ood; graves of some who lived down here, for
years together, ministering to the rest, and preaching truth, and hope,
and comfort, from the rude altars, that bear witness to their fortitude
at this hour; more roomy graves, but far more terrible, where hundreds,
being surprized, were hemmed in and walled up; buried before death, and
killed by slow starvation.

Such are the spots and patches in my dream of churches, that remain
apart and keep their separate identity. I have a fainter recollection,
sometimes, of the relics; of the fragment of the pillar of the Temple
that was rent in twain; of the portion of the table that was spread for
the Last Supper; of the well at which the woman of Samaria gave water to
our Savior; of two columns from the house of Pontius Pilate; of the
stone to which the sacred hands were bound, when the scourging was
performed; of the grid-iron of Saint Lawrence, and the stone below it,
marked with the frying of his fat and blood; these set a shadowy mark on
some cathedrals, as an old story, or a fable might, and stop them for an
instant, as they flit before me. The rest is a vast wilderness of
consecrated buildings of all shapes and fancies, blending one with
another; of battered pillars of old Pagan temples, dug up from the
ground, and forced, like giant captives, to support the roofs of
Christian churches; of pictures, bad, and wonderful, and impious, and
ridiculous; of kneeling people, curling incense, tinkling bells, and
sometimes (but not often) of a swelling organ; of Madonne, with their
breasts stuck full of swords, arranged in a half-circle like a modern
fan; of actual skeletons of dead saints, hideously attired in gaudy
satins, silks, and velvets trimmed with gold; their withered crust of
skull adorned with precious jewels, or with chaplets of crusht flowers;
sometimes, of people gathered round the pulpit, and a monk within it
stretching out the crucifix, and preaching fiercely; the sun just
streaming down through some high window on the sail-cloth stretched
above him and across the church, to keep his high-pitched voice from
being lost among the echoes of the roof. Then my tired memory comes out
upon a flight of steps, where knots of people are asleep, or basking in
the light; and strolls away, among the rags and smells, and palaces, and
hovels, of an old Italian street.

THE CEMETERY OF THE CAPUCHINS[23]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirel