What our Dead Say to Us




There is no need to recall to the minds of our people those who
were dear to us and have passed hence, for they are celebrating--and
with good cause--the anniversaries of their deaths. Was it not in
France, in the 19th century, that there was born that philosophy
which placed in the rank of the foremost duties of mankind gratitude
towards those generations who have preceded us to the grave, and
have left us the fruits of their thoughts and of their labors?
Indeed, ancestral worship prevails in all climes and at all periods;
in fact, with certain Oriental nations it is the only religion.
But in what country is the link between the dead and the living
so strong as it is in France--the rites at the same time so solemn
and so intimate? With us, as a rule, our dead, beloved and venerated,
never entirely depart from the homes in which they have dwelt, but
take up their abode in the hearts of the living who imitate them,
consult them, pay heed to them.

I recollect, too vaguely to make full use of it here, a beautiful
scene from the heroic song, "Girart de Roussillon," I think it
is, where one is shown a king's daughter, one night after a battle
gazing across the battlefield where lay the innumerable warriors
who had fallen in the fight. "She felt a desire," said the poet,
"to embrace them all." And from the depths of my far-away memories