Hi,
What does ‘clommy’ mean in the following sentence:
‘Whoever lay there, though, had the best of it no clommy sepulchre among other hideous graves carved with futilities - just a rough stone, the wide sky, and wayside blessings!’
What is the difference between ‘sepulchre’ and ‘grave’ in this context?
Thanks in advance!
Probably “clammy”, meaning “damp”/“moist to the touch”.
Also, sepulcher is not just a grave, it’s a burial vault. Incidentally, the grave where Jesus Christ is interred is commonly referred to as “the holy sepulcher”, especially in religious tests.
John Galsworthy - The Apple Tree.
I knew the previous sentence you posted, ’ it was she who had stopped the car…’ was familiar. Now I can place it!
You have misread that word, or it has been mistyped in the version you are reading. It isn’t ‘clommy’ but ‘clammy’.
Whoever lay there, though, had the best of it, no clammy sepulchre among other hideous graves carved with futilities – just a rough stone, the wide sky, and wayside blessings!
This refers to the suicide’s roadside grave which the characters, Stella and Frank Ashurst, see when they stop for lunch on the moor on the way to Torquay.
This grave is
‘no clammy sepulchre’ - not a damp tomb/burial chamber/vault
‘among other hideous graves carved with futilities’ - in a graveyard surrounded by other burial places marked by graveyards on which have been written messages which are largely inconsequential
a sepulchre is a tomb or burial chamber while a grave is a reference to any burial place, typically a hole dug in the ground into which the coffin is lowered.