Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
History
Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)
Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
Death; Funeral rites and ceremonies; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- United States
The will, as my informant states, upon the authority of Mr. John Page,
coming to the knowledge of Peter, he was so much pleased with the humor of
it, that, probably, having a knowledge of the _testator_ before, he sent
for him, and made him his agent, at Canso.
Peter was a kind-hearted man. The gentleman who gave me the fact,
concerning the high-heeled shoe, informed me, upon his father's authority,
that old Andrew Faneuil--the same, who, in his will, prays God, for "_the
perfecting of his charities_"--put a poor, old, schoolmaster, named
Walker, into jail, for debt. Imprisonment then, for debt, was a serious
and lingering affair. Peter, in the flesh--not his angel--privately paid
the poor man's debt, and set the prisoner free.
No. CXXXVII.
Those words of Horace were the words of soberness and truth--_Oh
imitatores, vulgum pecus!_--I loathe imitators and imitations of all
sorts. How cheap must that man feel, who awakens _hesterno vitio_, from
yesterday's debauch, on _imitation_ gin or brandy! Let no reader of the
Transcript suppose, that I am so far behind the times, as to question the
respectability of being drunk, on the real, original Scheidam or Cogniac,
whether at funerals, weddings, or ordinations. But I consider _imitation_
gin or brandy, at a funeral, a point blank insult to the corpse.
Everybody knows, that old oaks, old friendships, and old mocha must
grow--they cannot be made. My horse is frightened, nearly out of his
harness, almost every day of his life, by the hissing and jetting of the
steam, and the clatter of the machinery, as I pass a manufactory, or
grindery, of _imitation_ coffee. _Imitation_ coffee! What would my old
friend, Melli Melli, the Tunisian ambassador, with whom--long, long ago--I
have taken a cup of his own particular, once and again, at Chapotin's
Hotel, in Summer Street, say to such a thing as this!
This grindery is located, in an Irish neighborhood, and there used to be a
great number of Irish children thereabouts. The number has greatly
diminished of late. I know not why, but, as I passed, the other day, the
story that Dickens tells of the poor sausage-maker, whose broken buttons,
among the sausage meat, revealed his unlucky destiny, came forcibly to
mind. By the smell, I presume, there is a roastery, connected with the
establishment; and, now I think of it, the atmosphere, round about, is
filled with the odor of roast pig--a little overdone.
Good things, of all sorts, have stimulated the imitative powers of man,
from the diamond to the nutmeg. Even death--and death is a good thing to
him, whose armor of righteousness is on, _cap-a-pie_--death has been
occasionally imitated; and really, now and then, the thing has been very
cleverly done. I refer not to cases of catalepsy or trance, nor to cases
of total suspension of sensibility and voluntary motion, for a time, under
the agency of sulphuric ether, or chloroform.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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