[194] accounted for easily enough ;--no explanation need be given of them here. Nor will the reader require to be reminded of the better qualities with which, in the usual order of things, and as a matter almost of moral necessity, they are commonly connected. Still, however, the feeling in question — the want of feeling, I am tempted to call it-must be set down against us as a “fault.” Undeniable at least it is, that one of the most attractive and prepossessing of all the minor virtues of a community,--the gentler graces I have spoken of as neglected by ourselves — is a thoughtful and tender care for the departed. I will not enlarge on this subject, so far as we are concerned. Much, in illustration of my meaning, and in confirmation of the justice of these general strictures, might be said concerning the condition in which the grave-yards of this country are too frequently kept;--of their repulsiveness in too many cases, of their unattractiveness in almost all. But the details would be sadly disagreeable; and if, in the course of these sketches of mine, I can hope to suggest to any mind any impression which may help ever so little to improve the state of things I refer to, I trust that what has already been said directly to the purpose, with the allusions which may occur in the sequel, will be sufficient for the end. I bear in mind, too, that an improvement is already going on. We are not, in our mortuary observances, quite so heathenish as we have been;--so Turkish, I was going to say, but that would be a libel which a comparatively amiable people do not deserve;--so altogether “practical,” that is the American version of this characteristic. The feeling in which the beautiful establishment at
