rry at twenty-one. But he that is now deceased was once full of hope
and strength (at fourteen), and in the brave days of twenty-one did he,
that is now struck down, plight his troth. So, doubtless, runs the
thought in that intimate phrase so dear to country papers, "the
deceased."

And there are no funerals in the country. That is a word, funeral, of
too forbidding, ominous, a sound to be under the broad and open sky.
There where the neighbours gather, all those who knew and loved the
departed from a boy, the "last sad rites are read," and the "mortuary
services are performed." Then from the fruitful valley where he dwelt
after his fathers, and their fathers, he mounts again the old red hill,
bird enchanted.

He is not buried, though he rests in the warm clasp of the caressing
earth. Buried has an inhuman sound, as though a man were a bone. The
deceased is always "interred," or he may be "laid to rest," or his
"interment takes place."

Now, it is in these biographical annals of small places that one finds
the justest estimates of life. There folks are valued for what they
are as well as for what they do. Inner worth is held in regard equally
with the flash and glitter of what the great world calls success. I
was reading just the other day of a late gentleman, "aged 61," whose
principal concern appeared to be devotion to his family. His filial
feeling was indeed remarkable. It was told that "after the death of
his parents, three years ago, he had resided with his sister." After
his attachment to his own people, his chief interest, apparently, was
in the things of the mind, in literature. He had "never engaged in
business," it was said, but he "was a great reader," he could "talk
intelligently on many topics which interested him," and in the circles
which he frequented he was admired, that is it was thought that he was
"quite a bright man." Who would not feel in this sympathetic record of
his goodly span something of the charm of the modest nature of this
man? Again, there was the recent intelligence concerning William
Jackson, "a coloured gentleman employed as a deck hand on a pleasure
craft in this harbour," who "met his demise" in an untimely manner.
Clothes do not make the man, nor doth occupation decree the bearing.
This is a great and fundamental truth very clearly grasped by the
country obituary, and much obscured elsewhere.

On the other hand, positively nowhere else does the heart to dare and