Moreover , he has sanctioned my taste in regard to his companions by placing himself on the inner side of the pavement , nearest the Venus to whom I , enacting on a steeple-top the part of Paris on the top of Ida , adjudged the golden apple . In two streets converging at right angles toward my watch-tower I distinguish three different processions . One is a proud array of voluntary soldiers in bright uniform , resembling , from the height whence I look down , the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy-shop . And yet it stirs my heart . Their regular advance , their nodding plumes , the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket-barrels , the roll of their drums ascending past me , and the fife ever and anon piercing through , -- these things have wakened a warlike fire , peaceful though I be . Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons , shouldering sticks , thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band . Nevertheless , as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire , one might be tempted to ask , `` Which are the boys ? '' or , rather , `` Which the men ? '' But , leaving these , let us turn to the third procession , which , though sadder in outward show , may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind . It is a funeral -- a hearse drawn by a black and bony steed and covered by a dusty pall , two or three coaches rumbling over the stones , their drivers half asleep , a dozen couple of careless mourners in their every-day attire . Such was not the fashion of our fathers when they carried a friend to his grave . There is now no doleful clang of the bell to proclaim sorrow to the town . Was the King of Terrors more awful in those days than in our own , that wisdom and philosophy have been able to produce this change ? Not so . Here is a proof that he retains his proper majesty . The military men and the military boys are wheeling round the corner , and meet the funeral full in the face . Immediately the drum is silent , all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous footfall . The soldiers yield the path to the dusty hearse and unpretending train , and the children quit their ranks and cluster on the sidewalks with timorous and instinctive curiosity . The mourners enter the churchyard at the base of the steeple and pause by an open grave among the burial-stones ; the lightning glimmers on them as they lower down the coffin , and the thunder rattles heavily while they throw the earth upon its lid . Verily , the shower is near , and I tremble for the young man and the girls , who have now disappeared from the long and shady street .
How various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs beneath me , and how diversified are the events XXXXX this moment befalling them !
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