There is earth over the coffin, there is earth within it; the psalm-book with its leaves is dust the rose with all its recollections has gone to dust.  But above it bloom new roses, above is sings the nightingale, and the organ plays:—­we think of the old grandmother with the mild, eternally young eyes.  Eyes can never die!  Ours shall once again see her young, and beautiful, as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose which is now dust in the grave.

THE PRISON-CELLS.

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By separation from other men, by solitary confinement, in continual silence, the criminal is to be punished and amended; therefore were prison-cells contrived.  In Sweden there were several, and new ones have been built.  I visited one for the first time in Mariestad.  This building lies close outside the town, by a running water, and in a beautiful landscape.  It resembles a large white-washed summer residence, window above window.

But we soon discover that the stillness of the grave rests over it.  It is as if no one dwelt here, or like a deserted mansion in the time of the plague.  The gates in the walls are locked:  one of them is opened for us:  the gaoler stands with his bunch of keys:  the yard is empty, but clean—­even the grass weeded away between the stone paving.  We enter the waiting-room, where the prisoner is received:  we are shown the bathing-room, into which he is first led.  We now ascend a flight of stairs, and are in a large hall, extending the whole length and breadth of the building.  Galleries run along the floors, and between these the priest has his pulpit, where he preaches on Sundays to an invisible congregation.  All the doors facing the gallery are half opened:  the prisoners hear the priest, but cannot see him, nor he them.  The whole is a well-built machine—­a nightmare for the spirit.  In the door of every cell there is fixed a glass, about the size of the eye:  a slide covers it, and the gaoler can, unobserved by the prisoner, see everything he does; but he must come gently, noiselessly, for the prisoner’s ear is wonderfully quickened by solitude.  I turned the slide quite softly, and looked into the closed space, when the prisoner’s eye immediately met mine.  It is airy, clean, and light within the cell, but the window is placed so high that it is impossible to look out of it.  A high stool, made fast to a sort of table, and a hammock, which can be hung upon hooks under the ceiling, and covered with a quilt, compose the whole furniture.

Several cells were opened for us.  In one of these was a young, and extremely pretty girl.  She had lain down in her hammock, but sprang out directly the door was opened, and her first employment was to lift her hammock down, and roll it together.  On the little table stood a pitcher with water, and by it lay the remains of some oatmeal cakes, besides the Bible and some psalms.