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26 the dim, excluded light—the stealthy steps, the whispering voices—faces with a strange, because necessary, gravity—and, whether it be those bowed down with real affliction, or those whose only feeling can be the general awe of death, all differing from their ordinary selves. And, with one of life's most usual, yet most painful contrasts—while the persons are so much changed, yet the things remain the same. The favourite chair, never to be filled again by its late occupier—the vacant place at table—a picture, perhaps now with more of life than its original—the thousand trifles that recall some taste or habit—and all these things so much more deeply felt when no long illness has already thrown events out of their usual circle, already broken in upon all old accustomed ways. When he who is now departed was amongst us but yesterday—when there has been, as it were, but a step from the fireside to the deathbed—a surprise and a shock add to the sorrow which takes us so unawares. And then the common events that fill up the day in domestic life—the provision for the living made in the presence of the dead; in one room a dinner, in the other a coffin—that strange mixture of ordinary occurrence