Chapter IV
DEATH is too difficult. Even the corpse of a house-fly must be disposed of by a good housekeeper. How pleasant if bodies vanished as utterly as entities!
The death of humans is no bursting of soap-bubbles; as surely the colors and the life go out, but the dirt remains. The crematory is far, the grave to be digged; the buzzard more horrible than the worm. Furthermore, between these ultimates and the clay bulks the cunctating law with inquiry and jury of Fabian coroners, crawls the undertaker's black delivery wagon, intrudes his office,—an infant's casket, white but shop-worn, in the window,—his smug indifference, his catalogue and lists of prices. Looms, beyond these unavoidables, the church, the great slow sentences, the delaying sweet-
