T is very strange how differently people are affected by a great bereavement. One desires nothing so much as to flee as far as possible from any scene, or association, which shall recall the lost. Every relic he would banish forever from his presence. The spot where his dead was laid he would never revisit, and, if possible, never remember. When the anniversary of death occurs, no person should allude to it in his presence; he would himself prefer to glide obliviously over it. Another finds comfort and solace in the very opposite course. He desires nothing so much as that the little favorite home-surroundings of the dead should remain unchanged, as if the owner were still living. He would sit down among them, and recall by these silent mementoes every cherished look and tone; jealously recording every detail and circumstance, lest memory should prove unfaithful to her trust. Everything worn by the form now lifeless, would he have often before his eyes, touching their folds with caressing fingers. At the table and by the hearth, rising up and sitting down, going out and coming in, would he evoke the dear presence. He would pass through the streets where so often his dead have passed with him. The place of that friend's sepulture, is to him the place of all places where he would oftenest go. He plants there his favorite flowers, and woos for them the balmiest air and warmest sunshine. He reads over the name and date of birth and burial, each time as if they were not already indelibly engraven on his memory; and still, though months and years may have passed in this way, whenever he catches himself saying, "It was about the time when our John," or "our Mary, died," he will still shiver, as when the first time he had occasion to couple death with that household name.

Again: One person on the death of a friend, is punctiliously solicitous that no etiquette of mourning habiliments should be disregarded, to the remotest fraction of an inch as to quantity; and that the quality and fashioning of the same should be according to the strictest rules laid down by custom on such occasions; considering all variation from it, although demanded by health or comfort, as a disrespect to the dead.

Another is scarcely conscious that he wears these outward tokens; or, if so, knows little and cares less whether all the minutiÆ of depth, width and blackness is punctiliously followed. Attention to these details seems to him a mockery, from which he turns impatiently away. The whole world seems to him already draped in sable; what matters, then, this intrusive pettiness? And that any one should measure the depth of his loss by the width of a hem or a veil, or the fashion of a hat, or the material of a garment, seems to him too monstrous an absurdity for credence. And when he hears the common expression that such a person is "in half mourning" it is so utterly repulsive to him, that he almost feels that he should honor the dead more by a total breach of the custom, than by its observance.

In truth, it may be a question whether a genuine grief can exist in the artificial atmosphere where these slavish mourning etiquettes are cultivated. The devil himself probably knew this; and contrived this ingenious way to turn the mass of mankind aside from sober reflection at a time when the march of life stands still.

When the bolt falls, which sooner or later strikes every man's house, how philosophically lookers-on reason about it. How practically unconscious are they, while gazing at the blood-besprinkled door-post of a neighbor, that the advancing finger of Destiny is already pointed at their own, as they plan for happy years to come the future of husband, wife, child, brother and sister, as if for them there was immunity from dissolution and disruption. No acceleration of pulse, no heart-quiver, when the funeral train passes by, or the sad face looks out from its frame of sable; for no sweet bright face is missing from their little band. No pained ear listens at their fireside for the light footfall that will never come. No street is avoided in their daily walks, which agonizingly suggests a floating form once watched and waited for there. Nor may the passing stranger, whose step and voice stir the troubled fountain of your tears, know by what personal magnetism he has evoked your dead, and chained you to linger, and look, and feed your excited fancy, till the impulse to throw yourself on that strange heart and weep, almost sweeps away cold propriety.

Ah! the difference, whether the hearse stands before one's own door, or one's neighbor's. And yet, how else could we all live on, playing at jack-straws, as we do, day after day, while a momentous future little by little unfolds itself? How else would one have courage to go on planting what another hand than his shall surely reap; and what pleasure would there be beneath the sun, if one sat crouching, and listening for the step of the executioner, or clasping wild arms of protection round the dear ones. Merciful indeed is it, that we can travel on in to-day's sunshine, trusting to our Guide to shelter us, when the storm shall gather and break over our heads.