DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0180
172 AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
profiles set towards the ceiling; all with the wondrous
print of death impressed upon them.
And without, the crowd murnmred and crushed upon
each other, and went and came in active enjoyment.
Some very few might have real sorrow within their
breasts; some very few might be touched by this vision of
solemnity• but to the mass it was simply vulgar excite-
ment and pastime. I felt a real sense of relief in the
thought that, dying in England, no such curious gossiping
crowd would gaze upon my corpse, or upon the faces of
the dead dear to me. Aly very soul revolted and sickened
at such desecration of the solemnity and the silence
of death. If we have dead-houses in our new English
cemeteries, surely admission to them will be alone granted
to the friends of the deceased ! The remembrance of this
crowd of the living troubles my imagination far more than
the remembrance of the calm, holy corpses. I cannot
endure the thought that when the hour of death arrives
for-or-, crowds of gossiping idlers will gather
before the dead-house to gaze with unsympathising eyes
upon the deserted temples of these great spirits ! Such
crowds assembled around the body of Schwanthaler, when
it also was laid here.
I passed out of the burial-ground, by the lofty portal
which is crowned with its solemn statues, and walked along
the banks of the Isar, looking up into the clear sky and
listening to the rush of waters just released from the chains
of ice which have bound the river for weeks. The waters
rejoiced with glad voices, as if hymning their triumph in
renewed life, and the sky had the word Immortality
•written upon it; but it was long before I could dismiss
the painful impression which my visit to the dead-house
had left upon me.
profiles set towards the ceiling; all with the wondrous
print of death impressed upon them.
And without, the crowd murnmred and crushed upon
each other, and went and came in active enjoyment.
Some very few might have real sorrow within their
breasts; some very few might be touched by this vision of
solemnity• but to the mass it was simply vulgar excite-
ment and pastime. I felt a real sense of relief in the
thought that, dying in England, no such curious gossiping
crowd would gaze upon my corpse, or upon the faces of
the dead dear to me. Aly very soul revolted and sickened
at such desecration of the solemnity and the silence
of death. If we have dead-houses in our new English
cemeteries, surely admission to them will be alone granted
to the friends of the deceased ! The remembrance of this
crowd of the living troubles my imagination far more than
the remembrance of the calm, holy corpses. I cannot
endure the thought that when the hour of death arrives
for-or-, crowds of gossiping idlers will gather
before the dead-house to gaze with unsympathising eyes
upon the deserted temples of these great spirits ! Such
crowds assembled around the body of Schwanthaler, when
it also was laid here.
I passed out of the burial-ground, by the lofty portal
which is crowned with its solemn statues, and walked along
the banks of the Isar, looking up into the clear sky and
listening to the rush of waters just released from the chains
of ice which have bound the river for weeks. The waters
rejoiced with glad voices, as if hymning their triumph in
renewed life, and the sky had the word Immortality
•written upon it; but it was long before I could dismiss
the painful impression which my visit to the dead-house
had left upon me.