Now a funeral,
being unavoidable, cannot by an prestidigitations of logic be called
perverse. All the more reason for being present. But for a strange
twist or kink in his nature, therefore, he would have been on the spot.
He would have turned up in the market-place to the minute, since he
prided himself likewise upon his love of punctuality, declaring that it
was one of the many virtues he possessed in common with Her Majesty
Queen Victoria.
He disliked funerals. For all his open mind and open bowels, Mr. Keith
displayed an unreasoning hatred of death and, what was still more
remarkable, not the least shame in confessing it.
"The next interment I purpose to attend," he would say, "will be my
own. May if be far off! No; I don't care about funerals and the
suggestion they convey. A cowardly attitude? I think not. The coward
refuses to face a fact. Death is a fact. I have often faced him. He is
not a pretty fellow. Most men only give him a shy glance out of a
corner of their eye. It scares them out of their wits and makes them
say all sorts of snobbishly respectful things about him.
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