According to mr. swales, what is the purpose of a tombstone

Mr. Swales thinks that the tombstones are just lies, mere trifles that are unnecessary and a cover for the truth.

Explanation:

Mr. Swales is a character in Bram Stoker's "Dracula". He is an oracle and a man who believes in the "evil" that resides in Whitby but his predictions and warnings go unheeded by everyone.

In Chapter VI, Mina wrote in her diary that she and Lucy along with Mr. Swales and his friends were on a walk along the graveyard when their talk turned to the topic of gravestones/ tombstones. While Mina thinks that these tombstones are a great way "to please their relatives" and give them a good 'reputation' of being a loving person for the family left behind. But Mr. Swales is of the opinion that such tombstones are unnecessary, a 'veil' to cover the truth about the dead person. He thinks that "It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that’s what it be, an’ nowt else. These bans an’ wafts an’ boh-ghosts an’ barguests an’ bogles an’ all anent them is only fit to set bairns an’ dizzy women a-belderin’. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’ to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o’ them. Why, it’s them that, not content with printin’ lies on paper an’ preachin’ them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin’ them on the tombstones".