seemed in her
utter forlornness from the very first to be
grateful for any kindness, providing that
everything that was said referred to him
— to speak of the future life, of the possible
reunion after death, of the possible com-
munion between the living and the dead,
" unseen though felt," and especially to go
over again the late bright days, the late
long talks, so many of which both I and
she remembered and could recall in detail ;
these were her only consolations, but these
were her real consolations. In this vivid
calling up of the happy past we sometimes
forgot for the moment that all was past;
we neither of us should have been surprised
if the door had suddenly opened and Xe
JSTormand had walked in in the flesh. Indeed
we never seemed alone.

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 205

But I anticipate. Miss Morant was at
last dissuaded from attending the funeral ;
but I confess that many of the arguments
which were employed to dissuade her did
not weigh with me ; and although officially
I had no business with the funeral, I some-
how could not help watching every detail
of it as though he were still alive, and re-
quired this last service at my hands.

On the morning of the funeral I hastened
to his lodgings. It was a dark, miserable,
stormy day. Two wretched Mutes were
standing one on each side of the door ; one
at least of them smelt atrociously of gin,
whilst the other had a beery, melancholy
look ; and although the sight was inexpress-
ibly revolting, still, as the poor victims of

206 ASHES TO ASHES.

this conventional parody of grief stood there
all draggled and cold, with their hearsey
finery sticking to them, I could not blame
them ; nay, I pitied them, for I could not
help reflecting that, as they were probably
both soaked to the skin, they might very
likely be added to the long list of drunken
martyrs so ruthlessly sacrificed to the
fashionable though costly sorrow of a
first-class funeral pageant.

A gentleman, described in the under-
taker's advertisement-card which I soon
found placed in my hand as "the Superin-
tendent with silk hatband and gloves," next
made his appearance ; this respectful official,
careworn with other people's sorrows, but
apparently resigned, opened the door.

I was going to pass him and proceed up-
stairs, but in this there seemed some breach

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 207

of funeral etiquette ; in fact, the black gen-
tlemen were now in possession. The
" Superintendent with silk hatband, &c.,"
was master of the situation, and friends and
relatives must bow before him without a
murmur; in short, it soon appeared that
their reign was over, and the reign of "silk
hatbands, gloves, wands, and truncheons"
had begun.

I was going straight up-stairs to where
my friend's coffin was lying, but I was
stopped at the foot of them. A sad though
business-like little man in excellent black
clothes stepped forward and took from me
my hat; another man, pale with anguish,
handed me black kid gloves, remarking in
tones of the deepest melancholy —

" I think you'll find them fit, sir."

208 ASHES TO ASHES.

Now, thought I, I suppose I can go up-
stairs; but, just as I was turning, I was
touched on the arm by the " Superintendent
with silk hatband and gloves : " he pointed
with an air of unutterable dejection to the
open door of the dining-room, and whispered
in a sad but authoritative manner —

"Glass of sherry, sir,-cold ham and
chicken."

I turned away abruptly, and brushing by
these professional masques I hurried up-
stairs.

They stood aghast at my eccentric beha-
viour. I evidently had not caught the right
funeral tone at all. There were two more
sable men at the top of the stairs ; they had
evidently been watching me below, and were
prepared for me. They seemed to feel that
it was time to adopt some decisive measure.

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 209

They met me with reproachful looks. I
read their thoughts — unless I "fell in" a
little better, and took my stage directions
more intelligently, it would be impossible to
conduct the funeral in that first-class style
which had been charged for.

I was making for the door of the room
where I knew the body of my poor Mend
lay, when one of these officials, grown
desperate at last, laid his hand upon my
arm, and, pointing to the staircase with the
other, said, "The company meet down-stairs,
sir; the mourners are now taking refresh-
ment in the dining-room."

" But I will go in and see the coffin."

"Beg pardon, sir, but it is not customary,

sir, for the mourners to visit the room after

the coffin is nailed up. i Last-look-at-the-

departed ' took pla^e last evening, sir ; and

210 ASHES TO ASHES.

the Superintendent's orders is strict to admit
no one, to avoid confusion, sir."

Dreading anything like a disturbance on
my account, knowing that I was surrounded
not only by these coarse and misguided
dummies, but also by persons utterly un-
sympathetic to me in poor Le Normand's
relatives, choking with . a painful feeling of
disgust, indignation, and contempt, I slipped
a shilling into the fellow's hand, and said,
" Open the door, man : I mean to go in."
" Of course, sir, if you are a principal
mourner, certainly, sir." And I soon found
myself alone by the coffin, though narrowly
watched by both men, whilst the door was
held ajar.

Everything was closed. Presently one of

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 2 1 1

the watchers slipped into the room, and ad-
vancing softly on tiptoe, "There's a lead
coffin, sir, name-plate, strong elm case
covered with superfine cloth, brass plate of
inscription, four registered handles and
gripes, lid-ornaments to correspond, &c."

I had turned to get out, finding there was
no peace even in the chamber of death;
and he had followed me with his revolting
professional volubility, hoping, I suppose, to
secure a fee for himself like the other man.

As I passed through the hall, I heard the
clatter of knives and forks in the dining-
room, and the anguish-stricken man who
had handed me the gloves was just engaged
in uncorking more sherry. The respectful
Superintendent handed me my hat with a
huge scarf upon it. My patience was nearly

2i2 ASHES TO ASHES.

exhausted. " Take off that scarf, and take
these gloves ; and give me my hat, and let
me out."

They looked as if they would like to have
handed me at once over to the police.

It was pouring with rain; but I was
thankful to get out of that awful place,
peopled with those myrmidons of mockery.
I got into my own brougham, and waited
until the procession started.

Several other private carnages, filled with
people who had been attached to and
respected Le Normand, had gathered in the
road by this time.

When the chief mourners at length issued
from the house, I noticed they all had
pocket-handkerchiefs stuffed into their
mouths, although I cannot say that I had

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 2 1 3

ever surprised tears upon any of their faces ;
indeed Le Normand's family had been ex-
tremely angry with him for adopting the
medical profession instead of going into
the army, and they had quarrelled with him
on that account some years before. Happily
he was not dependent upon them, for he
had money settled upon himself; so that
when they withdrew his allowance in a
mean-spirited way, he was not, as a young
student, left by any means destitute.

The sorrowers then got into their high
spring coaches. The sable gentlemen
described in the advertisement card as
"two Mutes with silk dresses, eight As-
sistants with silk hatbands and gloves,
truncheons and wands, &c, &c," all fell
into good order under the direction of " the
Superintendent with silk hatband and

2i 4 ASHES TO ASHES.

gloves, 55 and the procession moved on at
a very slow pace through, the principal
streets and fashionable squares towards —

I shudder to relate — the X cemetery,

— in fact, one of those condemned by the
Board of Health in 1850 !

When the right effect had been produced
upon the more fashionable squares and
streets by the slow dead march, the pro-
cession stopped. I happened to look out
of the window. The two Mutes skipped
by in quite a frolicsome way; the eight
Assistants with silk hat-bands were jump-
ing up on the box seats ; the pale coachmen
whipped up their sable steeds, and we all
trotted off at a brisk and lively pace to the
densely-packed graveyard.

At last there was another pause at the

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 215

gates ; the men with wands and truncheons,
the Mutes with silk scarves, and the other
walking gentlemen had to dismount, and
the right effect had to be produced on the
gate-keeper and the stragglers about the
grounds.

A small idle crowd of loungers mustered
at our approach, and followed us a little way,
although, the rain coming on again, they
soon dispersed.

In the absence of the regular chaplain, the
service was read by a middle-aged person
with a port-wine nose, who bore such a
strong resemblance to our " Superintendent
with silk hatband and gloves," that I could
not divest myself of the notion that he must
have been his brother. At all events, he
and the Superintendent were evidently on

216 ASHES TO ASHES.

terms of the closest intimacy. After the
first part of the service, whilst they were
removing the coffin and preparing for the
procession, I noticed, through a half-open
door, the Superintendent handing the chap-
lain his skull-cap, whilst the reverend gen-
tleman tossed off a glass and, filling it up,
handed it to the master of the ceremonies.

It certainly did not look well; but then it
was not intended to be seen, and, after all,
I could not in my heart blame either of
them. The requirements of Christian burial,
as understood in the year of our Lord 1874,
demanded that this rheumatic - looking
minister of religion and his consumptive
though somewhat beery satellites should
presently tramp through the mud in a
pelting shower to a remote corner of
the crowded graveyard, and then stand

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 2 1 7

shivering in the wet and soaked to the
skin over a loathsome pit, out of which all
sorts of foul vapours would probably exhale,
looking on at about the most dismal spec-
tacle which it has ever entered into the
heart of man to conceive.

As these reflections crossed my mind I
began to relent even towards the Superin-
tendent and the Mutes. I thought, if I had
to go through such a life as theirs, I too
might take to drink. Christian burial, if it
had its depressing side, must not be wholly
without its consolations; and I perceived
now how short the step was from the grave-
yard to the pot-house, and back again.

On issuing from the chapel, where half
the service had been mumbled through
inaudibly, we began the long pilgrimage.

218 ASHES TO ASHES.

The procession was smartly executed on the
whole by the pall-bearers, wands, trun-
cheons, and silk hatbands; they bore the
rain like men, and got over the ground faster
than most of us could follow, until, by some
dreadful mishap, one of the pall-bearers
struck his foot on a clod, the man on the
other side was thrown out of step, the coffin
tilted, two men were presently down in the
mud, and the " lead coffin with name-plate,
strong elm case covered with superfine cloth,
brass plate of inscription, &c," in spite of
the "four registered handles and gripes,"
came down with a heavy crash to the*
ground.

A loud oath burst from one of the Mutes,
who very pardonably forgot his professional
dumbness in the excitement of the moment.
But the master-mind was instantly on the

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 2 1 9

spot in the person of u . the Superintendent
with silk hatband and gloves." I could see
that he was not quite unfamiliar with this
sort of contretemps : in a moment he mar-
shalled his men, — the' coffin was lifted,
" the rich velvet pall," the " use " of which
was included in the bill, was wiped, and,
with the promptitude quite worthy of such
a first-class funeral, the whole procession
resumed its progress — this time at a some-
what slower pace.

The grave selected was evidently a cheap
piece of ground in a densely crowded por-
tion of the cemetery; it was, however, a
deep one. The earth on either side was
piled up round the brink, and sundry
boards placed about to prevent it from
falling back into the open pit.

220 ASHES TO ASHES,

I had a quick eye by this time. Le
Normand's descriptions were all too fresh
in my memory. Under the boards I did
not fail to discern traces of "management;"
and some of the broken wood that was
lying about, though stripped of its cloth,
was clearly old coffin-wood.

I was not surprised when I remembered

that X Cemetery was one which

Le Normand had described as hideously
overcrowded, it having, as I have said,
been condemned many years ago by the
Government Board of Health. How deeply
thankful I was that the Morants had stayed
away !

The moment now came for the coffin to
be lowered into what I somehow felt would
not be its last resting-place. The two men

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 2 2 1

who had stumbled were, amongst others,
engaged in this delicate task. Whether
they were new hands, or had got nervous,
or were unsteady with drink, I cannot say,
but something again went wrong. The
ropes on one side stuck at the very moment
when the others were being lowered, and
the consequence was that .the coffin was
turned completely upside down before it
reached the bottom of the grave !

This appeared to be so common an acci-
dent, that no one was much discomposed by
it; and after a good deal of jolting and
heaving about of the heavy leaden box, it
was got right, and the highly inappropriate
words, " Ashes to ashes !" were pronounced
over it ; the superintendent throwing down
a handful of damp mud, which we could all
hear fall with a wet splash upon the coffin.

222 ASHES TO ASHES.

I would see no more. I got away before
the end of the service. I reached my
brougham, and drove from the loathsome
spot, leaving the professional crew to com-
plete the offensive ceremony after their own
fashion.

Poor Le Normand! every detail that he
had condemned, every practice that he most
abhorred, seemed, by a strange irony of
circumstance, to have met and been heaped
together over his lifeless body.

The leaden coffin so often denounced by
him, the double case intended to keep
mother earth from her own as long as
possible, every device for the generation
and concentration of the most poisonous
gases, — the stagey undertaker, the whining

COMFORTABLY BURIED. 223

of false friends, the useless trappings, tlie
dismal and gloomy corUge, the indecent
accidents, the irreverent service, the over-
crowded cemetery, the worst of clay soils,
the pelting wet, the foul exhalations from
the open grave, nay, even the management,
— nothing was spared.

And this sort of thing, I said, is what is
still going on, not only in our condemned
metropolitan cemeteries, but in the heart of
hundreds of large towns throughout Eng-
land, Scotland, and Ireland — in Sheffield,
in Edinburgh, at Tooting, even at Lambeth.
The Government Acts cannot, it seems, put
it down. The local authorities are too often
afraid to interfere. Even if they did, they
could only postpone to a future but no
distant day the evils inherent in a system
radically unsound.

224 ASHES TO ASHES.

Truly, the unclean monster of burial has
been too long on trial. He has been tried
and found guilty of murder, robbery, and
every sort of corruption. The pure Fire-
Angel of Cremation stands at the door.

far^M"*

■>v->.

Wh

XfiB.

ALONE.

N the evening it cleared up. The
events of the last few weeks were

i

beginning to tell upon my mind and body.
My appetite was gone, my sleep was gone ;
I had taken little or no exercise for several
days, and a heavy weight seemed to oppress
my head and move with me wherever I
moved. Had the Morants been in town, I
should have gone to them. As it was, there
was no one I cared to seek in my then
depressed and morbid condition. And yet
I could not bear to be alone.

Q

226 ASHES TO ASHES.

At such a time I found, as so many
doubtless have found before me, a sort of
strange satisfaction in the London streets.

I sallied forth, and mingled with the
crowd in the Strand. The Echo boys w'ere
shouting out the last burial scandal, and
they were selling " Sir Henry Thompson as
Cremation," in Vanity Fair.

The noise and bustle of the streets
seemed to restore me to myself, and break
up the absolute monotony of my thoughts,
which for several days had moved in such
a narrow and painful circle. I stopped at
various shop-windows not yet closed. Al-
most anything seemed to attract my atten-
tion and gave me a kind of relief ; in fact,
my mind had been overwrought, and had a
tendency to work automatically and follow

ALONE. 227

its own bent ; and I was content to let my
will lie passive from sheer fatigue and a
sense of past strain; and so I walked on
and on. I had reached Piccadilly. Pre-
sently I entered the Hyde Park on the
right, and after nearly crossing it I sat
down on a bench. There were still a few
children playing about. A little girl ran
up to me with, "Please, sir, tell me the
time."

I looked at my watch ; it was a quarter
past seven.

"Kun home," I said, rising myself;
" run home, my dear, or you will be shut
in. The park closes at half-past seven."

Those few words, drawn from me by the
fresh little face of the child, seemed to do
me good, so strange and subtle are the
influences that pass unseen between soul

228 ASHES TO ASHES.

and soul, and shift the emotional atmo-
sphere like the slides of a dissolving view.

It was with a lighter step that I made
my way out of the park, and continued my

long walk down the Bayswater Koad. As

I went along I soon fell into a deep

meditation, in which the figures of Le

Normand and Miss Morant rose vividly

before my mind's eye.

How long I thus walked on I do not
know, but it had grown dark ; and I found
myself, on awaking from my reverie, in a
strange neighbourhood. I hailed a cab and
drove back to my lodgings, quite alive now
to the external world, for I was ravenous
with hunger.

X$F.

AFTERGLOW.

SUPPOSE I must have been in bed

about an hour or more, when I fell

»

into a kind of doze. I was aware that my
eyes were shut and the room was quite
dark, but I seemed to be enveloped in a
sort of milky-white cloud. In this soft
light I felt myself released from the
trammels of my earth-life, and I was
conscious of moving about freely in space.
The darkness of the bed-chamber, the nar-
rowing walls, the crowded city, — all had
vanished. The cloudy silver light grew

2 3 o ASHES TO ASHES.

brighter and warmer and yellower. I
seemed to have been travelling hundreds of
miles, as one travels on by rail out of night
into morning, but I experienced no sense of
fatigue. My journey was made with the
gliding speed of light itself.

A great sense of peace and serenity came
over me. What a pleasant sound of plash-
ing water at my feet ! what summer warmth
around me! what a blue sky, tenderly
veiled here and there with fleecy clouds!
I was sitting idly on the pebbly beach of a
little bay I knew full well. The tide was
rising, with a gentle heave now and then
over the shining pebbles. As they lay, I
could see them trembling under the clear
water, as through glass, for several feet in
the deep shingly basin.

AFTERGLOW. 231

There in the distance stood out the old
tower of St. Anselm's church. That, too,
trembled through the mirage of hazy heat
that flickered all along the coast. The
open sea stretched out before me, all over
the palest, mistiest blue, and mingled with
the sky upon the horizon.

I heard footsteps behind me ; a hand was
laid upon my shoulder. I turned round;
my eyes met those of — Le Normand.

I felt no surprise, but I grasped his hand
warmly.

" I dreamed you were dead," I said ; "bu>t,
thank God, here you are, dear friend."

He laughed out merrily. It was his old
sunny look, his pleasant musical voice like
rippling waters. I had never seen him so
full of life, so buoyant and animated.

232 ASHES TO ASHES.

"In a few days, dear boy, she will be
mine — my Ellen ! my treasure ! Am I not
a happy fellow?" and he laid his arm upon
me in the old caressing way of the' old
affectionate days. I had some strange mis-
giving, but it only vented itself in my
saying—

"That must be our separation. I fear
we cannot be friends quite as we were
before."

"Will you be my enemy, then?" he
said, gaily.

"Never, dear Le Normand; but mar-
riage, which breaks some barriers, sets up
others."

" It shall not be so with mine. Ellen
loves you ; you shall never cease to be our
true good friend."

At this moment a lighter step was heard

AFTERGLOW. 233

upon the shingle. It was Ellen Morant.
Le Normand rose, and, advancing to meet
her, took her by both of her hands, and
half led, half pulled her laughing to where
I sat.

She sat down between us, the picture of
health and happiness, with a little mischief
in her eyes as she said to me —

"How nice it is for us both to have a
batchelor friend, for then we never need
quarrel, because we can always abuse him.
Oh, it would be so stupid if you were going
to be married."

" To you, you mean," I replied, quite in
my old vein of banter.

She was fairly caught, and burst out
laughing.

"Who is hit now?" said Le Nbrmand,
throwing a heap of little pebbles into her lap.

234 ASHES TO ASHES.

"Not I," she answered quickly. "I
meant he would be a very stupid person for
anyone to marry, of course."

"Not I," I retorted; "for I meant I
should have been very stupid to marry
you."

" You never had the chance," she said,
returning Le Normand his pebbles with
interest.

" Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel," I
hummed.

At that moment a little pleasure-boat
with two white sails drew near, and pre-
sently slid its keel upon the shingles at our
feet. We had often gone out in this little
boat before. It was a favourite pastime;
and, on very calm days, Le Normand would
strike the mast and sails, and row Ellen

AFTERGLOW. 235

out alone; but now lie turned to me and
said —

" Come, let us have a sail."

I know not why, but I felt a cold shudder
pass through me as I mechanically assented;
all my light-heartedness was gone. "We all
three stepped into the little boat, and then
I ceased to be aware of anything. The
white silvery cloud shut out Le Nbrmand
and Ellen; their voices sounded thin and
faint, and soon died away altogether ; and I
seemed to be lying again in my bed, but
only half conscious, and still enveloped in
the white cloud.

Presently I experienced the same sensa-
tion of travelling on and on. I started. A
terrific clap of thunder burst over my head.
It seemed to rouse me into sudden and

236 ASHES TO ASHES.

intense perception of what was now going
on around me,

I was in the little open boat out at
sea. Ellen, under Le Normand's direc-
tions, was pulling frantically at one oar,
whilst he was pulling the other, and trying
to tear loose the main-sheet that had stuck
and was shuddering, but still stretched
tightly in the wind. The heavens were
black with clouds ; the waves were running
mountains high. I seized the helm, and
tried to keep the prow of our frail craft
facing the breakers. I saw that was our
only chance. Le Normand was pale as
death. Ellen, I could see, was rapidly
growing exhausted ; but she never gave in,
and to the last worked her oar, although I
could see it was being knocked about at the
waves' wild will.

AFTERGLOW. 237

Neither of them seemed to notice me,
although I did them the best service I
could at the helm. Presently, the sail
burst suddenly free, the boat gave a horrible
lurch ; Le Normand fell forward, seizing at
the same time Ellen in his arms. I could
see nothing distinctly after this; my eyes
were filled with foam and spray. A breaker
must have struck the boat and laid her on
her beam ends, for just before the white
cloud settled over me, I caught a glimpse
of the boat floating at some little distance,
bottom upwards.

I could see neither Ellen nor Le Nor-
mand, but I remembered that Le Nbrmand
was a good swimmer.

I was in the chamber of death. There
were others standing round her couch, but

238 ASHES TO ASHES.

they did not seem to be aware of my pre-
sence. I did not pause to reflect upon the
strangeness of this. I seemed to myself
intensely preoccupied. I looked on the
silent form with all the rest, only half
realising that it was the body of Ellen
Morant.

" It is the fourth day," I heard some one
whisper ; " he would not let it go."

The only thing like Ellen about this
changed mass of inanimate matter was the
delicate hand, in which some one had placed
a fresh tiger lily : even that hand had lost
expression, and was of a deadly yellow
waxen hue, — not the white mobile hand,
delicately veined here and there, warm and
rounded. I could not have touched that
other hand. That figure grown almost
angular in its settled stiffness, that face

AFTERGLOW. 239

without a trace of colour, peaked and sad
to look upon, with no sign even of the
memory of life about it, — that is not Ellen,
I would not retain that form as it is ; I
would not follow in imagination the daily-
changes it would now undergo, buried in
the earth. Already it is hideous. Can
that ever remind me of the full, rosy life
that a little while ago made it adorable ?

Who are these people ? What will they
do with this lifeless parody of life ? Why
do they linger around it ? It is too dead
and ghastly to look upon; yet this was
once Ellen Morant.

I turned and met Le Nbrmand, as pale as
death, standing by Ellen's father. I saw,
from a certain commotion in the room, that
something was about to happen. A slight

2 4 o ASHES TO ASHES.

bier, apparently of cedar-wood, was brought
in by two attendants and placed by the side
of the bed ; on to this the body was tenderly
lifted by the bereaved lover and father, — a
white linen cloth covering the face, — and
they bore it themselves out of the room,
and lifted it into a carriage. I recognised
at once the rector's own carriage and pair.
There was nothing changed or unusual
about it : no trace of mourning.

The rector sat on one side, Le Normand
on the other, with their sorrowful burden
resting between them.

The bells were ringing in the Field N of
Kest, — for so I perceived they called the
Cremation-cemetery, — not the dull mono-
tonous toll of the old graveyard funeral
bell, but a musical cadence of bells, such

AFTERGLOW. 241

as floats from the Belgian towers every tea
minutes.

As I approached the cemetery — for I
seemed to be following the body spell-
bound — this sweet cadence of bells kept
rising and falling upon the soft warm wind,
with weird silences between, courting ex-
pectancy. I thought I had never heard
anything so lovely. They called me, those
bells, with their friendly and melodious
voices, to the quiet Field of Eest. I could
. not choose but follow ; and I know not why,
but I began repeating those lines, —

" Oh land, oh land for all the broken-hearted,
The mildest herald by our fate allotted,
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand,
To lead us with a gentle hand,
Into the land of the Great Departed,
Into the silent land ! "

There was no stoppage at the cemetery

B

242 ASHES TO ASHES.

gate. As we entered on either side the
perfume of flowers was wafted to us from
the adjacent graves ; for there were graves
in the Cremation-cemetery, and the more
numerous the graves the more bright was
the earth with flowers, the more deliciously
perfumed the air. I noticed, also, many
tall sunflowers waving their golden fringes
above slabs of marble, alabaster, or por-
phyry, whilst sumptuous dahlias bowed
their magnificent heads caressingly towards
many a sculptured cross.

Many inmates of the Village by the Sea
had gathered to the Field of Eest: they
joined us. The carriage moved through the
whole length of the grounds. "We passed on
either side two immense and stately pyramids,
on the right hand and on the left. Arrived

AFTERGLOW. 243

at a little distance from, the mortuary-
ohapel, at the further end of the grounds
the carriage stopped, and Le Normand, the
rector, and two persons I did not know,
bore upon their shoulders the cedar couch,
the whole being covered with a snow-white
pall strewn with flowers ; and as they ad-
vanced towards the chapel-door, the bells
rang out a sad sweet cadence, and a vener-
able clergyman, whom I recognised as one
of the rector's oldest friends, came out to
meet them, reading in a clear voice, made
singularly impressive by restrained emo-
tion,

"i am the resurrection and the life,
saith the Lord: he that belie veth in

ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE
LIVE : AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BE-
LIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE."

244 ASHES TO ASHES.

The body was then carried into the middle*
of the little gothic chapel and placed on a
raised bier; there it apparently remained
during the remainder of the service, nor
was there any motion or sign of removal
beneath, visible in the snowy pall strewn
with fresh flowers.

No detail escaped me during this touch-
ing ceremony, made more touching by tha
occasional sobs that broke from the little
crowd who had pressed into the chapel,,
amongst whom were Ellen's Sunday-school
teachers and her village children. I iol-r
lowed every inflection and every sentence
of the Prayer-book service : not a sentence
was altered for this Cremation service ; the
only difference was, that, with the excep-
tion of the verses repeated at the entrance

s

AFTERGLOW. 245

to the chapel, the whole of the service was

read under cover, and that, where the words,

"We therefore commit her body to

the ground, — earth to earth, ashes to

ASHES,"

occur, the clergyman read,

"We therefore commit her body to
the ELEMENTS, — earth to earth, ashes

TO ASHES."

It seemed that no other change was
needed to adapt the burial service of the
Book of Prayer to Cremation.

The service at an end, the whole assembly
moved out of the chapel, and, preceded by
the near relatives of the deceased, threaded
their way through flower-beds, past both of
the great pyramids, until they came to a
plot where the turf had been removed,

246 ASHES TO ASHES.

leaving a place very unlike the old in-
humation grave. In the centre of this was.
a graceful urn of alabaster, empty, and
uncovered at the top.

I then remembered how Ellen had ex-
pressed a desire, when we had discussed
the subject with Le Normand, that her
ashes might be buried in the layer of earth
nearest to the surface, and that seeds of
the flowers she loved best might be placed
in the urn along with the ashes.

Whilst a hymn was sung by the school-
children round the grave, those who had
borne the body now lifted the urn and bore
it on an ebony stretcher whilst the proces-
sion moved back again to the mortuary
chapel, still singing the hymn, "Sun of
my Soul," in which every one seemed to
join.

AFTERGLOW. 247

It seemed to me touching and pathetic to
a degree ; but there was absolutely nothing
whatever gloomy about the ceremony from
beginning to end.

Arrived once more at the chapel, those
who had loved her best removed the white
pall and distributed the flowers that covered
it to several friends present. Beneath the
pall, in the place of the cedar bier, there
were a few white pure ashes ; amongst them
might have been a few remaining atoms of
the pulverised cedar on which the body had
lain, for no hand less tender than the nearest
and dearest had touched the mortal remains
of Ellen Morant: as the body had been
placed on the bier, so it had sunk down
and been conveyed by machinery into the
centre of the crematory. "When I thought

248 ASHES TO ASHES.

of this, I remembered her own impulsive
words,

u No more long terrible months, with wind
and mow and rain above, and the lonely
dark prison-house of decay beneath : nothing
but fair golden fire for half an hour, and a
pure white ash — a symbol at once of earth-
life, and heavenly innocence /"

As they gathered up the ashes and de-
posited them in the alabaster urn, and
scattered the seeds of the flowers she best
loved upon them, I felt that her last wishes
about herself had been fulfilled, and that,
having been lovely in life, her poor mortal
envelope had been rendered harmless and
innocent in death.

I seemed still standing in the full

AFTERGLOW. 249

splendour of a refulgent summer morning,
watching the green turf that was being laid
lightly over the low mound above the
inurned remains of the beloved, when the
sweet bells fell upon my ear, and I awoke
suddenly to find the bright morning sun of
real life shining into my bedchamber.

The visions of the night in which I had
realised Le Normand's dream of Cremation
in so startling a form were passed.

I woke to the reality. Le Normand, alas !
was indeed no more; but I felt a sudden
rebound of joy at the thought that neither
was Ellen Morant dead.

XF.

AN EMPTY GRAVE.

OON after the sad events which. I

have been narrating, I received an

invitation to go down and stay a few weeks

with the Morants.

I had not been long in the house before I

became aware that the talk of the place was

the approaching removal of the invaluable

Miss Molesworth from Woodbine Cottage

to a permanent home at the Kectory, as the
second wife of my good friend, the rector.

No more acceptable arrangement could

possibly have been made as regarded the

AN EMPTY GRA VE. 2 5 *

rector, Miss Molesworth, the parish, and
even Ellen, who had from childhood learned
to look up to that clever and genial little*
"woman as to a second mother.

As for me, I found in the scenes as-
sociated with my late friend my best and
sweetest consolations. Ellen made no dis-
guise of the pleasure she now took in my
society. In speaking to me, indeed, she
spoke to one who more nearly than any
living person reflected the mind and the
opinions of Le Normand ; and as time
went on, I got more and more into the
habit of looking upon the Eectory as a kind
of second home.

I sometimes fancied that Miss Morant
had unconsciously begun to regard me with
a feeling which might one day be kindled
into something even more tender than our

2 5 i ASHES TO ASHES.

dear friendship. With such a thought, to
me so fall of ineffable sweetness, I hardly
dared to trust myself; nor was it until long
afterwards, when time had done something
to draw the sting from memories consecrated
to both of us, that I found my wildest
dreams of happiness not beyond my reach.

But as all such personal matters^ are out-
side the purpose of my present narrative, I
need not trouble the reader with what was
then still in the future.

I thought of withholding from the public
one last incident which has made modern
burial for ever detestable in my eyes ; but
the memory of it is still too vivid, its moral
too imperious. I must go back, like one

AN EMPTY GRA VE. 253

who painfully, with, worn feet, threads again
a dangerous and rocky path.

Soon after Le Normand's death I was
visited by a publican, whose house of
business faced the cemetery. He promised,
hoping, doubtless, for a fee, which he duly
received, to impart to me certain intelli-
gence of a startling nature relating to my
dear friend Le Nbrmand.

It appears that, owing to the crowded
state of the cemetery, it had been for some
time past a not-unfrequent practice, after
a respectable funeral, to shovel the earth
lightly over the coffin in the presence of
the mourners, and, upon their departure,
deliberately to unearth the coffin and convey
it to a quarter of the graveyard where only
paupers were supposed to be buried, and

*54 ASHES TO ASHES.

there get rid of the remains as best they
could.* Thus grave-room was continually
found in a paying situation, and one grave
-could be sold over and over again. The
sorrowing relatives, who came to visit what
they believed to be the last resting-places
of their dear ones, thus often shed their
tears over an empty grave or one crowded
with strangers !

The worthy publican, who happened to
know something of me, and whose son had
been very kindly attended in the hospital
by Le Normand, appears to have kept an
interested watch over his tomb, and in due
time beheld his remains dug up in the early
morning and transferred to the motley crowd

* A fact reported to the author, as seen by an eye-
witness, in connection with one of the suburban ceme-
teries.

AN EMPTY GRA VE. 255

of the indistinguishable dead in the pauper
ground!

To recover the body was impossible ; but
I with some difficulty obtained an order to
re-open my friend's grave, and soon satisfied
myself that Le Normand's coffin was gone.

It is in the presence of such facts as these
that decent public opinion is beginning to
turn away sickened from a spectacle of
unparalleled corruption and desecration, and
to sigh for the pure and simple disinfectant
of Fire, the reign of Cremation, and the
Field of Best.

APPENDIX

BEFEBEXCES.

i " Gatherings from Graveyards," by G. A. Walker,
p. 84.

2 Bee a valuable Paper, by W. Eassie, Esq., " On
Cremation/' in British Medical Journal, August 1,
1874.

» The World, Feb. 22, 1874.

* "Gatherings from Graveyards," by G. A. Walker,
p. 199.

> Ibid., p. 202.

• Ibid., p. 155.

7 Quoted as a notorious fact in the current prospectus
of the Woking Necropolis Company, 1874.

." " The ends are either left open or enclosed with
cast-iron ornamental gates." — Superintendent's De-
scription : compare with Act, Victoria 15 and 16, c. 8,
a. 44, "Nobody shall be buried in any vault or

APPENDIX. 257

walled grave unless the coffin be separately entombed in
an air-tight manner — that is, by properly cemented

stone or brick- work."

•

9 See also " Gatherings from Graveyards," pp. 198,
194.

Government Reports, 1850, 1851, on Extramural
Sepulture, presented to the Houses of Parliament.

" Gatherings from Graveyards," by G. A. Walker,
Surgeon. Longman & Co., 1881, &c, &c.

» The World, March 29, 1874, New York.

11 " Gatherings from Graveyards," p. 211.

12 The World, Feb. 22, 1874.

13 Murray's "Handbook for Kent and Sussex,"
pp. 269, 270.

14 W. Eassie, Esq., C.E., " On Cremation," in
British Medical Journal, August 1, 1874.

15 "Cremation des Morts," p. 9, by Dr. Pietra
Santa, Paris.

is Ibid. Also see W. Eassie's Paper as above.

17 See " Cremation," in Iron, vol. iii. No. 5.

18 " Cremation," p. 18, a Pamphlet by Sir Henry
Thompson.

19 "Cremation des Morts" (Pietra Santa), pp. 45, 46.

S

258 APPENDIX.

20 Described in " Cremation des Morts," Pietra
Santa.

21 Cinerro Cineribus. " Ossa cinisque jacent memori
quos mente requiris." — Ovn>, Metam.

22 " Cremation des Morts " (Pietra Santa), p. 25.

23 "Merits of Cremation," The Trans- Atlantic,
vol. ill. No. 1.

21 See 26th Section of Burial Act, 1857.
« See a vast amount of evidence to this effect col-
lected by G. A. Walker, Surgeon, in " Gatherings

from Graveyards."

Etc. etc.

THE PYRAMID AND THE WALL.

[Contributed by the Rev. W. G. Henslow, M.A.]

Let us consider the cemetery to be of a rectangular
shape; say, 605 yards in length and 160 yards in
breadth, which would include exactly 20 acres. Let
there be a wall, 3 feet in thickness, all round it. This
wall would be 4,590 feet in its entire length. Then,
let there be a space for a cloister 6 feet in width,
bounded by an external wall 2 feet thick, and which
would be 2,337 feet in length.

The two walls and the intervening cloister would

APPENDIX. 259

cover an area of about 1 acre 27 square rods, or
1} acre.

Let the walls be 10 feet high. This "will give us,
for the two surfaces of the inner wall, 91,800 square
feet; and for the inner surface of the outer wall,
23,870 square feet ; — that is, in all, a superficial area
of 115,170 square feet.

Of course, certain deductions will have to be made
for doorways, but they would not materially decrease
the area for the reception of urns. No extra surface
need be lost if the cloisters be lighted from above.

The Dimensions op the Pyramid.

If we suppose a pyramid to be constructed of blocks,
each being 1 cubic foot in size, and the bottom layer
to be square and to have ninety-nine such blocks on
every side, the next layer ninety- seven on every side,
and so on, the number of blocks in the sides of the
layers decreasing by two, until the apex, consisting of
a single block, is reached ; then, the number of blocks
will be represented by the following series : —

l 2 -f 3 2 + 5 2 + 9 2 + . . . + 49 2 .

In which the successive numbers " squared " are the
number of blocks in each layer, reckoning from above
downwards. And the "sum" of this series to (n)

260 APPENDIX.

any number of " terms " we may choose to take, is
represented by the " formula " —

i» (4n 3 - 1).

Now, by taking n to be 50, by which we suppose
the pyramid to have 50 layers and to be 50 feet high ;
then the bottom layer will have ninety-nine blocks on
every side, and the total number of cubic blocks in the
pyramid will be 166,650.

Of course, if we give a higher value to w, which
means that the pyramid will consist of more layers and
so cover a larger area, a proportionably larger result
will be obtained.

But as 992, or 99 feet square, is rather less than a
quarter of an acre, such a pyramid, or perhaps two
such, would in all probability answer the purpose
better than one of larger dimensions.

THE END.

FBDTFBD BT YIBTUB AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON.

aSSorfcs i)g tf)e same aut&or.

i.

MUSIC AND MOEALS.

Fifth Edition, with Portrait of the Author. Post 8vo, 12s.

n.

PET;

OR, PASTIMES AND PENALTIES.

With Fifty Illustrations, by M. E. Haweis.

Third Edition, Crown 8vo, 5s.

in.

THOUGHTS FOE THE TIMES.

Ninth Edition.

IV.

SPEECH IN SEASON.

Third Edition,
v.

UNSECTAKIAN FAMILY

PEAYERS.

Second Edition.

POPULAR WORKS.

In neat bindings, 6*. each.

Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood.

ByGEOBOR MacDonald, LL.D.

The Seaboard Parish.

By George MacDonald, LL.D.

Wilfrid Cumbermede.

By Gkobok MacDonald, LL.D.

Health and Education.

By the Boy. Charles Kingbley.

The Starling.

By the late Norman Macleod, D.D. With Illustrations by W. Shall.

Eastward.

Travels in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. By the late No&max Macleod,
D.D. With numerous Illustrations.

Eeminiscences of a Highland Parish.

By the late Norman Macleod, D.D.

Occupations of a Eetired Life.

ByEowABD Gabbett.

Crooked Places.

A Family Chronicle. By Edward Gabbett. With Illustrations.

Premiums Paid to Experience.

By Edward Gabbett.

• The Crust and the Cake.

By Edward Gabbett.

Episodes in an Obscure Life.
Friends and Acquaintances.

By the Author of " Episodes in an Obscure Life."

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL.

POPULAR WORKS.

In neat bindings, 6s. each.

Dorothy Fox.

By Mrs. Parr.

The Sacristan's Household.

By the Author of " Mabel's Progress."

Peasant Life in the North.

By the Author of " Benoni Blake."

De Profundis.

A Tale of the Social Deposits. By William Gilbert.

Doctor Austin's Guests.

By William Gilbert.

A Summer in Skye.

By the late Alexander Smith. With Illustrations by It. T. Pritciiett.

Alfred Hagart's Household.

By the late Alexander Smith.

Forgotten by the World.

By Mrs. Macquoid, Author of "Patty," &c.

Margaret.

By C. C. Eraser Tytler, Author of "Mistress Judith."

The Huguenot Family in the English Village.

By Sarah Tytler. With Illustrations by A. B. Houghton.

" Noblesse Oblige."

An English Story of To-day. By Sarah Tytler.

Lady Bell.

A Story of Last Century. By Sarah Tytler. With Illustrations by
E. W. Macbeth.

Fernyhurst Court.

An Everyday Story. By the Author of " Stone Edge."

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LTJDGATE HILL.

POPULAR WORKS.

In neat bindings, 5s. each.

Town Geology.

By the Bey. Cbables Kixgsley.

Madam How and Lady Why ;

or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children. By the Bey. Charles
Kings ley. With Illustrations.

Noble Workers.

A Book of Examples for Young Men. By H. A. Page. With Portraits.

Golden Lives.

Biographies for the Day. By H. A. Page. With Portraits.

Out and all About.

Fables for Old and Young. By H. A. Page. With 85 Illustrations.

My Mother and I.

By the Author of "John Halifax." With Illustrations by J. McL.
Ralston.

The Little Lame Prince.

By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." With 24 Illustrations
by J. McL. Ralston. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt extra, 5s.

At the Back of the North Wind.

By George MacDonald, LL.D. With Illustrations by Arthur
Hughes.

Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood.

By George MacDonald, LL.D. With Illustrations by Arthur Hughes.

Stories of Venice and the Venetians.

By John B. Marsh. With Illustrations.

Other Folk's Lives.

ByM. B. Smedley. With Frontispiece.

Linnet's Trial.

ByM. B. Smedley. With Frontispiece.

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL.

POPULAR WORKS.

In neat bindings, os. each.

Jasmine Leigh.

ByC. C. Frasrr Tytler, Author of "Mrs. Judith." With Frontispiece.

A French Country Family.

By Madame De Witt (nee Gdizot). Translated by the Author of
" John Halifax." With Illustrations by B. Rivibre.

Papers for Thoughtful Girls.

By Sabah Tytler. With Illustrations by Millais.

Heroines in Obscurity.

A Second Series of " Papers for Thoughtful Girls." By Sarah Tytler .

Citoyenne Jacqueline.

A Woman's Lot in the Great French Revolution. By Sarah Tytler.

Hymns Selected from Faber.
The Queen's English.

*. Notes on Speaking and Spelling. By the late Henry Alford, D.D.

The Character of St. Paul.

By J. S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester.

The Companions of St. Paul.

By J. S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester.

Oulita the Serf.

A Tragedy. By the Author of " Friends in Council."

Heroes of Hebrew History.

By the late Samuel Wilberforce, D.D.

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL.

T

POPULAR WORKS.

In neat bindings, 3*. 6d. each.

Studies for Stories.

By Jk ak Ixoblow. With Illustrations by Mill ais and others.

A Sister's Bye-Hours.

By Jkak Ixgklow. With Frontispiece.

Mopsa the Fairy.

By Jkak Ihoblow. With Illustrations.

The Old Lieutenant and his Son.

By the late Nokmax Macleod, D.D. With Illustrations by Mahonby.

Iona.

By the Duke of Aboyll. With Illustrations.

Dreamthorp.

A Book of Essays written in the Country. By the late Alexander
Smith.

Life in the Woods.

of Canadian
lustrations.

A Story of Canadian Bush life. By Cuxnixgham Geikie, D.D. With
Illi " "

The Story of Dick Whittington,

the Famous Lord Mayor of London. By Jonx B. Mabsii. With
Illustrations.

The Near and the Heavenly Horizons.

By the Countess de Gaspabix.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

By Oliveb Wexdell Holmes. With Illustrations by J. Gobdok
Thomson.

The Regular Swiss Round.

In Three Trips. By the Rev. Habbt Joxes, M.A. With Illustrations
by Whtmpbb.

Notes on England.

By H. Tainb, D.C.L. Translated by W. F. Rak. With an Introduc-
tion by the Translator.

DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL.