OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



but there are various degrees of fitness in the 

 trees at command. The yew and the compact- 

 headed Austrian pine, and the balsam fir are 

 always in their sables ; even the much-degraded 

 Lombardy poplar, in full vigor, carries a cere- 

 monious, self-possessed stiffness not unbefit- 

 ting; while the glittering leaved beech, and 

 hornbeam, on the contrary, with their ceaseless, 

 idle flutter, are the most unseemly of chatter- 

 boxes. The ash, again, without liveliness of 

 color has great dignity of carriage, and in its 

 half mourning of autumn purple is one of the 

 stateliest and fittest of attendants. 



I know there is a philosophy which denies 

 the propriety of seeking for, or multiplying any 

 solemn symbols in connection with death, or 

 the places where the dead lie; which believes 

 in opening wide and laughing landscapes 

 around graves, and in smothering all memory 

 of the short-lived, funeral black under the gay- 

 est of colors. It seems to me, however, that so 

 far as such a philosophy puts its meddlesome 

 liveliness upon church-yards and tombs, it is 

 only a gay hypocrisy. Death is always death ; 

 and the place where the dead lie, always Gol- 

 gotha. The real grief that goes thither with 

 its bitterness, will be put down by no pelting 

 of bright colors, and mock grief may be 



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