“I think of a coffin as an absolutely lovely piece of furniture, even when it’s empty, and if there is someone lying in it, it’s quite sublime in my eyes. There’s something so edifying about funerals-I’ve sometime thought that when we need a little spiritual uplift, we should attend funerals rather than church. People wear their best black clothes and take their hats off and gaze at the coffin and seem so serious and devout and no one dares to make bad jokes, the way they normally do.”
Thomas Mann “The Magic Mountain” 1924
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