220 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



mains long an humble but eloquent epitaph of him who 

 left no other record behind. In peaceful villages we see 

 neither gorgeous monuments, nor lofty trees rising in honor 

 of the dead and, we fear, as frequently in praise of the 

 living but, sweeter far, the graves are covered with green 

 sod or humble flowers. " We adorn graves," says gentle 

 Evelyn, "with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems 

 of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy 

 Scripture to those fading beauties, whose roots being 

 buried in dishonor, rise again in glory." 



The Japanese deck with flowers their " eternal mansion," 

 and the Turks perforate the monumental slabs spread on 

 those who shall be seen no more, in order that a natural 

 growth of bloom may spring up through the apertures, 

 and that the buds, so nourished by the grave, and set free 

 to the winds of heaven, may shed their fragrance and 

 strew their petals around the "city of silence." The 

 western traveller gazes with deep sympathy upon the 

 grave of the Chinese ; it is a simple, conical mound of 

 earth, but over it spread and twine wild roses and cover 

 it with a mass of pure white blossoms, or it is crowned, 

 in simple majesty, with a tall tuft of waving grass. Our 

 cities, also, now love to bury their dead where woods un- 

 fold their massive foliage and breathe an air of heaven ; 

 their better taste has made the green grove and the velvet 

 lawn sacred to the memory of those that are gone to 

 the realms of peace. 



And what eloquent mourners are not trees ! The dense 

 cone of the cypress overshadows mournfully the Moslem's 

 tomb, with its sculptured turban, and the terebinth keeps 



