This wretched miser , conscious that he had not a friend to be mindful of him in his grave , had himself taken the needful precautions for posthumous remembrance by bespeaking an immense slab of white marble with a long epitaph in raised letters , the whole to be as magnificent as Mr. Wigglesworth 's skill could make it . There was something very characteristic in this contrivance to have his money 's worth even from his own tombstone , which , indeed , afforded him more enjoyment in the few months that he lived thereafter than it probably will in a whole century , now that it is laid over his bones . This incident reminds me of a young girl -- a pale , slender , feeble creature most unlike the other rosy and healthful damsels of the Vineyard , amid whose brightness she was fading away . Day after day did the poor maiden come to the sculptor 's shop and pass from one piece of marble to another , till at last she pencilled her name upon a slender slab which , I think , was of a more spotless white than all the rest . I saw her no more , but soon afterward found Mr. Wigglesworth cutting her virgin-name into the stone which she had chosen . `` She is dead , poor girl ! '' said he , interrupting the tune which he was whistling , `` and she chose a good piece of stuff for her headstone . Now , which of these slabs would you like best to see your own name upon ? '' `` Why , to tell you the truth , my good Mr. Wigglesworth , '' replied I , after a moment 's pause , for the abruptness of the question had somewhat startled me -- `` to be quite sincere with you , I care little or nothing about a stone for my own grave , and am somewhat inclined to scepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all over the dust that once was human . The weight of these heavy marbles , though unfelt by the dead corpse or the enfranchised soul , presses drearily upon the spirit of the survivor and causes him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb , instead of with the freedom of the skies . Every gravestone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system . Our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly , not linger with the exuviæ that confined him . In truth and reason , neither those whom we call the living , and still less the departed , have anything to do with the grave . '' `` I never heard anything so heathenish , '' said Mr. Wigglesworth , perplexed and displeased at sentiments which controverted all his notions and feelings and implied the utter waste , and worse , of his whole life 's labor . `` Would you forget your dead friends the moment they are under the sod ? '' `` They are not under the sod , '' I rejoined ; `` then why should I mark the spot where there is no treasure hidden ? Forget them ? No ; but , to remember them aright , I would forget what they have cast off . And to gain the truer conception of death I would forget the grave . '' But still the good old sculptor murmured , and stumbled , as it were , over the gravestones amid which he had walked through life .
Whether he were right or wrong , I had grown the wiser from our companionship and from my observations of nature and character as displayed by those who came , with their old griefs or their new ones , to get them recorded upon his XXXXX of marble .
Wigglesworth century damsels day exuviæ gravestones headstone labor months slabs