Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the
shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a
chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was
unmarried. A few of the villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and
bearing lighted tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street
that in the morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A
melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and
sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are
brought so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep--and others
rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by side
and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the wedding-feast
and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the burial-hymn! One
goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and all is mutable,
uncertain, and transitory.
It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur to the brief period of
my existence which was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil.
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