Digital heart book

A monument should at least be "star-y-pointing,"
to indicate whither the spirit is gone, and not prostrate, like
the body it has deserted. There have been some nations who could
do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces
which they have left. They are the heathen. But why these
stones, so upright and emphatic, like exclamation-points? What
was there so remarkable that lived? Why should the monument be
so much more enduring than the fame which it is designed to
perpetuate,--a stone to a bone? "Here lies,"--"Here lies";--why
do they not sometimes write, There rises? Is it a monument to
the body only that is intended? "Having reached the term of his
_natural_ life";--would it not be truer to say, Having reached
the term of his _unnatural_ life? The rarest quality in an
epitaph is truth. If any character is given, it should be as
severely true as the decision of the three judges below, and not
the partial testimony of friends. Friends and contemporaries
should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity
to write the epitaph.


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