oposed for the site. Young Grundle had
suggested Cremation Hall, because such was the ultimate end to which
the mere husks and hulls of the citizens were destined. But there was
something undignified in the sound,--as though we were talking of a
dancing saloon or a music hall,--and I would have none of it. My idea
was to give to the mind some notion of an approach to good things to
come, and I proposed to call the place "Aditus." But men said that
it was unmeaning, and declared that Britannulists should never be
ashamed to own the truth. Necropolis sounded well, they said, and
argued that though no actual remains of the body might be left there,
still the tablets would remain. Therefore Necropolis it was called. I
had hoped that a smiling hamlet might grow up at the gate, inhabited
by those who would administer to the wants of the deposited; but I
had forgot that the deposited must come first. The hamlet had not
yet built itself, and round the handsome gates there was nothing at
present but a desert. While land in Britannula was plenty, no one had
cared to select ground so near to those awful furnaces by which the
mortal clay should be transported into the air. From the gates up to
the temple which stood in the middle of the grounds,--that temple
in which the last scene of life was to be encountered,--there ran a
broad gravel path, which was intended to become a beautiful avenue.
It was at present planted alternately with eucalypti and ilexes--the
gum-trees for the present generation, and the green-oaks for those
to come; but even the gum-trees had not as yet done much to give a
furnished appearance to the place. Some had demanded that cedars and
yew-trees should be placed there, and I had been at great pains to
explain to them that our object should be to make the spot cheerful,
rather than sad. Round the temple, at the back of it, were the sets
of chambers in which were to live the deposited during their year of
probation. Some of these were very handsome, and were made so, no
doubt, with a view of alluring the first comers. In preparing wisdom
for babes, it is necessary to wrap up its precepts in candied sweets.
But, though handsome, they were at present anything but pleasant
abodes. Not one of them had as yet been inhabited. As I looked at
them, knowing Crasweller as well as I did, I almost ceased to wonder
at his timidity. A hero was wanted; but Crasweller was no hero. Then
further off, but still in the circle round