A mortal, deeply-afflicted hearers, may sink into the next world, without having a mourning-steed prance after him, just as he makes his entrance into this, without having a festive-nag trot before him. We, for our part, have jointly taken the _funeral-cup_ beforehand, in order to be able to go through it all; for man expands by moistening, and shrinks up when he is dry, I mean, when he takes only solid food, like the bloodsucker, which, when out of water, loses four inches in length. And I hope I and the deeply afflicted funeral-procession have _toasted_ the deceased sufficiently. "And so then I see before me" ... --Here he beckoned to the Parson to toss out his nightcap, that something death-like might lie there on which his emotion could "vent itself-- "I see lying before me him, the never-to-be-forgotten Mr. Court-Physician, Sebastian Victor von Horion, and dead he is and is about to go down under the covering of earth, into the place full of long repose. What do we see still lying at rest before us but the diving-bell, wherein the covered soul descended into this vapory life,--what but the dry shell of a kernel which is sown for the first time in a second planet,--what but his hull,--what but (so to speak) the cast-off nightcap of his awakened spirit? "Behold, weeping hearers, this emblematic pale cap! Here it lies, the head is out of it, which once mused therein. Our Victor is gone and is hushed, who talked so often of mathematics, clinical medicine, heraldry, precautionary jurisprudence, _medicina forensis_, Sphragistics and their auxiliary sciences. We have lost much in him--who shall console you for this loss, excellent Herr von Schleunes, and the other gentlemen likewise? One has not however, absolutely, in this absurd life, which may well be a sort of ante-death, time enough to administer proper consolation. Not merely church-pews are often built on tombstones, but also princely chairs--_they_ particularly--and even pulpits.