The Altar of the Dead, Henry James

Image via WikipediaWhen I picked up "The Altar of the Dead," by Henry James, from gutenberg.org, I thought I was getting a horror story. However, it should be noted that it is not at all horror. It can be found freely at Gutenberg.org.

It's a longish short-story about a man who ends up wasting his life burning candles at a church for the people he had known who had died before him. This sprang from the loss of his first love whom life had not granted sufficient time to them to marry.

From that point on, he counts the dead who pass before him, and lights a candle for each of them.This goes on uneventfully until a close friend of his, Acton Hague, who had wronged him dies.

From this time of the death of Hague, he finds a girl who goes as often to mourn the loss of her close friend (and lover?), who is Acton Hague. However, he does not know her purpose for going. But this same common friend had wronged them both in some way which is never defined. It is just noted as being significant, yet never quite voiced. She has forgiven Hague for his wrong against her, but the narrator never does unless it's at the moment of his death that he finds at the church at the altar of the dead.

I almost didn't finish this book. I don't know if I would recommend it. It is not exciting. However, it does remind me of all the people who have passed before me. I understand the sadness that accompanies that mental list: my old friend Chris - died from a mushroom. Grandmother, who died from a coma. Aunt Rose, dead from cancer. Uncle Michael, dead from suicide. My step-grandfather, died from old age. Some other people unknown to me have also died: both my genetic grandfathers. My maternal grandfather died when my mother was six. My grandmother's twin, dead at birth.

But, I do not light candles for them at mass or at any alter of the dead. It is simply not something which I believe in. But, they all occupy a place. May they all be resting in peace, or perhaps rekindled in a better rebirth.