finest psalms that were in the book
under the dead one's head. And the moon shone straight down on the
grave--but the dead was not there: every child could go quietly in the
night-time and pluck a rose there by the churchyard-wall. The dead
know more than all we living know--the dead know the awe we should
feel at something so strange as their coming to us. The dead are
better than us all, and therefore they do not come.

There is earth over the coffin, there is earth within it; the
psalm-book with its leaves is dust the rose with all its recollections
has gone to dust. But above it bloom new roses, above is sings the
nightingale, and the organ plays:--we think of the old grandmother
with the mild, eternally young eyes. Eyes can never die! Ours shall
once again see her young, and beautiful, as when she for the first
time kissed the fresh red rose which is now dust in the grave.

THE PRISON-CELLS.

* * * * *

By separation from other men, by solitary confinement, in continual
silence, the criminal is to be punished and amended; therefore were
prison-cells contrived. In Sweden there were several, and new ones
have been built. I visited one for the first time in Mariestad. This
building lies close outside the town, by a running water, and in a
beautiful landscape. It resembles a large white-washed summer
residence, window above window.

But we soon discover that the stillness of the grave rests over it. It
is as if no one dwelt here, or like a deserted mansion in the time of
the plague. The gates in the walls are locked: one of them is opened
for us: the gaoler stands with his bunch of keys: the yard is empty,
but clean--even the grass weeded away between the stone paving. We
enter the waiting-room, where the prisoner is received: we are shown
the bathing-room, into which he is first led. We now ascend a flight
of stairs, and are in a large hall, extending the whole length and
breadth of the building. Galleries run along the floors, and between
these the priest has his pulpit, where he preaches on Sundays to an
invisible congregation. All the doors facing the gallery are half
opened: the prisoners hear the priest, but cannot see him, nor he
them. The whole is a well-built machine--a nightmare for the spirit.
In the door of every cell there is fixed a glass, about the size of
the eye: a slide covers it, and the gaoler can, unobserved by the
prisoner, see everything he does; but he