Prætor. “We first eliminate with a slow desiccating heat every evaporable compound of the body, restoring to the air its contingent elements in comparative purity. When desiccation is fully accomplished, the heat is increased for reductive calcination. This stage achieved, calcareous earth is placed in the niches of the oven for residuum absorption of its vapor, then the ovens are hermetically closed, until with the gradual increase of heat complete degradation leaves the organization of the body in ashen representation; through which can be traced, in opaque outline, the silvery white of the nerves, and all the corporate elements, from variation in form and color; but when gathered for the urn, the whole will scarcely exceed a deunx in weight. The urns, as you perceive, occupy allotted spaces beneath the trees of the avenue, without tablets, or chiseled inscription in memorial epitaph.”
Dr. Baāhar. “So, so,—certainly your method as a sanitary precaution recommends itself for universal adoption; while to the doctor of a sensitive disposition, it would prove a great source of relief, as it will abolish the useless investigations of the coroner, founded upon the re-slaughter and ghastly exposure of human remains to the gloating vision of the horribly curious. Also the undertaker’s advertising exhibitions, and processional pageantries, alike abhorrent with the shambles of the coroner from the reek of contagious odor. And last, but not least, the lying addendas of eulogistic instinct, bestowed in sermons, prayers, and epitaphs charged with heavenly recommendations for the unworthy.”
Mr. Welson. “Aside from the negatively politic advantages suggested by the doctor, there is to me something touchingly reverent in mingling the ashes of the good in a family receptacle, common to all in its memorial expression; and in safety from the desecration of glacial selfishness in track of gold, that, ‘for improvement,’ substitutes living tenements for those of the dead.”
Padre. “But not in safety, Mr. Welson, if the urns are of the same material as the furnace doors and ovens?”
Mr. Welson. “You are fearfully right, padre, in your suggestive amendment, and a substitution must be adopted before your thoughtless confessional exposure to Fraile Gallagato elicits the prying espionage of his order. Nay, but you need not color so deeply, for we well know that in intention you were guiltless of wrong. Nevertheless, you should learn from your heedless dereliction, that the vagrant tongue of confession is lost to judgment and discernment of the rights of self, for you exposed the really good to danger!”
The silence of the padre showed that he sorrowfully acknowledged the justice of Mr. Welson’s strictures.
Having made the circuit of the oblong enclosure devoted to incineration, and the orchard cultivation of vine and tree, our party descended into the school enclosure, the garden of which was planted upon the more abrupt incline of the temple hill. From thence by an ascending avenue, we gained an esplanade overlooking the “court of the foræ,” within the temple gates, where the children were congregated with their parents who had already arrived. The prætor and Correliana, each holding in restraint an arm of the impatient mother, whispered their desire that we should remain silent, that unobserved we might witness the unalloyed happiness of parents and children.
The eager impatience of the prætor and mother of Correliana, in joyful manifestation, proclaimed that they, in the protective solace of the second union, had been blest with sons. Looking through the fissures in the rudely constructed doors, two youths, one past, and the other verging upon puberty, were seen standing upon the pedestal plinth of one of the pillars of the court colonnade, nearest to the gates, with eyes fixed in expectant gaze upon the closing portals through which had been admitted the groups of happy parents around whose necks were clasped the arms of loving children. In their appearance, as they stood motionless in the trustful support of each other’s arms, watching for the entrance of their primal source of affection with eager eyes, we discovered their relationship from the remarkable resemblance they bore in likeness to Correliana. Although strikingly preëminent in the distinctive halo that becomes inbred from the hereditary impression of matured judgment in parental bequeathment, they did not greatly excel their companions in personal beauty. Tall and graceful, they possessed in common with their companions complexions of clear transparency, which disclosed the movements of expression under emotional control, in freedom from speck or taint. As the portals closed their eyes questioned each other with a shadow of curious inquiry, not in doubt or anxiety, for the welfare of their parents, but for the cause of their unwonted delay. Without being heedless or lacking in sympathy for the happiness of their associates, or unmindful of the cheering salutations of parents and children, it was easy to trace in their faces emotional changes akin to sorrowful disappointment. To restrain the mother’s yearning longer was impossible; pushing wide apart the inner gates she stood revealed, uttering the call, “Plautus—Adestus!” But affection in premonition had beckoned their eyes to the source before the words reached them, and the eager parents had hardly overstepped the threshold ere they were clasped in their arms. The consummation of this greeting gave a freer flow to the general expression of joy; the scholars, old and young, soon clustered around us, eager to become known and recognized in the current reciprocation of affection by name, bestowing in love such endearments, that for the moment, with sadness, our own youthful impressions, barren of their cheer, reappeared in contrasted desolation. But translated back to the reality, by the warmth of glowing sympathy, with its unspeakable thrill of tender emotions, the void of our past lives was relieved of its selfish regrets. The teachers we had frequently met, and had found in them such worth garnered with experience in the practical dispensation of exampled goodness, that our nearest of kin stood afar off in comparison with the reverent warmth of affection that these guardian exemplars of youth attracted with the genial current of their sympathy. Well did I interpret from my own impressions the retrospective thoughts that brought frequent flushes to the faces of my companions when the mirrored past was contrasted with the present.
After an hour spent in sweet communion with their parents, the children were summoned by their teachers to guide us through the school departments. The culinary dependencies were first visited; in these the morning’s quota of children were engaged in the preparation of food for our entertainment, with such cleanly decorum that our appetites were revived in expectation. In the “workshops” and garden detachments exhibited the useful combinations of labor, exercise, and amusement, which practiced in communion, gave a sportive air of cleanliness to their employments. During the infantile period, educational impression was intrusted to the nurses, who while inculcating lessons of self-control over the appetites and passions, attracted the affections above the cravings of instinctive animality. Their assurance that goodness was intuitive with the Heraclean children was fully sustained, for in their intercourse they were altogether free from the petulant exactions of selfishness. The teachers informed us that the Kyronese children, on their first introduction, felt the loss of parental association, but were soon weaned by the loving attention of censors and nurses, whose experience enables them to attract, while increasing in strength the ties of parental affection. After the first monthly visit of their parents they became not only reconciled to their association, but emulous of gaining the loving influence that relieved the Heraclean children from petulance and selfishness. This appeared to us strange, as they resembled the children of our own race, whose instinctive selfishness is ever on the reach for more, from its first dawn to the dim vision and palsied mumblings of extreme age. But in explanation, the teachers said, that during the first days, their cravings could only be satisfied by advancing a peremptory claim to everything they saw in the possession of the Heraclean children; who were amused in supplying their insatiable wants, and wonderingly curious in observing the effect produced by their accumulations. When all the material resources of the Heraclean children had been exhausted, the Kyronese were scarcely able to move in their dormitories, which were nearly filled with the miscellaneous collections that had been contributed for the gratification of their miserly dispositions.
“Our own, as well as the donor’s curiosity was on the tiptoe of expectation, to learn the next phase in this unexampled manifestation of greediness. For a time, after they found that every portable article of their entertainers had been transferred to their possession, they employed their senses in handling, arranging, and nibbling, until tired, satiated, and nauseated with the changes and selfish gratification of taste. Then they began to look about for some new source of instinctive pleasure; a view of each other’s treasures soon begot a covetous desire for counter possession; this led to exchanges, and haggling endeavors to overreach each other with infantile chicanery; this practice soon led to squabbles that required our interference, which in turn rendered the trading art unpopular. Next, in course, they commenced purloining, and when the loss was discovered they used disparaging invectives which led to a trial of strength for the recovery of lost articles. They next proceeded to fortification, and constant guard, with occasional sallies for reprisal, the skirmishing calling for our arbitration, and restoration of the articles in dispute to the original owner, caused this method of appropriation to be discontinued, at least in non-edible articles, that could not be disposed of by the mouth. But at night their accumulations of eatables were subject to each other’s encroachments, and from over eating, to prevent robbery and discovery, they made themselves sick, which called for the censor to enact the part of doctor, with such success that food in excess of their wants became decidedly distasteful. This diversion produced a thoughtful stay of their selfish propensities, which in train caused them to look upon their accumulations as incumbrances, and at first a somewhat reluctant restoration of the least coveted articles to Heraclean proprietorship. But as the kindly impression of goodness in bestowal began to expand, the petals of affection opened for the full clearance of vagrant covetousness. The grateful impressions of reciprocation soon brought into play, with the elder, their hereditary mechanical resources, which have since proved to them a revenue source of gladness. Of course we aided in the advancement of the selfish fermentation for the removal of the lees in the remedial process of clarification, and reaction of covetousness for the exemplification of its effects to the Heraclean children, to whom its impressions were new.”