Methinks what they mistook for hatred was but love under a mask . '' A gentleman of antiquarian propensities provided a memorial for an Indian of Chabbiquidick -- one of the few of untainted blood remaining in that region , and said to be a hereditary chieftain descended from the sachem who welcomed Governor Mayhew to the Vineyard . Mr. Wiggles-worth exerted his best skill to carve a broken bow and scattered sheaf of arrows in memory of the hunters and warriors whose race was ended here , but he likewise sculptured a cherub , to denote that the poor Indian had shared the Christian 's hope of immortality . `` Why , '' observed I , taking a perverse view of the winged boy and the bow and arrows , `` it looks more like Cupid 's tomb than an Indian chief 's . '' `` You talk nonsense , '' said the sculptor , with the offended pride of art . He then added with his usual good-nature , `` How can Cupid die when there are such pretty maidens in the Vineyard ? '' `` Very true , '' answered I ; and for the rest of the day I thought of other matters than tombstones . At our next meeting I found him chiselling an open book upon a marble headstone , and concluded that it was meant to express the erudition of some black-letter clergyman of the Cotton Mather school . It turned out , however , to be emblematical of the scriptural knowledge of an old woman who had never read anything but her Bible , and the monument was a tribute to her piety and good works from the orthodox church of which she had been a member . In strange contrast with this Christian woman 's memorial was that of an infidel whose gravestone , by his own direction , bore an avowal of his belief that the spirit within him would be extinguished like a flame , and that the nothingness whence he sprang would receive him again . Mr. Wigglesworth consulted me as to the propriety of enabling a dead man 's dust to utter this dreadful creed . `` If I thought , '' said he , `` that a single mortal would read the inscription without a shudder , my chisel should never cut a letter of it . But when the grave speaks such falsehoods , the soul of man will know the truth by its own horror . '' `` So it will , '' said I , struck by the idea . `` The poor infidel may strive to preach blasphemies from his grave , but it will be only another method of impressing the soul with a consciousness of immortality . '' There was an old man by the name of Norton , noted throughout the island for his great wealth , which he had accumulated by the exercise of strong and shrewd faculties combined with a most penurious disposition . 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. XXXXX cutting her virgin-name into the stone which she had chosen .
Chabbiquidick Cupid Mather Methinks Wigglesworth century cherub day good-nature miser