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On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose, every nobody who IS any nobody comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to criticise one another's style, and sneer at one another's complexion.
What a galaxy of great poets, artists, statesmen, and philosophers are here sleeping in their winding-sheets. Another fine square is that of the Piazza della Annunziata, in which is situated the church of the same name, a foundling hospital, and an equestrian statue of Ferdinand I. by John of Bologna.
"Very good," said Sancho; "but now I want to know the tombs where the bodies of those great lords are, have they silver lamps before them, or are the walls of their chapels ornamented with crutches, winding-sheets, tresses of hair, legs and eyes in wax? Or what are they ornamented with?"
Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more.
In Monarchy or no Monarchy, printed 1651, I had framed an Hieroglyphick, which you may see in page the 7th, representing a great sickness and mortality; wherein you may see the representation of people in their winding-sheets, persons digging graves and sepultures, coffins, &c. All this was performed by the more secret Key of Astrology, or Prophetical Astrology.
So bountiful were Mr Mould's possessions, and so large his stock in trade, that even there, within his household sanctuary, stood a cumbrous press, whose mahogany maw was filled with shrouds, and winding-sheets, and other furniture of funerals. But, though the Misses Mould had been brought up, as one may say, beneath his eye, it had cast no shadow on their timid infancy or blooming youth.
The passengers were few, and all seemed busy: some Armenians, a Hebrew physician and his page, the gliding phantoms of some winding-sheets, which were in fact women. Baroni turned into an arcade, well built, spacious, airy, and very neatly fitted up. This was the bazaar of the dealers in drugs.
As far as the eye could see, one could perceive nothing but the abattoirs, the city wall, and the fronts of a few factories, resembling barracks or monasteries; everywhere about stood hovels, rubbish, ancient walls blackened like cerecloths, new white walls like winding-sheets; everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the melancholy sadness of right angles.
Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil, those two winding-sheets of human devising.
I shuddered again, and meseemed the grey clouds in the sky waxed blacker, while deathly pale airy forms floated through the mist over the pools, in long, waving winding-sheets.
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