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Out of context: Reply #5657
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“‘Is that a human body?’ exclaimed Byron, ‘why it’s more like the carcass of a sheep, or any other animal, than a man: this is a satire on our pride and folly.’”
“Byron looking on, muttered, ‘The entrails of a worm hold together longer than the potter’s clay, of which man is made. Hold! let me see the jaw. . . . I can recognize any one by the teeth, with whom I have talked. I always watch the lips and mouth; they tell me what tongue and eyes try to conceal!’”
“Byron asked me to preserve the skull for him; but remembering that he had formerly used one as a drinking cup, I was determined Shelley’s be not so profaned. . . . After the fire was well-kindled . . . more wine was poured over Shelley’s dead body than he had consumed during life. This, with the oil and salt, made the yellow flames glister and quiver. The heat from the sun and fire was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. The corpse fell open and the heart was laid bare...and as the back of the head rested on the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brains literally seethed, bubbled and boiled as in a cauldron, for a very long time.
The fire was so fierce as to produce a white heat on the iron, and to reduce its contents to grey ashes. The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw and the skull, but what surprised us all was that the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace my hand was severely burnt; and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put in quarantine.”