Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/235

Rh the circles of purgatory, nor just simply under the earth. . ..

We know that they exist and are alive, and the knowledge is of that more certain kind that does not spring from our mentality but is felt in our bodies. The grief we have when sons or daughters or fathers or mothers die is a physical anguish, and is akin to the pains of birth. Some one has been cut off, deceased—cut off from us. Even in a dream to lose one of those nearest to us is to suffer a sort of physical mortification, to weep senselessly, lose control of nerves, and be prostrated.

The fact is we are all one. Even the death of some one who is quite remote jars upon the soul.

We were talking one evening of death and some one said to me:

}". . . to die and go we know not where,

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,

—that is what I fear in death. They tell me I am a pagan, but I feel the dead are under the earth. I hate to think of lying in a damp churchyard and decaying all alone, through days and nights and spring rains, summer storms, autumn winds, winter snows. The rain must be terrible for the dead—to be all wet and old like a fallen leaf."

Another said he did not mind the idea of lying under the earth in the rain and changing into mould. It was gentle and restful. And it was beautiful too, for flowers would rise from where the body slept. One recalled the lines: