I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium
in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the
belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to
myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral
liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen,"
and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin.
It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my
interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed
as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who
would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should
catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of
so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological
reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a
fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the
Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in
the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor
would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there
would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up
whatever will I was minded to make.
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