it down again with him into the
grave--that must be a troubled grave.

The woman who lies here was so remarkably stingy, that during
her life she would get up in the night and mew, that her neighbors
might think she kept a cat. What a miser she was!

Here rests a young lady, of a good family, who would always make
her voice heard in society, and when she sang "Mi manca la voce,"[1]
it was the only true thing she ever said in her life.

Here lies a maiden of another description. She was engaged to be
married,--but, her story is one of every-day life; we will leave her
to rest in the grave.

Here rests a widow, who, with music in her tongue, carried gall in
her heart. She used to go round among the families near, and search
out their faults, upon which she preyed with all the envy and malice
of her nature. This is a family grave. The members of this family held
so firmly together in their opinions, that they would believe in no
other. If the newspapers, or even the whole world, said of a certain
subject, "It is so-and-so;" and a little schoolboy declared he had
learned quite differently, they would take his assertion as the only
true one, because he belonged to the family. And it is well known that
if the yard-cock belonging to this family happened to crow at
midnight, they would declare it was morning, although the watchman and
all the clocks in the town were proclaiming the hour of twelve at
night.

The great poet Goethe concludes his Faust with the words, "may
be continued;" so might our wanderings in the churchyard be continued.
I come here often, and if any of my friends, or those who are not my
friends, are too much for me, I go out and choose a plot of ground
in which to bury him or her. Then I bury them, as it were; there
they lie, dead and powerless, till they come back new and better
characters. Their lives and their deeds, looked at after my own
fashion, I write down in my diary, as every one ought to do. Then,
if any of our friends act absurdly, no one need to be vexed about
it. Let them bury the offenders out of sight, and keep their good
temper. They can also read the Intelligencer, which is a paper written
by the people, with their hands guided. When the time comes for the
history of my life, to be bound by the grave, then they will write
upon it as my epitaph--

"The man with a cheerful temper."

And this is my story.

[1] "I want a voice," or, "I have no voice."

THE CH