Wearing Mourning for the Dead
"What is death?--my sister, say."
"Ask not, brother, breathing clay.
Ask the earth on which we tread,
That silent empire of the dead.
Ask the sea--its myriad waves,
Living, leap o'er countless graves!"
"Earth and ocean answer not,
Life is in their depths forgot."
Ask yon pale extended form,
Unconscious of the coming storm,
That breathed and spake an hour ago,
Of heavenly bliss and penal woe;--
Within yon shrouded figure lies
"The mystery of mysteries!"
S.M.
Among the many absurd customs that the sanction of time and the
arbitrary laws of society have rendered indispensable, there is not one
that is so much abused, and to which mankind so fondly clings, as
that of _wearing mourning for the dead!_--from the ostentatious public
mourning appointed by governments for the loss of their rulers, down to
the plain black badge, worn by the humblest peasant for the death of
parent or child.
To attempt to raise one feeble voice against a practice sanctioned by
all nations, and hallowed by the most solemn religious rites, appears
almost sacrilegious. There is something so beautiful, so poetical, so
sacred, in this outward sign of a deep and heartfelt sorrow, that to
deprive death of his sable habiliments--the melancholy hearse, funeral
plumes, sombre pall, and a long array of drooping night-clad mourners,
together with the awful clangour of the doleful bell--would rob the
stern necessity of our nature of half its terrors, and tend greatly to
destroy that religious dread which is so imposing, and which affords
such a solemn lesson to the living.
Alas! Where is the need of all this black parade? Is it not a reproach
to Him, who, in his wisdom, appointed death to pass upon all men? Were
the sentence confined to the human species, we might have more reason
for these extravagant demonstrations of grief; but in every object
around us we see inscribed the mysterious law of change. The very
mountains crumble and decay with years; the great sea shrinks and grows
again; the lofty forest tree, that has drank the dews of heaven, laughed
in the sunlight, and shook its branches at a thousand storms, yields to
the same inscrutable destiny, and bows its tall forehead to the dust.
Life lives upon death, and death reproduces life, through endless
circles of being, from the proud tyrant man down to the blind worm his
iron heel tramples in the earth. Then wherefore should we hang out this
black banner for those who are beyond the laws of change and chance?
"Yea, they have finish'd:
For them there is no longer any future.
No evil hour knocks at their door
With tidings of mishap--far off are they,
Beyond desire or fear."
It is the dismal adjuncts of death which have invested it with those
superstitious terrors that we would fain see removed. The gloom arising
from these melancholy pageants forms a black cloud, whose dense shadow
obscures the light of life to the living. And why, we ask, should death
be invested with such horror? Death in itself is not dreadful; it is but
the change of one mode of being for another--the breaking forth of the
winged soul from its earthly chrysalis; or, as an old Latin poet has so
happily described it--
"Thus life for ever runs its endless race,
Death as a line which but divides the space--
A stop which can but for a moment last,
A _point_ between the _future_ and the _past_."
Nature presents in all her laws such a beautiful and wonderful harmony,
that it is as impossible for death to produce discord among them, as
for night to destroy, by the intervention of its shadow, the splendour
of the coming day. Were men taught from infancy to regard death as a
natural consequence, a fixed law of their being, instead as an awful
pumshment for sin--as the friend and benefactor of mankind, not the
remorseless tyrant and persecutor--to die would no longer be considered
an evil. Let this hideous skeleton be banished into darkness, and
replaced by a benignant angel, wiping away all tears, healing all
pain, burying in oblivion all sorrow and care, calming every turbulent
passion, and restoring man, reconciled to his Maker, to a state of
purity and peace; young and old would then go forth to meet him with
lighted torches, and hail his approach with songs of thanksgiving and
welcome.
And this is really the case with all but the desperately wicked, who
show that they despise the magnificent boon of life by the bad use they
make of it, by their blasphemous defiance of God and good, and their
unwillingness to be renewed in his image.
The death angel is generally met with more calmness by the dying than
by surviving friends. By the former, the dreaded enemy is hailed as a
messenger of peace, and they sink tranquilly into his arms, with a smile
upon their lips.
The death of the Christian is a beautiful triumph over the fears of
life. In Him who conquered death, and led captivity captive, he finds
the fruition of his being, the eternal blessedness promised to him in
the Gospel, which places him beyond the wants and woes of time. The
death of such a man should be celebrated as a sacred festival, not
lamented as a dreary execution,--as the era of a new birth, not the
extinction of being.
It is true that death is a profound sleep, from which no one can awaken
to tell his dreams. But why on that account should we doubt that it is
less blessed than its twin brother, whose resemblance it bears, and
whose presence we all sedulously court? Invest sleep, however, with the
same dismal garb; let your bed be a coffin, your canopy a pall, your
night-dress a shroud; let the sobs of mourners, and the tolling of bells
lull you to repose,--and few persons would willingly, or tranquilly,
close their eyes to sleep.
And then, this absurd fashion of wearing black for months and years for
the dead; let us calmly consider the philosophy of the thing, its use
and abuse. Does it confer any benefit on the dead? Does it afford any
consolation to the living? Morally or physically, does it produce the
least good? Does it soften one regretful pang, or dry one bitter tear,
or make the wearers wiser or better? If it does not produce any ultimate
benefit, it should be at once discarded as a superstitious relic of more
barbarous times, when men could not gaze on the simple, unveiled face of
truth, but obscured the clear daylight of her glance under a thousand
fantastic masks.
The ancients were more consistent in their mourning than the civilized
people of the present day. They sat upon the ground and fasted, with
rent garments, and ashes strewn upon their heads. This mortification of
the flesh was a sort of penance inflicted by the self-tortured mourner
for his own sins, and those of the dead. If this grief were not of a
deep or lasting nature, the mourner found relief for his mental agonies
in humiliation and personal suffering. He did not array himself in silk,
and wool, and fine linen, and garments cut in the most approved fashion
of the day, like our modern beaux and belles, when they testify to the
public their grief for the loss of relation or friend, in the most
expensive and becoming manner.
Verily, if we must wear our sorrow upon our sleeve, why not return to
the sackcloth and ashes, as the most consistent demonstration of that
grief which, hidden in the heart, surpasseth show.
But, then, sackcloth is a most unmanageable material. A handsome figure
would be lost, buried, annihilated, in a sackcloth gown; it would be so
horribly rough; it would wound the delicate skin of a fine lady; it
could not be confined in graceful folds by clasps of jet, and pearl,
and ornaments in black and gold. "Sackcloth? Faugh!--away with it. It
smells of the knotted scourge and the charnel-house." We, _too_, say, "Away
with it!" True grief has no need of such miserable provocatives to woe.
The barbarians who cut and disfigured their faces for the dead, showed a
noble contempt of the world, by destroying those personal attractions
which the loss of the beloved had taught them to despise. But who now
would have the fortitude and self-denial to imitate such an example?
The mourners in crape, and silk, and French merino, would rather _die
themselves_ than sacrifice their beauty at the shrine of such a monstrous
sorrow.
How often have I heard a knot of gossips exclaim, as some widow of a
gentleman in fallen circumstances glided by in her rusty weeds, "What
shabby black that woman wears for her husband! I should be ashamed to
appear in public in such faded mourning."
And yet, the purchase of that _shabby black_ may have cost the desolate
mourner and her orphan children the price of many a necessary meal. Ah,
this putting of a poor family into black, and all the funeral trappings
for pallbearers and mourners, what a terrible affair it is! what anxious
thoughts! what bitter heartaches it costs!
But the usages of society demand the sacrifice, and it must be made. The
head of the family has suddenly been removed from his earthly toils, at
a most complicated crisis of his affairs, which are so involved that
scarcely enough can be collected to pay the expenses of the funeral, and
put his family into decent mourning, but every exertion must be made to
do this. The money that might, after the funeral was over, have paid the
rent of a small house, and secured the widow and her young family from
actual want, until she could look around and obtain some situation in
which she could earn a living for herself and them, must all be sunk in
conforming to a useless custom, upheld by pride and vanity in the name
of grief.
"How will the funeral expenses ever be paid?" exclaims the anxious,
weeping mother. "When it is all over, and the mourning bought, there
will not remain a single copper to find us in bread." The sorrow of
obtaining this useless outward show of grief engrosses all the available
means of the family, and that is expended upon the dead which might,
with careful management, have kept the living from starving. Oh, vanity
of vanities! there is no folly on earth that exceeds the vanity of this!
There are many persons who put off their grief when they put on their
mourning, and it is a miserable satire on mankind to see these
somber-clad beings in festal halls mingling with the gay and happy,
their melancholy garments affording a painful contrast to light
laughter, and eyes sparkling with pleasure.
Their levity, however, must not be mistaken for hypocrisy. The world is
in fault, not they. Their grief is already over,--gone like a cloud
from before the sun; but they are forced to wear black for a _given
time_. They are true to their nature, which teaches them that "no
grief with man is permanent," that the storms of to-day will not darken
the heavens to-morrow. It is complying with a _lying custom_ makes
them _hypocrites_; and, as the world always judges by appearances,
it so happens that by adhering to one of its conventional rules,
appearances in this instance are against them.
Nay, the very persons who, in the first genuine outburst of natural
grief besought them to moderate their sorrow, to dry their tears, and be
comforted for the loss they had sustained, are among the _first_ to
censure them for following advice so common and useless. Tears are as
necessary to the afflicted as showers are to the parched earth, and are
the best and sweetest remedy for excessive grief.
To the mourner we would say--Weep on; nature requires your tears. They
are sent in mercy by Him who wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus.
The man of sorrows himself taught us to weep.
We once heard a very beautiful volatile young lady exclaim, with
something very like glee in her look and tone, after reading a letter
she had received by the post, with its ominous black bordering and
seal--"Grandmamma is dead! We shall have to go into deep mourning.
I am so glad, for black is so becoming to me!"
An old aunt, who was present, expressed her surprise at this indecorous
avowal; when the young lady replied, with great _naivete_--"I never
saw grandmamma in my life. I cannot be expected to feel any grief for
her death."
"Perhaps not," said the aunt. "But why, then, make a show of that which
you do not feel?"
"Oh, it's the custom of the world. You know we must. It would be
considered _shocking_ not to go into very _deep_ mourning for such a
near relation."
The young lady inherited a very nice legacy, too, from her grandmamma;
and, had she spoken the truth, she would have said, "I cannot weep for
joy."
Her mourning, in consequence, was of the deepest and most expensive
kind; and she really did look charming in her "love of a black crape
bonnet!" as she skipped before the glass, admiring herself and it, when
it came home fresh from the milliner's.
In contrast to the pretty young heiress, we knew a sweet orphan girl
whose grief for the death of her mother, to whom she was devotedly
attached, lay deeper than this hollow tinsel show; and yet the painful
thought that she was too poor to pay this mark of respect to the memory
of her beloved parent, in a manner suited to her birth and station,
added greatly to the poignancy of her sorrow.
A family who had long been burthened with a cross old aunt, who was a
martyr to rheumatic gout, and whose violent temper kept the whole house
in awe, and whom they dared not offend for fear of her leaving her
wealth to strangers, were in the habit of devoutly wishing the old lady
a happy release from her sufferings. When this long anticipated event at
length took place, the very servants were put into the deepest mourning.
What a solemn farce--we should say, lie--was this!
The daughters of a wealthy farmer had prepared everything to attend the
great agricultural provincial show. Unfortunately, a grandfather to
whom they all seemed greatly attached died most inconveniently the day
before, and as they seldom keep a body in Canada over the second day, he
was buried early in the morning of the one appointed for their journey.
They attended the remains to the grave, but after the funeral was over
they put off their black garments and started for the show, and did not
resume them again until after their return. People may think this very
shocking, but it was not the laying aside the black that was so, but the
fact of their being able to go from a grave to a scene of confusion and
gaiety. The black clothes had nothing to do with this want of feeling,
which would have remained the same under a black or a scarlet vestment.
A gentleman in this neighbourhood, since dead, who attended a public
ball the same week that he had seen a lovely child consigned to the
earth, would have remained the same heartless parent dressed in the
deepest sables.
No instance that I have narrated of the business-like manner in
which Canadians treat death, is more ridiculously striking than the
following:--
The wife of a rich mechanic had a brother lying, it was supposed, at
the point of death. His sister sent a note to me, requesting me to
relinquish an engagement I had made with a sewing girl in her favour, as
she wanted her immediately to make up her mourning, the doctor having
told her that her brother could not live many days.
"Mrs. --- is going to be beforehand with death," I said, as I gave the
girl the desired release. "I have known instances of persons being too
late with their mourning to attend a funeral, but this is the first time
I ever heard of it being made in anticipation."
After a week the girl returned to her former employment.
"Well, Anne, is Mr. --- dead?"
"No, ma'am, nor likely to die this time; and his sister is so vexed that
she bought such expensive mourning, and all for no purpose!"
The brother of this provident lady is alive to this day, the husband of
a very pretty wife, and the father of a family, while she, poor body,
has been consigned to the grave for more than three years.
During her own dying illness, a little girl greatly disturbed her sick
mother with the noise she made. Her husband, as an inducement to keep
the child quiet, said, "Mary, if you do not quit that, I'll whip you;
but if you keep still like a good girl, you shall go to ma's funeral."
An artist cousin of mine was invited, with many other members of the
Royal Academy, to attend the funeral of the celebrated Nollekens the
sculptor. The party filled twelve mourning coaches, and were furnished
with silk gloves, scarfs, and hatbands, and a dinner was provided after
the funeral was over at one of the large hotels. "A merrier set than we
were on that day," said my cousin, "I never saw. We all got jovial, and
it was midnight before any of us reached our respective homes. The whole
affair vividly brought to my mind that description of the 'Gondola,'
given so graphically by Byron, that it
'Contain'd much fun,
Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done.'"
Some years ago I witnessed the funeral of a young lady, the only child
of very wealthy parents, who resided in of Bedford-square. The heiress
of their enviable riches was a very delicate, fragile-looking girl, and
on the day that she attained her majority her parents gave a large
dinner party, followed by a ball in the evening, to celebrate the event.
It was during the winter; the night was very cold, the crowded rooms
overheated, the young lady thinly but magnificently clad. She took
a chill in leaving the close ballroom for the large, ill-warmed
supper-room, and three days after, the hope of these rich people lay
insensible on her bier.
I heard from every one that called upon Mrs. L---, the relative and
friend with whom I was staying, of the magnificent funeral would be
given to Miss C---. Ah, little heeded that pale crushed flower of
yesterday, the pomp that was to convey her from the hot-bed of luxury to
the cold, damp vault of St. Giles's melancholy looking church! I stood
at Mrs. L---'s window, which commanded a view of the whole square, to
watch the procession pass up Russell-street to the place of interment.
The morning was intensely cold, and large snow-flakes fell lazily and
heavily to the earth. The poor dingy sparrows, with their feathers
ruffled up, hopped mournfully along the pavement in search of food;
they,
"In spite of all their feathers, were a-cold."
The mutes that attended the long line of mourning coaches stood
motionless, leaning on their long staffs wreathed with white, like so
many figures that the frost-king had stiffened into stone. The hearse,
with its snowy plumes, drawn by six milk-white horses, might have served
for the regal car of his northern majesty, so ghost-like and chilly
were its sepulchral trappings. At length the coffin, covered with black
velvet, and a pall lined with white silk and fringed with silver, was
borne from the house and deposited in the gloomy depths of the stately
hearse. The _hired_ mourners, in their sable dresses and long white
hatbands and scarfs, rode slowly forward mounted on white horses, to
attend this bride of death to her last resting place. The first three
carriages that followed contained the family physician and surgeon, a
clergyman, and the male servants of the house, in deep sables. The
family carriage too was there, but _empty_, and of a procession in which
145 private carriages made a conspicuous show, all but those enumerated
above were _empty_. Strangers drove strange horses to that vast funeral,
and _hired servants_ were the only members of the family that conducted
the last scion of that family to the grave. Truly, it was the most
dismal spectacle we ever witnessed, and we turned from it sick at heart,
and with eyes moist with tears not shed for the dead, for she had
escaped from this vexatious vanity, but from the heartless mockery of
all this fictitious woe.
The expense of such a funeral probably involved many hundred pounds,
which had been better bestowed on charitable purposes.
Another evil arising out of this absurd custom, is the high price
attached to black clothing, on account of the necessity that compels
people to wear it for so long a period after the death of a near
relation, making it a matter of still greater difficulty for the poorer
class to comply with the usages of society.
"But who cares about the poor, whether they go into mourning for their
friends or no? it is a matter of no consequence."
Ah, there it is. And this is not the least forcible argument we have to
advance against this useless custom. If it becomes a moral duty for
the rich to put on black for the death of a friend, it must be morally
necessary for the poor to do the same. We see no difference in the
degrees of moral feeling; the soul of man is of no rank, but of equal
value in our eyes, whether belonging to rich or poor. But this usage is
so general, and the neglect of it considered such a disgrace, that it
leaves a very wide door open for the entrance of false pride.
Poverty is an evil which most persons, however humble their stations may
be, most carefully endeavour to conceal. To avoid an exposure of their
real circumstances, they will deprive themselves of the common
necessaries of life, and incur debts which they have no prospect of
paying, rather than allow their neighbours to suspect that they cannot
afford a _handsome funeral_ and good _mournings_ for any
deceased member of their family. If such persons would but follow the
dictates of true wisdom, honesty, and truth, no dread of the opinion of
others should tempt them to do what they cannot afford. Their grief for
the dead would not be less sincere if they followed the body of the
beloved in their ordinary costume to the grave; nor is the spectacle
less imposing divested of all the solemn foppery which attends the
funeral of persons who move in respectable society.
Some years ago, when it was the fashion in England (and may be it
remains the fashion still) to give black silk scarfs and hatbands at
funerals, mean and covetous persons threw themselves in the way of
picking up these stray loaves and fishes. A lady, who lived in the same
town with me after I was married, boasted to me that her husband (who
always contrived to be a necessary attendant on such occasions) found
her in all the black silk she required for articles of dress, and that
he had not purchased a pair of gloves for many years.
About two years before old King George the Third died, a report got
about that he could not survive many days. There was a general rush
among all ranks to obtain mourning. Up went the price of black goods;
Norwich crapes and bombazines rose ten per cent, and those who were able
to secure a black garment at any price, to shew their loyalty, were
deemed very fortunate. And after all this fuss, and hurry, and
confusion, the poor mad old king disappointed the speculators in sables,
and lived on in darkness and mental aberration for two whole years. The
mourning of some on that occasion was _real_, not imaginary. The sorrow
with them was not for the _kings' death_, but that he had _not died_.
On these public occasions of grief, great is the stir and bustle in
economical families, who wish to show a decent concern for the death of
the monarch, but who do not exactly like to go to the expense of buying
new clothes for such a short period as a court mourning. All the old
family stores are rummaged carefully over, and every stuff gown, worn
ribbon, or shabby shawl, that can take a black dye, is handed over to
the vat; and these second-hand black garments have a more _mournful
appearance_ than the glossy suits of the gay and wealthy, for it is
actually humiliating to wear such, as they are both unbecoming to the
young and old. Black, which is the most becoming and convenient colour
for general wear, especially to the old and middle-aged; would no longer
be regarded with religious horror as the type of mortality and decay,
but would take its place on the same shelf with the gay tints that form
the motley groups in our handsome stores. Could influential people be
found to expose the folly and vanity of this practice, and refuse to
comply with its demands, others would soon be glad to follow their
example, and, before many years, it would sink into contempt and disuse.
If the Americans, the most practical people in the world, would but once
take up the subject and publicly lecture on its absurdity, this dismal
shadow of a darker age would no longer obscure our streets and scare our
little ones. Men would wear their grief in their hearts and not around
their hats; and widows would be better known by their serious deportment
than by their weeds. I feel certain that every thinking person, who
calmly investigates the subject, will be tempted to exclaim with me,
"Oh, that the good sense of mankind would unite in banishing it for ever
from the earth!"
The Song Of Faith.
"House of clay!--frail house of clay!
In the dust thou soon must lie;
Spirit! spread thy wings--away,
Strong in immortality;
To worlds more bright
Oh wing thy flight,
To win the crown and robe of light.
"Hopes of dust!--false hopes of dust!
Smiling as the morning fair;
Why do we confiding trust
In trifles light as air?
Like flowers that wave
Above the grave,
Ye cheer, without the power to save.
"Joys of earth!--vain joys of earth!
Sandy your foundations be;
Mortals overrate your worth,
Sought through life so eagerly.
Too soon we know
That tears must flow,--
That bliss is still allied to woe!
"Human love!--fond human love!
We have worshipp'd at thy shrine;
Envying not the saints above,
While we deem'd thy power divine.
But ah, thy light,
So wildly bright,
Is born of earth to set in night.
"Love of heaven!--love of heaven!
Let us pray for thine increase;
Happiness by thee is given,
Hopes and joys that never cease.
With thee we'll soar
Death's dark tide o'er,
Where earth can stain the soul no more."