Death, however, had been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must pick my way in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of millionnaires, and past the plain black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct led me to the place that was my father's.

The stone had been erected (I knew already) "by admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in monuments; their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the inscription.
But the name was in larger letters and stared at me--JAMES K.DODD.
What a singular thing is a name, I thought; how it clings to a man, and continually misrepresents, and then survives him; and it flashed across my mind, with a mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never known, and now probably never should know, what the K had represented.
King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at random, and then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on Kornelius, and had nearly laughed aloud.

I have never been more childish; I suppose (although the deeper voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more moved.

And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.
Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in Muskegon, where, nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's circle, for some days.

It was in piety to him I lingered; and I might have spared myself the pain.
His memory was already quite gone out.