“The matter is not of that importance,” Charlotte answered, “that we should disquiet ourselves about it with the vexation of a lawsuit.  I regret so little what I have done, that I will gladly myself indemnify the church for what it loses through you.  Only I must confess candidly to you, your arguments have not convinced me; the pure feeling of an universal equality at last, after death, seems to me more composing than this hard determined persistence in our personalities and in the conditions and circumstances of our lives.  What do you say to it?” she added, turning to the Architect.

“It is not for me,” replied he, “either to argue, or to attempt to judge in such a case.  Let me venture, however, to say what my own art and my own habits of thinking suggest to me.  Since we are no longer so happy as to be able to press to our breasts the in-urned remains of those we have loved; since we are neither wealthy enough nor of cheerful heart enough to preserve them undecayed in large elaborate sarcophagi; since, indeed, we cannot even find place any more for ourselves and ours in the churches, and are banished out into the open air, we all, I think, ought to approve the method which you, my gracious lady, have introduced.  If the members of a common congregation are laid out side by side, they are resting by the side of, and among their kindred; and, if the earth be once to receive us all, I can find nothing more natural or more desirable than that the mounds, which, if they are thrown up, are sure to sink slowly in again together, should be smoothed off at once, and the covering, which all bear alike, will press lighter upon each.”

“And is it all, is it all to pass away,” asked Ottilie, “without one token of remembrance, without anything to call back the past?”

“By no means,” continued the Architect; “it is not from remembrance, it is from place that men should be set free.  The architect, the sculptor, are highly interested that men should look to their art—­to their hand, for a continuance of their being; and, therefore, I should wish to see well-designed, well-executed monuments; not sown up and down by themselves at random, but erected all in a single spot, where they can promise themselves endurance.  Inasmuch as even the good and the great are contented to surrender the privilege of resting in person in the churches, we may, at least, erect there or in some fair hall near the burying place, either monuments or monumental writings.  A thousand forms might be suggested for them, and a thousand ornaments with which they might be decorated.”

“If the artists are so rich,” replied Charlotte, “then tell me how it is that they are never able to escape from little obelisks, dwarf pillars, and urns for ashes?  Instead of your thousand forms of which you boast, I have never seen anything but a thousand repetitions.”