ON THE DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 
177 
It might as well lie on the highest mountain or in the lowest 
depth of the sea. 
Still for the wealthy, for those who can afford to make 
grief a long luxury, there might remain means of an excep- 
tional kind for monumental sepulture. If in a cemetery a por- 
tion of ground were exclusively bought to hold a limited 
number of dead, such a special grave might be constructed as 
should remain unmoved. Within a well-built brick vault, filled 
with prepared earth, and closed by an arch above it, so that 
water could not enter, the dead could be buried with perfect 
•safety, and might remain so long as the land was in the posses- 
sion of the family that bought it. On such special ground 
might be laid the monumental slab, as at present, and here 
might dust commingle with dust, without any diffusion from the 
-charmed spot until Time the destroyer fought out his invaded 
rights. Here, too, might be buried, in the sarcophagus or metal 
tomb, the embalmed dead for the historian to find and depict 
when Time shall have conquered and won back his privileges. 
But these exceptional advantages and preservations and reserva- 
tions of nature are for the rich and sentimental, who make a 
great part of history if they do nothing else, and who ought 
therefore to be gratified. The masses who expend all their 
bodily powers in toiling while they live must expend even 
when they are dead, and never cease to expend until they cease 
to be. And that is a period I, for one, wot nothing of. 
VOL, XIV. — NO. LV. 
