Fig. 29.—Egyptian Vase.
In this high time of Art lay the seeds of corruption and death. The Athenian Greek became critical, refined, weak, luxurious, corrupt, base; and then he went to decay. In some tombs ([Fig. 30]) opened in Italy, the body is found lying at length in the middle, and about it stand perfect vases, love-offerings of friends: were they once filled with perfumes upon which the spirit of the dead was wafted away? We place flowers in the graves of our lovely ones, and, beautiful as they are, they vanish with the dead. But the Greek vase remains to us after the lapse of two thousand years.