Well Said: ...happy and confident, as if the dead were waving goodbye and smiling as they left for a journey...

The atmosphere [in the catacombs] is one of faith and trust. The epitaphs carved on the tombs are happy and confident, as if the dead were waving goodbye and smiling as they left for a journey. The words "rest" and "sleep" are everywhere. I could not remember once having seen that word "farewell" which sighs its hopeless way through all pagan cemeteries. As I remembered the dark galleries, the mage came into my mind of a troopship in the dark, with its rows of bunks, their occupants sleeping, confidently awaiting the light of a new day.

H. V. Morton, A Traveller in Rome

I love this so much!