THE CELESTIAL MUMMY

Long have the winds tossed sand up-on the ruts where first his chariot wheels carved their royal course, long have the mysteries of death been open sesame to him, yet this king, no older than the Shavian Cleopatra, still survives. Once the leader of a kingdom, again the leader of a Twentieth Century fad, Tutankhamen has within the week eclipsed contemporary suns with the shadow of his majesty. For labor leaders, finance ministers, and even divorcees are never buried in coffins of gold in an eternal setting of jewels. A people hungry for the glints of splendor find much to amuse and thrill their welcoming hearts in the mental contemplation of such granduer. The sentiment of the world Howard Carter holds in his right hand while he removes aged vestments from the mummy form of this early king with a gesture of his left.

From the tombs of the great are gone the isolation of yesterday. The gentlemen of science have now usurped the avocation of Jerry Cruncher and his friends. Better it is for a man to die unknown, unpraised, than to risk perpetuity in a museum of cadavers. Modern research, ill content with probing the affairs of life, probes death. So this boy who once ruled Egypt must stand inspection before a maudlin world, while from far and near come novelty seekers aspiring to gaze for a moment at the death masque of the Pharaoh. Shavian and eternal, the child king suffers resurrection.