Camping among the "Tombs 



as taught in woods and meadows, plains and 

 mountains and streams of our blessed star, and 

 they will learn that death is stingless indeed, 

 and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has 

 no victory, for it never fights. All is divine 

 harmony. 



Most of the few graves of Bonaventure are 

 planted with flowers. There is generally a mag- 

 nolia at the head, near the strictly erect marble, 

 a rose-bush or two at the foot, and some violets 

 and showy exotics along the sides or on the 

 tops. All is enclosed by a black iron railing, 

 composed of rigid bars that might have been 

 spears or bludgeons from a battlefield in Pan- 

 demonium. 



It is interesting to observe how assiduously 

 Nature seeks to remedy these labored art blun- 

 ders. She corrodes the iron and marble, and 

 gradually levels the hill which is always heaped 

 up, as if a sufficiently heavy quantity of clods 

 could not be laid on the dead. Arching grasses 

 come one by one ; seeds come flying on downy 

 wings, silent as fate, to give life's dearest beauty 

 [71 ] 



