Lord Herbert came home to bury his little one, and all that was left
behind of her was borne to the church of St. Cadocus, the parish
church of Raglan, and there laid beside the marquis's father and
mother. He remained with them a fortnight, and his presence was much
needed to lighten the heavy gloom that had settled over both his
wife and his father.
As if it were not enough to bury the bodies of the departed, there
are many, and the marquis and his daughter-in-law were of the
number, who in a sense seek to bury their souls as well, making a
graveyard of their own spirits, and laying the stone of silence over
the memory of the dead. Such never speak of them but when compelled,
and then almost as if to utter their names were an act of impiety.
Not In Memoriam but In Oblivionem should be the inscription upon the
tombs they raise. The memory that forsakes the sunlight, like the
fishes in the underground river, loses its eyes; the cloud of its
grief carries no rainbow; behind the veil of its twin-future burns
no lamp fringing its edges with the light of hope.
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