life, he takes eventually on the next succeeding generation.

His death may be said to be the most important act of his whole life.
For then only can his personal existence be properly considered to
begin. By it he joins the great company of ancestors who are to
these people of almost more consequence than living folk, and of
much more individual distinction. Particularly is this the case in
China and Korea, but the same respect, though in a somewhat less
rigid form, is paid the dead in Japan. Then at last the individual
receives that recognition which was denied him in the flesh.
In Japan a mortuary tablet is set up to him in the house and duly
worshipped; on the continent the ancestors are given a dwelling of
their own, and even more devotedly reverenced. But in both places
the cult is anything but funereal. For the ancestral tombs are
temples and pleasure pavilions at the same time, consecrated not
simply to rites and ceremonies, but to family gatherings and general
jollification. And the fortunate defunct must feel, if he is still
half as sentient as his dutiful descendants suppose, that his
earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended well.

Important, however, as these critical points in his career may be
reckoned by his relatives, they are scarcely calculated to prove
equally epochal to the man himself. In a community where next to no
note is ever taken of the anniversary of his birth, some doubt as to
the special significance of that red-letter day may not unnaturally
creep into his own mind. While in regard to his death, although it
may be highly flattering for him to know that he will certainly
become somebody when he shall have ceased, practically, to be anybody,
such tardy recognition is scarcely timely enough to be properly
appreciated. Human nature is so earth-tied, after all, that a