e usually contain. This was the memento of a
husband's regret, and, as such, touching, however vain: a delicate form
drooping on a bier, at whose head stood an angel, with an infant in his
arms, which he raised to heaven with an air of triumph; while at the
foot of the death-bed a figure knelt, in all the relaxed abandonment of
woe. Marvellously, and out of small means, the chisel had conveyed this
impression; for the kneeling figure was mantled from head to foot, and
had its face hidden in the folds of the drapery which skirted the
bier,--veiled, like the face of the tortured father in the old tragic
tale.

While I gazed, I insensibly approached the still group; and while musing
what manner of grief it might be, which could solace by perpetuating its
mere image, I observed two other persons, whose entrance I had not been
aware of, but whose attention was evidently directed to what had
attracted mine. They were a lady and a gentleman, and the latter seemed
actually supporting the former, who leaned heavily upon his arm, as it
appeared from her manner of carriage, so weakly and wearily she stood.
Her form was extremely slight, and the outline of her countenance sharp
from attenuation, and in that uncertain light, or rather shade, she
looked almost as pale as the carved faces before us. The gentleman, who
was of a stately height, bent over her with an anxious air, while she
gazed fixedly upon the monument. Her silence seemed to oppress him, for
after a minute or two he asked her whether it was not very beautiful.
"You know," she answered, in one of those low voices that are more
impressive than the loudest, "You know I always suspect those memorials.
I would rather have a niche in the heart."

They passed on, and left me standing there. I know not whether the
fragile speaker has earned the monument she desired, whether those
feeble footsteps have found their repose,--"a quiet conscience in a
quiet breast,"--but her words struck me, and I have often thought of
them since.

There is always something which seems less than the intention in a
monument to heroism or to goodness, the patriot of the country, or the
missionary of civilization. Every one feels that the graves of War, the
many in the one, where link is welded to link in the chain of glory, are
more sublime, more sacred, than the exceptional mausoleum. Every one has
been struck with repugnant melancholy in the city church-yard, where
tomb presses against tomb, and