Rose at 6. Coffee 7. G. awful sulky. Saw Etienne Negrin, a guide, who asks 5fr. a day, & 4 for an ass. Walk alone about village, & find Cemetery at 8. Ill kept, weedy, sad. Tomb-tablets ― alder & willow trees greatest number of graves ― turf mounds, nettles & wild flowers [over there]: name of Combe ― 1799-1833 &c. Peyran, Malan. Some inscriptions very good ― simple ― affecting: one, by his 3 daughters, to Ct. Waldberg Truchsess.1 ――

Horrid old cretin woman. 8. funeral. Slight coffin ― face open ― & flowers on the body. Pastor read service well in French, but it is not so impressive as ours. “Dust to dust” &c. is left out. Genl. Beckwith2 there. & I saw G. also ― who had said yesterday ― “mi piace andar, e me vado sempre ai funerali dei poveri chi vanno senz’amici; Dico mi, ― chi sa, se sentono ˇ[gli morti]? e se sentono, non mi piacerebbe a mi d’aver nessuno a seguitarmi dopo morte, ― cosi vado mi.” ――3

5th August. 1862
saw in the Times of to day
that General Beckwith is dead.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. For a contemporary view of the Waldense religion see “The Vaudois and Religion in Italy.” The North British Review. Vol. 22, no. 94, February 1855, 376-400. On Count Waldburg-Truchsess in particular p. 392. [↩]
  2. See Meille, Jean Pierre. General Beckwith: His Life and Labours among the Waldenses of Piedmont. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1873. 1789-1862. [↩]
  3. I like going, and I always go to the funerals of poor people who have no friends; ― I say to myself ― who knows if the dead can feel? And if they can, I would not like to have nobody to follow me after I am dead, ― so I go. [↩]