t I will gladly myself indemnify
the church for what it loses through you. Only I must confess candidly
to you, your arguments have not convinced me; the pure feeling of an
universal equality at last, after death, seems to me more composing than
this hard determined persistence in our personalities and in the
conditions and circumstances of our lives. What do you say to it?" she
added, turning to the Architect.

"It is not for me," replied he, "either to argue, or to attempt to judge
in such a case. Let me venture, however, to say what my own art and my
own habits of thinking suggest to me. Since we are no longer so happy as
to be able to press to our breasts the in-urned remains of those we have
loved; since we are neither wealthy enough nor of cheerful heart enough
to preserve them undecayed in large elaborate sarcophagi; since, indeed,
we cannot even find place any more for ourselves and ours in the
churches, and are banished out into the open air, we all, I think, ought
to approve the method which you, my gracious lady, have introduced. If
the members of a common congregation are laid out side by side, they are
resting by the side of, and among their kindred; and, if the earth be
once to receive us all, I can find nothing more natural or more
desirable than that the mounds, which, if they are thrown up, are sure
to sink slowly in again together, should be smoothed off at once, and
the covering, which all bear alike, will press lighter upon each."

"And is it all, is it all to pass away," asked Ottilie, "without one
token of remembrance, without anything to call back the past?"

"By no means," continued the Architect; "it is not from remembrance, it
is from place that men should be set free. The architect, the sculptor,
are highly interested that men should look to their art--to their hand,
for a continuance of their being; and, therefore, I should wish to see
well-designed, well-executed monuments; not sown up and down by
themselves at random, but erected all in a single spot, where they can
promise themselves endurance. Inasmuch as even the good and the great
are contented to surrender the privilege of resting in person in the
churches, _we_ may, at least, erect there or in some fair hall near the
burying place, either monuments or monumental writings. A thousand forms
might be suggested for them, and a thousand ornaments with which they
might be decorated."

"If the artists are so rich," replied Charlotte, "the