cui precor ut cineres sint violae sintque rosae' (I pray that his ashes may become violets and roses) -Roman EpitaphThe profusion of fresh flowers in Italian graveyards amazed nineteenthcentury travellers from America used to more severe practices. In England, too, flowers were sparse. Nor was their paucity unintentional. Strong sentiments were involved, for despite the increasing pomp of Victorian funerals, much ambivalence was displayed about elaborate rituals and offerings in the Anglo-American world-"a green grassy turf is all I crave," wrote Beattie in the Minstrel.' Even Loudon, the great architect of the new rural cemeteries in England, was reluctant to make a place for flowers in his plans. Today that difference persists. The vast tracts of comparatively bare cemeteries in the United States contrast with their compact and colourful counterparts in the continent of Europe. In the States there is also a difference between the north, especially the northeast, and the south, especially the southeast. In the former, one can expect one-twentieth of the graves to be decorated with flowers, fresh flowers; in the southeast today, the figure is about one-tenth, roughly the same as England, although the flowers are usually artificial. A change was already taking place in the mid-nineteenth centu-We wish to thank
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