Book: Date

Did you know, however, continued he musingly, that at Sparta to the West of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of socle, upon which are still legible the letters LASM. Undoubtedly, this part of the word GELASMA [laughter (gr.)]. So, in Sparta, stood one thousand temples and altars dedicated to a thousand different divinities. And it is strange in the extreme that the altar of Laughter survived all the others!