Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took a pathway to the left,
which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep
shade of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow
mingled, interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle.
I now stood in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step
awakened a new train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my
eye caught the name of some one whose glory had exalted the character
of his native land, and resounded across the waters of the Atlantic.
Philosophers, historians, musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by
side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath
the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science,
the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried
courage, the inspiration of the lyre--where are they? With the living,
and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the
grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still lives to
reproduce itself in ages yet to come.
Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid
monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of
men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrances of
posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary
of genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of
the great? That was no thoroughfare of business--no mart of gain! There
were no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries,
nor obsequious attendants!....
I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or
curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow,
overhung with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an
elevation, from which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught
glimpses of the city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the
hill, where the poor lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and
takes but a short lease of the narrow house. At the end of a few
months, or at most of a few years, the tenant is dislodged to give
place to another, and he in turn to a third. "Who," says Sir Thomas
Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried?
Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?"
Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy
in decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with
a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there
was hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden
cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I
could perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant
a shrub on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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