House and Garden 
ravine is so thickly overgrown with trees 
and bushes that its presence is hardly sus¬ 
pected, though by merely clearing a way to 
it an uninteresting spot might become a pic¬ 
ture. There are sanitary reasons against 
close encroachment on the banks—considera¬ 
tion for the living who may use the water, as 
well as the propriety of avoiding danger to 
the graves from spring freshets, but as a 
scenic adjunct, the mountain rill, dividing 
the cemetery, maybe, and crossed by a rustic 
bridge, would heighten the outward charm 
without causing the slightest discord in re¬ 
spect to sentiment. For what a beautiful 
picture we find in the mountain brook ! 
Water makes itself the focus of almost any 
view by its motion and light. The brown 
and silver torrent, issuing from its caves of 
coolness under the roots of a perfumed 
wood, tumbles over mossy boulders and 
slanting ledges, carrying music as it seeks 
the liberty of the fields. Frees lean above 
it and shelter it lovingly from the too fervid 
sun—a kindness that the brook repays in sap 
and heart for each of them. Why may not 
the farmer avail himself of such a service and 
choose for his rest a spot where he may hear 
its lullaby and where the natural loveliness 
will always be the richer for its neighboring? 
An almost universal mistake is the failure 
to employ the country rock in constructions 
of the cemetery. It is not all stone that can 
be lent to mortuary purposes, but marble, 
slate, sandstone and granite will do, and 
quartzite and porphyry will doubtless answer 
as well. Yet, how common it is to find that 
in a slate country the inhabitant who has 
buried a wife sends to a marble quarry for her 
gravestone, and that in a sandstone country 
nothing will do for a monument but granite. 
Especially lamentable is the assembling into 
one little spot of red and gray granite, 
white and clouded marble, serpentine, 
blue and gray slate, red, brown and yel¬ 
low sandstone, in slabs, columns, spires, 
obelisks, boxes, pyramids, couches, lambs, 
crosses, sheaves—the veriest hodge-podge of 
shapes and colors and textures. Crude 
tastes want contrasts; wise ones demand 
harmony. And in any kind of country we 
are sure to find the “real elegant grave¬ 
stone” of cement, and the modern atrocity 
of cast iron. Wood is more to be respected 
than these make-believes, for, though cheap 
and humble, it does not pretend to be what it 
is not, and it often lasts as long as the memory 
of the person whose name is writ upon it. 
If a church or chapel is to stand in or 
near the cemetery it should be of the native 
stone, as should be most of the monuments, 
though granite will suit with a slate country; 
and if there is to be white on church and 
THE SHADELESS BURIAL PLACE Star Island, New Hampshire 
2 + 9 
