The poorest persons have a bit of pageant going towards the tomb memorial stones are set up over the least memorable and, in order to preserve some show of respect for what remains of our old loves and friendships, we must accompany it with much grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker parades before the door. Hence a whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule trees of mediaeval Europe. Again in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. There are empty chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. And when the business is done, there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friendships hung together. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug sometimes it lays a regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of years. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them.
The changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, and has no parallel upon earth.