A Thousand-Mile W alk 
On no subject are our ideas more warped and 
pitiable than on death. Instead of the sym- 
pathy, the friendly union, of life and death so 
apparent in Nature, we are taught that death 
is an accident, a deplorable punishment for 
the oldest sin, the arch-enemy of life, etc. 
Town children, especially, are steeped in this 
death orthodoxy, for the natural beauties of 
death are seldom seen or taught in towns. 
Of death among our own species, to say 
nothing of the thousand styles and modes of 
murder, our best memories, even among happy 
deaths, yield groans and tears, mingled with 
morbid exultation; burial companies, black in 
cloth and countenance; and, last of all, a black 
box burial in an ill-omened place, haunted by 
imaginary glooms and ghosts of every degree. 
Thus death becomes fearful, and the most 
notable and incredible thing heard around a 
death-bed is, “I fear not to die.” 
But let children walk with Nature, let them 
see the beautiful blendings and communions of 
death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, 
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