Precisely; just what we have always said, whether we believed it or not.  It is what any feeling man would say.

The fact is, people sacrifice too much to their friends.  Especially after the friends are dead.  “The cream of the joke is,” as our lively essayist remarks, “that the dead do not dream of your sufferings on their account.”

And suppose they did:  what is a friend, any way?  Why, something you would do well to rid yourself of as soon as possible.  There is scarcely anything mean, sordid, contemptible, and disgusting, that an average friend won’t do without winking.

It would certainly contribute greatly to the cheerfulness of one about to leave this “mortial wale,” to feel morally certain that nobody cared a rap about him, or was going to make any fuss just for a trifle like that.

We must say, however, we would prefer to see our mourning friends go the whole figure, and not visit the opera in weeds.  Be jolly, but also look jolly.

The trouble seems to be, that people will be sentimental; they must do a certain amount of tribulation, “whether or no.”  We would not even counsel the wearing of black diamonds.  We would refrain from jet, bog, and ebony.  We would not try to grin through a disguise of skull and bones.  Be gay (and by all means look gay) in spite of your departed grandmother.

* * * * *

No Great Shakes.

It’s a pity that the earthquake came too late for the census, as it cannot now be included among our native productions.

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|                      A.T.  STEWART & CO.                      |
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