“Let me be placed in my coffin,” wrote an artist in Paris, “as quickly as possible after my death, and let nobody outside the household be admitted to my death chamber before I am placed in the coffin. In a word I do not wish anybody to attend through curiosity to see how I look. Let no portrait or photograph be made of my corpse, and let me be buried in the shortest time possible. And do not weep for me. I have lived a life happy enough; the aim of my life was my painting, and I gave all of which I was capable. I might have lived another twenty years, but should not have progressed any more, so what would have been the good? And how content I should be if no one wears the marks of mourning. I always had a horror of this show, so if you cannot do otherwise, then wear the least of it possible.” Thought and care for those who are to “have the pleasure of surviving” add here and there pathetic touches. Mary Horne in 1784 wrote an informal will, of which this is the dominant note. “My dear Sister, being very desirous of giving you as little trouble at my death as possible shall make no will, being well assured you’ll strictly observe and comply with this my last request, which is that I may be decently interred according to the enclosed directions.... My desire is that I may be kept as long as possible before I am buried, and to lay as near my dear father and mother in the parish church of Swindon as conveniently to be done, and if not attended with much trouble. I would have no shroud but combed wool: to be carried by six poor men of the town, and to each half a guinea given and a strong pair of gloves: the pall flung over me which belongs to the clerk, and no one invited to the funeral, but a pair of the best kid gloves sent to all in the town who I visited.... To those who have the trouble of laying me out and being in the room with me after I am dead a guinea to each and a good pair of gloves.” As this was dated September 29, 1784, and proved on October 6th, the good lady must have written it within a day or two or an hour or two of death: it is legitimate to believe that she was as loath to give trouble in her life as after death, and that “all in the town whom she visited” were her mourners.