"
Epitaphs always fascinated him, and formerly he used to say he
should like to be buried at Langar and to have on his tombstone the
subject of the last of Handel's Six Great Fugues. He called this
"The Old Man Fugue," and said it was like an epitaph composed for
himself by one who was very old and tired and sorry for things; and
he made young Ernest Pontifex in The Way of all Flesh offer it to
Edward Overton as an epitaph for his Aunt Alethea. Butler, however,
left off wanting any tombstone long before he died. In accordance
with his wish his body was cremated, and a week later Alfred and I
returned to Woking and buried his ashes under the shrubs in the
garden of the crematorium, with nothing to mark the spot.
The Humour of Homer {59}
The first of the two great poems commonly ascribed to Homer is
called the Iliad--a title which we may be sure was not given it by
the author. It professes to treat of a quarrel between Agamemnon
and Achilles that broke out while the Greeks were besieging the city
of Troy, and it does, indeed, deal largely with the consequences of
this quarrel; whether, however, the ostensible subject did not
conceal another that was nearer the poet's heart--I mean the last
days, death, and burial of Hector--is a point that I cannot
determine.
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