Not Just Lives Pass Away

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, same days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silverplating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life - animal life - was not the only thing which could pass away.

~Bram Stoker, Dracula