The unseen,
mysterious seeds of mosses find their way into the lettered furrows, and
are made to germinate by the continual moisture and watery sunshine of
the English sky; and by-and-by, in a year, or two years, or many years,
behold the complete inscription--HERE LIETH THE BODY, and all the rest
of the tender falsehood--beautifully embossed in raised letters of
living green, a bas-relief of velvet moss on the marble slab! It becomes
more legible, under the skyey influences, after the world has forgotten
the deceased, than when it was fresh from the stone-cutter's hands. It
outlives the grief of friends. I first saw an example of this in
Bebbington church-yard, in Cheshire, and thought that Nature must needs
have had a special tenderness for the person (no noted man, however, in
the world's history) so long ago laid beneath that stone, since she took
such wonderful pains to "keep his memory green." Perhaps the proverbial
phrase just quoted may have had its origin in the natural phenomenon
here described.
While we rested ourselves on a horizontal monument, which was elevated
just high enough to be a convenient seat, I observed that one of the
gravestones lay very close to the church,--so close that the droppings
of the eaves would fall upon it. It seemed as if the inmate of that
grave had desired to creep under the church-wall.
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