Quotation from: Lost Continent

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs

"Yes," she said, tugging at a knot. "Buckingham has been
wanting a sacrifice ever since he killed Wettin, that he
might slay my mother and take Victory."

The thought was horrible, not solely because of the hideous
fate to which I was condemned, but from the contemplation it
engendered of the sad decadence of a once enlightened race.
To these depths of ignorance, brutality, and superstition
had the vaunted civilization of twentieth century England
been plunged, and by what? War! I felt the structure of
our time-honored militaristic arguments crumbling about me.