But, although this element of horror was fortunately wanting, to
describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented
to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I scarcely
dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as the
physical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible, and yet
very fascinating, about the employment of the remote dead to illumine
the orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on the
living and the dead. Caesar's dust--or is it Alexander's?--may stop a
bunghole, but the functions of these dead Caesars of the past was to
light up a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of so
little account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that we
shall breed, many of whom, so far from revering our memory, will live to
curse us for begetting them into such a world of woe.
Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and
splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kor burnt as, to judge from
their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with
the utmost liberality.
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