The Norwegians are fond of music, and every little church has an
organ. In the church I have mentioned there is an inscription
importing that a king James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who
came with more than princely gallantry to escort his bride home--
stood there, and heard divine service.

There is a little recess full of coffins, which contains bodies
embalmed long since--so long, that there is not even a tradition to
lead to a guess at their names.

A desire of preserving the body seems to have prevailed in most
countries of the world, futile as it is to term it a preservation,
when the noblest parts are immediately sacrificed merely to save the
muscles, skin, and bone from rottenness. When I was shown these
human petrifactions, I shrank back with disgust and horror. "Ashes
to ashes!" thought I--"Dust to dust!" If this be not dissolution,
it is something worse than natural decay--it is treason against
humanity, thus to lift up the awful veil which would fain hide its
weakness. The grandeur of the active principle is never more
strongly felt than at such a sight, for nothing is so ugly as the
human form when deprived of life, and thus dried into stone, merely
to preserve the most disgusting image of death. The contemplation
of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind. We take
a retrospect of the exertions of man, the fate of empires and their
rulers, and marking the grand destruction of ages, it seems the
necessary change of the leading to improvement. Our very soul
expands, and we forget our littleness--how painfully brought to our
recollection by such vain attempts to snatch from decay what is
destined so soon to perish. Life, what art thou? Where goes this