Reposted by Emma Merkling
🧵Back to Ryedale Museum and my favourite exhibit mainly because it tells a wonderful story of community. It is, the Farndale hearse. Victorian funerals were taken very seriously and a certain level of ceremony was expected. In some ways they were the equivalent of a present day wedding. These
![Photo of chapter 1 of my book MS. “Life and Death: Thermodynamics, The Unseen Universe, and the Dual Drives of De Morgan's Little Mermaid' Paintings”
“'[Evelyn] can't live long. I...] She will burst and die [...].
(In another hand.)
[Evelyn], to you I come; in your life there are many thorns and you long for a peace that never comes. I [...] come to tell you that you have found the path, and that though the body be weak and the days dark, the end is in sight. Your song shall be
sung and your passing be joyful!
- spirit messengers, The Result of an Experiment (1909)
Did Evelyn De Morgan long for death? 'She was the least morbid person I ever met’, May Morris would later recall. But her private spirit communications tell a different story. In The Result of an Experiment (1909), De Morgan's voice is rarely…”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sz3s2qvp5nmdbaxpme5sco4m/bafkreie2rsw56sfkgnofctcgtmz7cvg3xxezdgd43sm7mgben5yndjbf24)
