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 divine providence, and we have two instructors with which few homes can be compared.

Staza took him with her to the cemetery, and there they beheld face to face the serious side of life. Frank took Staza into the fields and to the open wold, and they recognized the smiles of the green turf on the earth, the azure blue of the firmament of heaven, the laverock which fluttered like a singing messenger from one to the other.

Staza led Frank to the cemetery whenever a new grave was delved. There they heard from the lips of Bartos the life-history of the defunct, there they squatted together, slept side by side, and were “faithful little spirits”. Frank again reconducted Staza to the field when he found a new bird’s-nest, when he had discovered any young quails, or when he wished to show her how the partridges sit. Here again he narrated to her the whole life-history of these creatures, so far as he knew it, and when they sat by the hedgerow during the narration, it seemed to them like fairy-land.

Staza came for Frank whenever the bees winged their way to the clover which bloomed on his grandfather’s grave, in order, as she said, that Frank might see whether they were the bees from his grandfather’s hives. And then Frank sat beside his grandfather’s grave and Staza beside the grave of her mother, and they were at home.

Then again Frank led Staza to the farmstead, to those hives which were now his own, and they observed in which direction the bees flew away and whether they went to his grandfather’s grave. Then the two children settled themselves in the chambers by the coach-house, and burst into story-telling just as musicians bust forth into song and melody.

And to tell the truth, these two chambers at the Loykas’s farm seemed steeped in fairy-lore and ballad-history. He who stepped into them involuntarily remembered things which he had here heard from the musicians and from the kalounkar, and scarcely had he seated himself before it all seemed to come upon him so that he was compelled to relate it all again. Something of this kind Frank and Staza experienced when they went into the burial-ground and when they seated themselves in a fresh-dug grave. Even there on that little hillock into which the grave heaped some one seemed to sit with a harp and to softly sweep the strings.


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 Rh have a room, or must I breathe again?” “No, no,” said the manager, still trembling. Then, turning to the clerk: “Give this gentleman a room,” he said, “and give him a bath.”

What these two words are that will get a room in New York at once I must not divulge. Even now, when the veil of secrecy is being lifted, the international interests involved are too complicated to permit it. Suffice it to say that if these two had failed I know a couple of others still better.

I narrate this incident, otherwise trivial, as indicating the astounding ramifications and the ubiquity of the international spy system. A similar illustration occurs to me as I write. I was walking the other day with another man, on upper B. way between the T. Building and the W. Garden.

“Do you see that man over there?” I said, pointing from the side of the street on which we were walking on the sidewalk to the other side opposite to the side that we were on.

“The man with the straw hat?” he asked. “Yes, what of him?”

“Oh, nothing,” I answered, “except that he’s a Spy!”

“Great heavens!” exclaimed my acquaintance, leaning up against a lamp-post for support.

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 And somehow Staza so aptly interpreted it all, that it seemed to Frank that never in his life had he heard such sweet and reasonable discourse.

After that they consecrated with their visits every hedgerow in the fields. And that spot where either of them had narrated some particularly pretty story was, in a manner, the source of that story. The circumstance that had been related was dear to them, and so also was the spot on which it had been related. Whenever they came to that spot a tender feeling was awakened in their minds, so often as this feeling was awakened within them, the place became still dearer, until it was to them like a consecrated shrine, without masonry, however, and without pictures. Many such shrines had they, carefully chosen resting-places and trysting-places, fringed with green turf, and above each bent a heaven aglow with the sun’s rays and saturated with its smiles.

Sometimes they sat upon the graves like two living monuments—cheerful monuments, however, and in their young memory and on their young souls were inscribed even solemn matters. And Frank was flattered when Bartos, the grave-digger, made him the auditor of his narrations; it seemed to the boy just though the dead grandfather continued to play his part in Bartos, it was, too, a certain mark of distinction to be made the confidant of a man so sedate and, moreover, the greatest athlete of the country.

Sometimes again the two children sat by the hedgerow among the rye like two quails, only that they broke in upon the clicking music of the cricket with human voices, and upon the buzzing of flies and bees. And this specially delighted Staza, who felt just as though she were at a concert, and as though she must laugh and whistle and press Frank’s hand. It was dull, though only at times, for a mind so very young to be always yonder among the graves, and Staza’s feet grew tired of wandering about the prim and sombre walks of the cemetery. But here where everything made holiday, look withersoever she would, she likewise made holiday, just as when the lenten season has passed the young sleeper awakens with a glad hurrah.

At first Frank did not at all comprehend why as soon as ever Staza entered the fields she grew so full of mirth and rapture. Her little eyes flashed playfully, she tripped along and skipped about as though she were on wires, her face joy itself, her words like songs. But it could not be otherwise—man was not created to be exclusively sad and serious—gaiety is just as necessary as Rh


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Author:Thomas Richard Suozzi

Works

 * Repeal unjust SALT cap and restore full deduction (June 29, 2021)

Works about Suozzi
Mentioned in concurrent resolutions
 * H.Con.Res.8 (117th Congress) (January 21, 2021)
 * H.Con.Res.9 (117th Congress) (January 28, 2021)
 * H.Con.Res.19 (117th Congress) (February 1, 2021)
 * H.Con.Res.24 (117th Congress) (March 23, 2021)

Mentioned in House bills
 * H.R. 40 (117th Congress) (January 4, 2021)
 * H.R. 7 (117th Congress) (January 28, 2021)

title: Author:Thomas Richard Suozzi


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 the sunlight; the young heart of little Staza was a proof of this: unconsciously she wished to compensate herself for all from which, equally unconsciously, she had been hitherto excluded.

But later Frank ceased to wonder at her gaiety; he also was himself saturated with it. When he went to the cemetery for Staza all the way thither he rejoiced beforehand at the thought of her enjoyment, and looked forward to her skips of delight and cries of pleasure, sometimes he half skipped about himself when he thought how she would skip about, sometimes he half began to carol when he thought how she would sing and carol.

And so Frank began to acquire in the parish the reputation of a vagabond who could scarcely be tethered to his home, and we cannot gainsay the correctness of this opinion, he was a vagabond, and became more and more of one every day, so that already he found very little pleasure in his home, and was glad if only he could sneak away out of sight somewhere behind the barn. Sometimes when he went with Staza and they could not ensconce themselves in the two chambers by the coach-house he turned away with her at his side, and they explored some choice nook outside the village. If any one had inquired of Frank what his home looked like, he would only have described those two chambers in the court-yard—nothing else belonged to his conception of home, and no one was associated with these chambers—neither father nor mother nor brother. All that appertained to them was that they were empty, and that he was in them and that Staza was in them with him.

Later his parents wished to attach him to his home, but it was already too late. They set him work to do afield, and there he went willingly enough. But if he had to work in the court-yard. he soon sought the easiest means of escape into the country; and when once he was out of doors and in the country outside, any one might be sure of finding him on the road to the burial-ground, unless he were hiding by the hedgerow or in some newly delved grave.

And now even Joseph began to chaff him for his vagabond ways, and his parents could not deny that their elder son had some foundation for his sarcasms. But we know very well that Joseph was always the spoilt child of the house, and that Frank was the fifth wheel of the coach; and therefore Joseph’s oracular sentences carried no great weight with them. And when Joseph told his father and mother quite seriously that they were teach-


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 merely, with half the rights of men like the subjects of despotic Russia; but a native slave, stripped of very right which God and nature gave him, and which the high spirit of our revolution declared inalienable—which he himself could not surrender, and which man could not take from him. Is he not then the subject of despotic sway?

"The slaves of Athens and Rome were tree in comparison. They had some rights—could acquire some property; could choose their own masters, and purchase their own freedom; and, when free, could rise in social and political life. The slaves of America, then, lie under the most absolute and grinding despotism that the world ever saw. But who are the despots? The rulers of the country—the sovereign people! Not merely the slaveholder who cracks the lash. He is but the instrument in the hands of despotism. That despotism is the government of the Slave States, and the United States, consisting of all its rulers—all the free citizens. He not look upon this as a paradox, because you and I and the sixteen millions of rulers are free. The rulers of every despotism are free. Nicholas of Russia is free. The grand Sultan of Turkey is free. The butcher of Austria is free. Augustus, Anthony, and Lepidus were free, while they drenched Rome in blood. The Thirty Tyrants—the Four Hundred—the Three Thousand, were free while they bound their countrymen in chains. You, and I, and the sixteen millions are free, while we fasten iron chains, and rivet manacles on four millions of our fellow-men—tear their wives and children from them—separate them—sell them, and doom them to perpetual, eternal bondage. Are we not then despots—despots such as history will brand and God abhor?"

"We, as individuals, are fast losing our reputation for honest dealing. Our nation is losing its

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 ing Frank to be a tramp, Loyka strictly enjoined upon his younger son to stay at home and not to leave it any more.

But even these injunctions soon ceased to be taken seriously. Frank obeyed for a day or two, and after a day or two was already far away from home without his parents paying any heed to him.

Old Loyka, indeed, already began to grow rather blind to everything novel that originated around him, and Frank’s vagabond habits were something novel. Moreover he himself was too much afflicted by the relation subsisting between himself and Joseph, and was too full of it, with the best intentions in the world, to have much room left in his heart for Frank.

And here we must say, once for all, that old Loyka’s power of resistance which had in some respects so stoutly confronted Joseph’s encroachment upon its rights, now began in everything to slacken at all points. He felt himself crushed and broken, he already found but few sources of support within himself, and thus he willed and acted only by halves. Each new motive entered into him only as it were by one ear, to vanish again immediately by the other. And so it was that he ordered Frank not to quit the house, as to whether his son obeyed his orders or not, the father had already ceased to trouble himself.

And then one day in the presence of Frank was enacted between the old folks and the young one of those scenes which were already of as frequent occurrence at the farm as the Lord’s prayer in the church service. For, one day, the kalounkar came to the Loykas’s, not to be received there as a guest, but only that he might look once more for old acquaintance’s sake upon his old friend. And on this occasion Frank saw that old Loyka wept and that the kalounkar also wept. Then old Loyka invited the kalounkar to stay with him in the two chambers at least for the night. The kalounkar excused himself, till at last Loyka drew him almost by force across the court-yard. But when he wished to open the door there was no key, and when he asked for the key he was told that the young hospodar had it and, so they said, had locked the two chambers in order that Frank should not introduce into them any of the servants who had once been dismissed from the house.

On this old Loyka commanded that the key should be brought, but no one could find it. And after he had thus waited a long time and had joked freely in order that the kalounkar might not perceive that he was no longer master on his estate, and when


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Repeal unjust SALT cap and restore full deduction

Madam Speaker, tonight, over the next hour, I, along with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, will rise to advocate for the repeal of the unjust and unfair SALT cap and the full restoration of the SALT deduction. There are five basic arguments that I, along with my colleagues, will flesh out over the next hour.

One, the SALT cap was specifically and unjustly targeted against the residents of New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and other congressional districts with high local and State taxes. Two, middle-class families, which in these States can earn between $100,000 and $200,000 per year, are disproportionately impacted in a negative way. Three, these same middle-class families, as well as wealthy families, are incentivized by the loss of the SALT deduction to leave States with high State and local taxes, thereby leaving a gaping hole in the revenues that are used by these same States to fund their programs. When wealthy individuals and families leave our States because they have been incentivized to leave because of the loss of the SALT deduction, it is middle-class and low-income people who are left behind to hold the bag. Because of the gap in revenues, they will either face higher taxes, which is unacceptable and unsustainable, or reduced services, which is unlikely. Four, the SALT cap is anti-union because one of the main reasons that taxes are higher in SALT States is because we pay our teachers and our public safety and our civil servants significantly higher wages than our low-tax competitor States. Five, many States with high State and local taxes that have been negatively affected by the SALT cap are net donors to the Federal Government. That is, these States contribute more to the Federal Government in income taxes than they receive in Federal programs and contracts. They are donor States. Why are the taxes higher in New York, California, and other SALT States? Why are the taxes lower in Florida, Texas, and other low-tax States? The reason for our higher taxes is because we insure our children. New York State and California have some of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the Nation, while Texas and Florida have some of the highest rates of uninsured children in our country. We adopted the Affordable Care Act; they refused to. Our States have the highest rates of union employees. Our low-tax competitors don't like unions. In fact, they actively oppose them. They have right-to-work laws. They don't pay their teachers well. In States like New York, we have one of the greatest mass transit systems in the world that delivers the lowest carbon footprint per capita of any city in the world. In California, they have been implementing policies to address climate change for decades. Yet, in low-tax States, they have no mass transit to speak of, and they are still debating whether climate change is a hoax.

Secretary Yellen has said that we need to stop the international race to the bottom by creating a global minimum corporate tax. Well, we need to discourage a race to the bottom right here in the United States of America.

It is cheaper not to insure your children. It is cheaper to use nonunion labor. It is cheaper to have lax environmental regulations, unregulated utilities that shut down in cold weather, or septic tanks instead of sewers that cause red tide in your waterways.

Each State, each city, each laboratory of democracy has decided how they want to govern, what services they want to provide, and how much in taxes they will collect. By removing the SALT deduction, the first deduction in the Federal income tax code, a deduction that has been in place for over 100 years, by capping this deduction, we are crippling the very States, cities, and local municipalities that are the economic engines of our Nation. By capping the SALT deduction, the long arm of the Federal Government is reaching into our States and local governments to try to determine what programs they should provide, how much they should collect in taxes. They are breaching the covenant of federalism that has been in place for over 100 years. That is why, tomorrow, will be holding a press conference with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties to showcase how the SALT cap is devastating our local governments. Last week, we held a press conference with unions to show how they are negatively impacted by the SALT cap. That is why, tonight, so many of my colleagues are here to join me in our call to repeal the unfair and the unjust SALT cap.


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. The loss of a firm national character, or the degradation, of a nation's honour, is the inevitable prelude to her destruction. Behold the once proud fabric of a Roman empire—an empire carrying its arts and arms into every part of the Eastern continent; the monarchs of mighty kingdoms dragged at the wheels of her triumphal chariots; her eagle waving over the ruins of desolated countries;—where is her splendour, her wealth, her power, her glory? Extinguished for ever. Her mouldering temples, the mournful vestiges of her former grandeur, afford a shelter to her muttering monks. Where are her statesmen, her sages, her philosophers, her orators, generals? Go to their solitary tombs and inquire? She lost her national character, and her destruction followed. The ramparts of her national pride were broken down, and Vandalism desolated her classic fields. Then let the people of our country take warning ere it is too late. But most of us say to ourselves,

"New Orleans is doubtless the most immoral place in the United States. The theatres are open on the Sabbath. Bull-fights, horse-racing, and other cruel amusements are carried on in this city to an extent unknown in any other part of the Union. The most stringent laws have been passed in that city against negroes, yet a few years since the State Legislature passed a special act to enable a white man to marry a coloured woman, on account of her being possessed of a large fortune. And, very recently, the following paragraph appeared in the city papers:—

"'There has been quite a stir recently in this city, in consequence of a marriage of a white man, named Buddington,

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 still no one brought the key, Loyka turned, caught up a cleaver from somewhere in the yard, and battered in the doors of the two chambers. When they cracked, it seemed as if the whole building would tumble down, and when at last the doors gave way and the two chambers were free of access and Loyka stood like a conqueror at the threshold leaning upon his cleaver, and shouted that he was still master in his own house and so let his friends make themselves at home—then, to his astonishment, he became aware that he was addressing people who were no longer there. For the kalounkar was already far away from the court-yard, and Frank had vanished with him. After this a discordant din of voices reached his ears from the balcony above—the voices of the young folks, to whom Loyka replied throughout the whole dialogue from the court-yard, frequently threatening them with the cleaver which he held in his hand.

And this time Frank vanished from the farm for good. When several days elapsed and he did not reappear, the Loykas thought that it was one of his usual rambles, and that they need only send to Bartos at the cemetery to inquire for him, and they would get Frank home again. And when he still did not come after several days they sent a message to Bartos just to say that Frank had still not returned. After this old Loyka went himself to the cemetery, but when he saw the grandfather’s grave, he knelt beside it and prayed a thousand times for forgiveness. He almost forgot exactly why he had gone there. And it was Bartos who first reminded him. “You are looking for Frank, I dare say? Certainly he is not at his home, for it is now a week since he has been at our house.”

It was exactly a week since Frank had quitted his home.

“But I heard say that he had gone with the kalounkar [tape-pedlar], and that he was walking the world with him”, said Bartos to the astonished parent.

“With the kalounkar? Going all over the world with him?” said Loyka, repeating the words of the grave-digger.

When he returned home he told his wife what he had heard, and they dispatched Vena to look for the kalounkar and bring Frank home from him.

Vena departed and came back after several weeks with the news that Frank had tramped it with the kalounkar, but then, so it was said, he had met with a harper, had quitted the kalounkar, and gone with the harper.


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 a teller in the Canal Bank, to the negro daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants. Buddington, before he could be married, was obliged to swear that he had negro blood in his veins, and to do this he made an incision in his arm, and put some of her blood in the cut. The ceremony was performed by a Catholic clergyman, and the bridegroom has received with his wife a fortune of fifty or sixty thousand dollars.'

"It seems that the fifty or sixty thousand dollars entirely covered the negro woman's black skin, and the law prohibiting marriage between blacks and whites was laid aside for the occasion."

Althesa felt proud, as well she might, at her husband's taking such high ground in a slaveholding city like New Orleans.

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 “Dolt! idiot!” said Loyka, “then you ought to have discovered the harper and brought back Frank. And so begin the search again—the sooner, the better and without Frank do not venture near my house.”

Vena departed and found the harper, but Frank, so it was said, had gone with a fiddler and now, doubtless, was once more with the kalounkar. “Pantata,” exclaimed Vena, “I should never have ventured home again as long as I lived, for no one will find Frank again till the Day of Judgment. He goes off with the people he meets, and we should have to run the circuit for ever of all the wayfarers who ever passed the night here, for it is with these he roves the world.”

Although it might have seemed that such news would have not a little ruffled Loyka, such was not the case. Hearing with whom Frank roved the world, he in a sort of way reconciled himself to the young renegade: “They dare not come to us, so he has gone to them”, reasoned Loyka; this appeared to be so certainly true that this truth even, in some sort, gave him satisfaction; at all events Frank published to the world the fact that these humble dependants were no longer domesticated at the Loykas’s, at all events he, in some sort, incriminated Joseph of having so ruthlessly stripped their home of its previous mirth and jollity.

“He is not in bad hands”, thought Loyka to himself, and out loud he said, “The roving young scamp, but I suppose he knows what a flogging he will get when he comes home again.”

But Frank knew nothing about a flogging and returned home no more. Then more messengers besides Vena were dispatched from the farm, and all returned with the news that where he last was heard of, he was no longer to be found, and that they could not track him further.

T drew nigh to Easter Day when old Loyka said to his wife, “For my part I no longer wish to be hospodar, but would fain retire altogether to the pension house.”

On this Loyka’s wife said, “And are almost five years of our hospodarship to be so completely cancelled. That would be just as though we were to take flight from the farmhouse.”

“And what are we in the farmhouse? Dost think that we are still hospodar here?” inquired Loyka with a kind of angry fervour.


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 And on this he began to explain how Joseph began to take everything upon himself. “And pray what value is set upon you as mistress, I wish to know,” he added. And when he had said all he meant to say, he spat. After this he added, “Thou hast taught thy son these manners, that spoilt pet of thine.”

Loyka’s wife felt the bitterness of his reproach; she was silent and furtively wiped away a tear, and for a long time sought in vain for a reply. “At all events it was not I who taught the young bride, and she has corrupted Joseph”, said Loyka’s wife at last.

“That is as much as to say, ‘It was I who chose the young bride, and therefore I am to blame for it all'", said Loyka in an access of fury.

On this Loyka’s wife was again silent, and secretly wiped away a second salt tear.

Then Loyka paced twice up and down the apartment. His head was bowed, his two eyes measured his steps, his hands were lodged behind his back, and the fingers of one hand tapped on the fingers of the other. Then he halted in front of his wife, drew himself up, and said, “And do you know what is the best of this pretty business? That we both richly deserve to be treated thus. But thou more than I, because I only obeyed thee when thou didst hound me on against my father. But now things are reversed, fate has singled me out for punishment, you are not worthy its attention.”

Here Loyka’s wife no longer stretched out her hand to wipe away a tear, but said to Loyka, flinging her words into his very face, “If thou thinkest that it has come upon us in consequence of our ill-dealing toward thy father-good, let us bear it; for my part I will not say thee nay, and I do not wish to shirk my share of the blame, nor would I ever shuffle it off myself on to thee.”

“Well said, wife”, responded Loyka, paced once to and fro the apartment, and as he did so, muttered, “Let us bear it, let us bear it, if thou so wishest, let us bear it, and let us begin from this very day. I, in sooth, have already borne it for a long time, but since thou so wishest, let us begin from this very day in earnest. But this I say to thee: whatsoever comes to pass, pity me thou must not, neither will I pity thee, that I think thou desirest not at my hands.”

On this he looked out of the window, and seeing Joseph going across the court-yard, summoned him, and forthwith again re-


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 letter, than he set out for Now Orleans; and finding on his arrival there, that his mistress had been taken away, resolved to follow her. There he was; but how could she communicate with him? She dared not trust the old negress with her secret, for fear that it might reach her master. Jane wrote a hasty note and throw it out of the window, which was eagerly picked up by the young man, and he soon disappeared in the woods. Night passed away in dreariness to her, and the next morning she viewed the spot beneath her window with the hope of seeing the footsteps of him who had stood there the previous night. Evening returned, and with it the hope of again seeing the man she loved. In this she was not disappointed; for daylight had scarcely disappeared, and the moon once more rising through the tops of the tall trees, when the young man was seen in the same place as on the previous night. He had in his hand a rope ladder. As soon as Jane saw this, she took the sheets from her bed, tore them into strings, tied them together, and let one end down the side of the house. A moment more, and one end of the rope-ladder was in her hand, and she fastened it inside the room. Soon the young maiden was seen descending, and the enthusiastic lover, with his arms extended, waiting to receive his mistress. The planter had been out on an hunting excursion, and returning home, saw his victim as her lover was receiving her in his arms. At this moment the sharp sound of a rifle was heard, and the young man fell weltering in his blood, at the feet of his mistress. Jane fell senseless by his side. For many days she had a confused consciousness of some great agony, but knew not where she was, or by whom surrounded. The slow recovery of her reason settled into the most intense melancholy, which gained at length, the compassion even of her cruel master. The

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 turned to the apartment. “And so it is beginning already”, said he, just as if it was the eve of a kind of battle.

After a brief moment Joseph came, and here old Loyka was already seated by the table with some solemnity, because such an act could not be completed without a certain amount of ceremony.

“I have summoned thee,” began Loyka, “or more properly speaking I have begged thee to come, since I have already no more power to command, and I know not whether thou wouldst obey. But I and thy mother, look you, desire to place the hospodarship in thy hands and Barushka’s. And thou art aware that in the agreement we have reserved to ourselves in case of such a contingency, to wit, that we should quit the hospodarship within the course of six years: to be rendered to us by thee a quarter of all the produce of the farm. So, then, I ask thee in the presence of the Lord God, wilt thou conscientiously fulfil thy part of the contract?”

Joseph, at these words, merely smiled like a man whose object is accomplished—an object which he had long had in view. For I think the reader will agree with us so far as this—that all the wrongs which Joseph heaped upon his father only aimed at making the hospodarship a burden to him, so that he might voluntarily surrender it of himself. And now his father surrendered it, voluntarily surrendered it, be it understood, because surrender it he must.

“Why should I not fulfil my portion of the contract, and give you what belongs to you”, said Joseph. “It is understood, of course, that you will also contribute a fourth part of all the outlay on the farm. And if the produce is scanty, your share will be scanty, too, and if the outlay be greater, then you will have to contribute more. All just as the Lord God blesses our undertakings.” Joseph said all this smilingly, and as he pronounced the last sentence his lip almost curled, as though he said only in different words, “I have you in a trap, dear father; I shall give you just as much as I choose.”

Old Loyka certainly perfectly well understood that his son led him thus to a kind of chasm, and now said to him, “Leap!” He felt it but too well, even some motes danced before his eyes, even his head went round a little. But sometimes a man, in presence of very important events stands as it were blindfold, if not actually blind: he knows that he is standing above an abyss, but still he says, “I leap!” and he leaps.


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 “Why should we discuss the matter further,” said old Loyka, “it is all made out and signed in the lawyer’s books, and that is the agreement. What is there written is valid.”

“Undoubtedly”, said Joseph, and again his lip curled.

“I had further reserved the right to us old folk”, continued Loyka, “of dwelling in the farmhouse during the remainder of the six years and during that time Frank was to mess with you young people.”

“That is hard lines for the estate”, said Joseph again, just as if he wished to show that he was but trifling with his father, and that he had long ago preconcerted everything in his own mind. “No, no, that will not do at all. To manage the estate from the pension house in which we can scarce turn round will not do at all, and I am sure that as hospodar you will recognize as much yourself. As to Frank it will be time enough to settle who is to feed and lodge him when we have him at home again. For I certainly am not going to carry his victuals after him when I have no notion where he is.”

And thus old Loyka was practically chuzzled out of both his conditions, and felt little inclination to impose others. “And so you think we must be banished to the pension house”, he said, but only in order to make a remark. “Well, if you think so we will be banished to the pension house”, he added. “Dost hear, aged wife of my bosom, we are banished—ousted.” And he said it in a tone of voice which implied, “Misfortune begins from this moment.”

Loyka’s wife had turned away, and did not answer.

On this Loyka stepped close to his son’s side and began to speak again somewhat ceremoniously, as if to mark the importance of the present step of which, however, he was no longer master. “Thou seest, Joseph, thy mother: look at her. Her hair is already streaked with grey, just as my hair is streaked with grey. Thou wilt be hospodar here now, and if thou thinkest that thou canst safely wrong me, thy father, the Lord God forgive thee. But look that thou dost not wrong thy mother. She has suffered much for thy sake, she has loved thee all too dearly, and therefore wrong her not.”

At these words Loyka’s wife wiped her eyes (if it is possible to say so) out loud; that is to say she sobbed all the while as if she wished to demonstrate that her son had already frequently done her wrong, Loyka was meek and mild, and Joseph did not answer.


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 the junction of the Mississippi river with the sea. This was a most singular spot, remote, in a dense forest spreading over the summit of a cliff that rose abruptly to a great height above the sea; but so grand in its situation, in the desolate sublimity which reigned around, in the reverential murmur of the waves that washed its base, that, though picturesque, it was a forest prison. Here the young lady saw no one, except an old negress who acted as her servant. The smiles with which the young man met her were indignantly spurned. But she was the property of another, and could hope for justice and mercy only through him.

Jane, though only in her fifteenth year, had become strongly attached to Volney Lapuc, a young Frenchman, a student in her father's office. The poverty of the young man, and the youthful age of the girl, had caused their feelings to be kept from the young lady's parents. At the death of his master, Volney had returned to his widowed mother at Mobile, and knew nothing of the misfortune that had befallen his mistress, until he received a letter from her. But how could he ever obtain a sight of her, even if he wished, locked up as she was in her master's mansion? After several days of what her master termed "obstinacy" on her part, the young girl was placed in an upper chamber, and told that that would be her home, until she should yield to her master's wishes. There she remained more than a fortnight, and with the exception of a daily visit from her master, she saw no one but the old negress who waited upon her. One bright moonlight evening as she was seated at the window, she perceived the figure of a man beneath her window. At first, she thought it was her master; but the tall figure of the stranger soon convinced her that it was another. Yes, it was Volney! He had no sooner received her

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 Only after a pause Joseph inquired: “Then, when would you like to shift your things?”

“Well, what thinkest thou, aged wife of my bosom, when are we to be banished?” inquired old Loyka.

“Well, if it has to be, perhaps the sooner it is done the better”, said Joseph’s mother, thinking at the same time that her son would say that there was no need of shifting just yet.

“As you will”, said Joseph. “I will send the servants at once to help you to remove your things.” He turned the matter in this way, so that he might still appear in the light of a dutiful son.

“Send them, Joseph, send them”, said old Loyka, and on this Joseph departed.

But old Loyka did not tarry for the servants. He at once began to drag from the wall chests and drawers, and to remove the chairs from their places by the table, and all in as much haste as though an enemy was approaching and everything had to be cleared out of the way within an hour.

Then came the servants into the apartment to assist; but old Loyka thanked them with a kind of mock reverence for their zeal, and requested them to send Vena to him who would help him best, and would also season his work with some wise saws and maxims.

So, then, Vena came, and scarcely had he appeared in the doorway before he exclaimed: “See, see, pantata, might you not just as well have let yourself be ousted that day when your son had got you half turned out of doors? What work we had to set all straight again—and all in vain. But if it must be so, then the Lord God help you.”

Old Loyka paused beside a chest, and said, “Prithee, how sayest thou? It seems to me that thou dost completely pity me?”

“Pantata,” answered Vena, “I do pity you. I pity every one as soon aas [sic] he is pensioned off. I ever jeered at you when you evilly entreated the pensioner on your bounty, and I pitied him, your own father, while it went on. If I could have remembered how your father played the hospodar, I should have pitied the pensioner on his bounty, and if I live to see Joseph pensioned off, I shall begin to pity him, and I shall give it his successor—perhaps his son. Oh! ye peasant proprietors! how ill you regulate your affairs. Come, move out of the way, old tea-chest”, he said, turning abruptly towards Loyka, as though he meant him by this expression.


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 They were given up, but neither ate nor slept, nor separated from each other, till they were taken into the New Orleans slave market, where they were offered to the highest bidder. There they stood, trembling, blushing, and weeping; compelled to listen to the grossest language, and shrinking from the rude hands that examined the graceful proportions of their beautiful frames.

After a fierce contest between the bidders, the young ladies were sold, one for 2,300 dollars, and the other for 3,000 dollars. We need not add that had those young girls been sold for mere house servants or field hands, they would not have brought one half the sums they did. The fact that they were the grand-daughters of Thomas Jefferson, no doubt, increased their value in the market. Here were two of the softer sex, accustomed to the fondest indulgence, surrounded by all the refinements of life, and with all the timidity that such a life could produce, bartered away like cattle in Smithfield market. Ellen, the eldest, was sold to an old gentleman, who purchased her, as he said, for a housekeeper. The girl was taken to his residence, nine miles from the city. She soon, however, knew for what purpose she had been bought; and an educated and cultivated mind and taste, which made her see and understand how great was her degradation, now armed her hand with the ready means of death. The morning after her arrival, she was found in her chamber, a corpse. She had taken poison. Jane was purchased by a dashing young man, who had just come into the possession of a large fortune. The very appearance of the young Southerner pointed him out as an unprincipled profligate; and the young girl needed no one to tell her of her impending doom. The young maid of fifteen was immediately removed to his country seat, near

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 “Pray, what do you mean by that”, said Loyka, and nudged himself into a certain amount of good humour and tried to smile.

“I mean by that, that you are the principal piece of furniture which hampers Joseph here, and that if you would walk off to the lumber-room all the rest might be permitted to remain”, sneered Vena.

“Listen, aged wife of my bosom, listen to this sapient Solomon. So long we have had him in the house and never knew his worth. We have to be banished the farm in order to duly appreciate his wisdom. Without our banishment this well of wisdom would have been for ever sealed. Ha! ha! and so I am the principal piece of furniture”, laughed old Loyka. “And, pray, what have you got to say of my aged wife yonder?”

“She requites you for your young days of courtship. Then you were always following after her, now she follows after you. But do you know what is a sad thing?”

“Well, what?” inquired old Loyka.

“That it is only grey-headed eld which tramps it to that dog-kennel which you call a pension house. It were better to begin more timely when a man is yet stout enough to bear his ills. But for an old man to take up his wallet and go a-begging—fie!”

“How am I going a-begging?” retorted Loyka, and here he felt as though he were dying of impatience to hear a little more. “You? God protect you! In your family begging and being pensioned off are one and the same thing. And in order that I may prove to you that even without begging you can steal a march upon your son, intercede with him in my behoof that I may not be expelled from those two chambers by the coach-house. For, if not, you will not have a single living soul in whom to confide your sorrows.”

“So, then, you think, Vena, I shall want some one in whom to confide my sorrows?”

“That you will, pantata, that you will. I know it from your own poor father. When he suffered most at your hands, and got a sight of me it was just as though he had bitten honey. Oh! you have no idea at all how I sweetened his life for him. I was more than sauce and seasoning”, said Vena proudly.

“Listen, aged wife of my bosom, this affects your credit in the kitchen”, laughed old Loyka.

“It affects you both, pantata”, said Vena, quickly correcting him. “But, of course, you will soon understand it all yourselves. When your dinner is brought to you up aloft yonder without salt


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 are slaves. Morton was unacquainted with the laws of the land; and although he had married Althesa, it was a marriage which the law did not recognise; and therefore she whom he thought to be his wife was, in fact, nothing more than his slave. What would have been his feelings had he known this, and also known that his two daughters, Ellen and Jane, were his slaves? Yet such was the fact. After the disappearance of the disease with which Henry Morton had so suddenly been removed, his brother went to New Orleans to give what aid he could in settling up the affairs. James Morton, on his arrival in New Orleans, felt proud of his nieces, and promised them a home with his own family in Vermont; little dreaming that his brother had married a slave woman, and that his nieces were slaves. The girls themselves had never heard that their mother had been a slave, and therefore knew nothing of the danger hanging over their heads. An inventory of the property was made out by James Morton, and placed in the hands of the creditors; and the young ladies, with their uncle, were about leaving the city to reside for a few days on the banks of Lake Ponchetain, where they could enjoy a fresh air that the city could not afford. But just as they were about taking the train, an officer arrested the whole party; the young ladies as slaves, and the uncle upon the charge of attempting to conceal the property of his deceased brother. Morton was overwhelmed with horror at the idea of his nieces being claimed as slaves, and asked for time, that he might save them from such a fate. He even offered to mortgage his little farm in Vermont for the amount which young slave women of their ages would fetch. But the creditors pleaded that they were "an extra article," and would sell for more than common slaves; and must, therefore, be sold at auction.

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 or sauce or seasoning, neither your son nor your son’s wife will salt or sauce it for you; then you just call down the backstairs, ‘Oh, Vena, come and be our sauce and seasoning!’ And I shall understand all that you have need of. Only, prithee, guarantee me those two chambers, or verily it will go hard with you.”

“The two chambers? If I had to take thee with me aloft into the pension house, thou should’st never quit the estate, Vena”, answered Loyka sententiously.

“I have your word, at all events”, said Vena, thanking him. “So now we may proceed with your banishment. I thought it important to insist upon the matter of my two chambers, because it is possible that to-day you will march across yon court-yard for the last time in your life.”

“And, prithee, how may that be I should like to know, thou sapient Solomon?” asked Loyka.

“As thus. If you have not in your written agreement reserved to yourself the right of walking across your son’s court-yard, who knows whether he will permit it. You will have to creep along the roof like grimalkin when she goes to the witches frolic”, and Vena laughed.

“It is not necessary to put such things into a written agreement”, said Loyka, with a kind of angry fervour.

“Oh! of course not, of course not, seeing that what stands in the written agreement is never carried out, the less there the better. Your own father never dared draw water from your well, and I think his right to do so was reserved in the written agreement.”

“It wasn’t”, cut in Loyka.

“Oh! it wasn’t; then see here. No doubt of it you have it in your agreement that you may draw water, but have forgot in the same agreement to reserve to yourself the right of walking across the court-yard to fetch the water. But do you know what, pantata, if it comes to that, I will carry you across the court-yard on my back, for then no one will be able to prove that you walked across the court-yard, and as for me I have still the right to carry on my back what I please.”

“Thou art all salt and sauce, boy, sauciness and seasoning”, said Loyka to cut short the conversation, and for a moment his breast heaved as though he was on the point of weeping. But after all nothing came of it except laughter, only that behind this laughter that weeping was quite apparent: tears and weeping


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 looked through a curtain of laughter, and whoever saw it felt little disposed to laugh.

And so they were banished from the farmhouse. Loyka and Loyka’s wife cast a last lingering look over that apartment where from their youth until now they had tasted all the sweets and sorrows of life, and which they were perhaps leaving for ever. On some estates a beggar has easier access to the farmhouse than the vejminkar [pensioner]. And if he goes there once in a way, even his step, even his look seems to sicken every one—without careful fostering, his inclination to repeat the visit soon languishes.

“There is only one thing I am sorry for”, said Vena, when the greater part of the furniture had been already carried out before the threshold. “And that is that there are no longer any musicians at the farm—how they would have beguiled our transit to the pension house! Those were the times! When at a touch of those strings everything was tootling and jigging on the farm, and even sorrow put on a smart frock!”

“Dost think those musicians remember me?” inquired Loyka, who to-day, as he had been for some time, was as it were held a prey to a sort of childish meekness.

“Do I think they remember you? They put you into popular songs. The song of the vejminkar [pensioner] will be given at every market in the district, and then they will point to Frank as a living witness of the truth of the ballad. And the kalounkar and the rest of them will equally testify to its truth. And so, then, the Lord help us on our way without music, since there is none to be gotten. Welladay, I should have been glad to have seen one thing. That is I should have liked to see you either laugh or cry, for in heaven, ’tis said, tears and laughter are worth just as much as music. But there is no laughter in you, and crying is not worth while.”

Thus the Loykas were banished from the farmhouse in sorrow, which they sought to screen with laughter, but did not much succeed.

In the meantime, the young folks were shifting their quarters in a very different frame of mind. Yonder from the pension house the servants were dragging down furniture of all sorts, and laughter—genuine laughter—accompanied every step. Joseph looked as though he had been polished for the occasion. Barushka was just as if it were her wedding-day. Their every step, their every word betrayed that they were the victors, that the old


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 worse than the waking hours; and when the reason sank under a delirium which had its seat in the brain, repose utterly forsook the patient's couch. The progress of the heat within was marked by yellowish spots, which spread over the surface of the body. If, then, a happy crisis came not, all hope was gone. Soon the breath infected the air with a fetid odour, the lips were glazed, despair painted itself in the eyes, and sobs, with long intervals of silence, formed the only language. From each side of the mouth spread foam, tinged with black and burnt blood. Blue streaks mingled with the yellow all over the frame. All remedies were useless. This was the Yellow Fever. The disorder spread alarm and confusion throughout the city. On an average, more than 400 died daily. In the midst of disorder and confusion, death heaped victims on victims. Friend followed Mend in quick succession. The sick were avoided from the fear of contagion, and for the same reason the dead were left unburied. Nearly 2000 dead bodies lay uncovered in the burial-ground, with only here and there a little lime thrown over them, to prevent the air becoming infected.

The negro, whose home is in a hot climate, was not proof against the disease. Many plantations had to suspend their work for want of slaves to take, the places of those carried off by the fever. Henry Morton and wife were among the thirteen thousand, swept away by the raging disorder that year. Like too many, Morton had been dealing extensively in lands and stocks and though apparently in good circumstances was, in reality, deeply involved in debt. Althesa, although as white as most white women in a southern clime, was, as we already know, born a slave. By the laws of all the Southern States the children follow the condition of the mother. If the mother is free the children are free; if a slave, they

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 people were vanquished and subjugated. Learn it ye aged! ye are vanquished and subjugated! Here every shadow of tenderer feeling was out of place, Barushka and Joseph had won a preconcerted game, and the player who has won is always the only one who laughs.

Even Kmoch, Barushka’s father, had already received intelligence that they were shifting into the farmhouse, and already betook himself thither and helped the young folks to laugh. He went to old Loyka and with a sleek smile expatiated on the wisdom his friend had shown in this step. “You know,” says Kmoch, “the hospodarship should always belong to the young folk who have energy and versatility; but old people, you know, ought to rest, they deserve a brief breathing-space before they go hence” and more to the same effect.

Old Loyka at this speech collected a few words as we collect out of our pockets a few spare kreuzers where with to rid ourselves of a beggar. “I had already firmly decided upon this,” said he, “and, what is more, I never alter my mind.”

“I trust not, indeed,” said Kmoch, “for what end will it serve to change your mind yet again?”

“He thinks, I beg his pardon, pantata Kmoch thinks that only from to-day you have grown wise enough to know from its beak where the chaffinch is sitting and how to sprinkle salt on the hare’s tail”, put in Vena. “It is dearly bought praise, pantata, when you must deprive yourself of a farmhouse to get the reputation of being a wise man. As soon as the sacrifice is made, then all goes well, then all men praise you who haven’t a notion after all why all the fine estates are in the market.”

“What do you mean?” said Kmoch, turning angrily to Vena; “a pretty notion: a fine estate in the market. I must say, pantata, you have harboured a very impudent gang of servants here, and glad I am that the young folk have made a clean sweep of them.” “As for thee,” said he, turning again to Vena, “thou art not hammered on to the house with a nail nor glued there with mortar so as to be irremovable! A pretty notion! His fine estates in the market!”

“For all that you will not oust me just yet”, said Vena proudly. “I and your good gossip Loyka have made a compact, and I am not to venture to leave the house, and if it comes to that he goes and I stay here. Isn’t that true?” said he, appealing to Loyka.

Nothing was left for Kmoch but to disdain to carry on the conversation further, which, indeed, he did: only he still hinted


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 Rh “A Spy! How do you know that? What does it mean?”

I gave a quiet laugh—we Spies learn to laugh very quietly.

“Ha!” I said, “that is my secret, my friend. ''Verbum sapientius! Che sarà sarà! Yodel doodle doo!''”

My acquaintance fell in a dead faint upon the street. I watched them take him away in an ambulance. Will the reader be surprised to learn that among the white-coated attendants who removed him I recognized no less a person than the famous Russian Spy, Poulispantzoff. What he was doing there I could not tell. No doubt his orders came from so high up that he himself did not know. I had seen him only twice before—once when we were both disguised as Zulus at Buluwayo, and once in the interior of China, at the time when Poulispantzoff made his secret entry into Thibet concealed in a tea-case. He was inside the tea-case when I saw him; so at least I was informed by the coolies who carried it. Yet I recognized him instantly. Neither he nor I, however, gave any sign of recognition other than an imperceptible movement of the outer eyelid. (We Spies learn to move the outer lid of the eye so imperceptibly that it cannot be seen.) Yet after meeting Poulispantzoff in this way I was not surprised to read in the

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Curious indeed, but enormous by reason of its infinity of tradition and detail. I am afraid even to think of the size of the volume that would be needed to cover it. … Such a work would properly begin with some brief account of the earliest knowledge and use of aromatics in Japan. It would next treat of the records and legends of the first introduction of Buddhist incense from Korea,—when King Shōmyō of Kudara, in 551, sent to the island-empire a collection of sutras, an image of the Buddha, and one complete set of furniture for a temple. Then something would have to be said about those classifications of incense which were made during the tenth century, in the periods of Engi and of Tenryaku,—and about the report of the ancient state-councillor, Kimitaka-Sangi, who visited China in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and transmitted to the Emperor Yōmei the wisdom of the Chinese concerning incense. Then mention should be made of the ancient incenses still preserved in various Japanese temples, and of the famous fragments of ranjatai (publicly exhibited at


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 Nara in the tenth year of Meiji) which furnished supplies to the three great captains, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu. After this should follow an outline of the history of mixed incenses made in Japan,—with notes on the classifications devised by the luxurious Takauji, and on the nomenclature established later by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who collected one hundred and thirty varieties of incense, and invented for the more precious of them names recognized even to this day,—such as “Blossom-Showering,” “Smoke-of-Fuji,” and “Flower-of-the-Pure-Law.” Examples ought to be given likewise of traditions attaching to historical incenses preserved in several princely families; together with specimens of those hereditary recipes for incense-making which have been transmitted from generation to generation through hundreds of years, and are still called after their august inventors,—as “the Method of Hina-Dainagon,” “the Method of Sentō-In,” etc. Recipes also should be given of those strange incenses made “to imitate the perfume of the lotos, the smell of the summer breeze, and the odor of the autumn wind.” Some legends of the great period of incense-luxury should be cited,—such as the story of


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 almost involuntarily that Loyka ought not to lower himself with such a man.

This provoked Vena. “Not lower himself! If no one had picked you out of the mire, you would never have passed for so much. Only do not imagine that I do not see through you. I know you by heart, carry it off how you will. Look you! you have got your daughter on to a farm just as if a servant had made his daughter a queen, and now to-day my lord has a hundred tastes to sit on the throne himself also. Not lower oneself, indeed!” and similar things said Vena, though now Kmoch no longer heard them. He again departed to the young folk where they looked on the world with a different pair of eyes.

It seemed as though only to-day the new mistress celebrated her entry into the farmhouse. As it fell out, so it fell out. Hogsheads of beer were rolled into the court-yard; rosolek was produced, the servants were invited to it, drank, whistled, laughed, and sang, so that even people from the village collected about the court-yard, placed themselves in the gateway, and some even posted themselves in the court-yard, just as on the day when the news of the death of Frank’s grandfather lured them hither, and they had talked to one another about the life of the deceased.

They came just as if to-day there was another corpse at the farmstead, and it was old Loyka who was being buried in the pension house; perhaps he was not much unlike, not much better off than a corpse.

To-day it seemed as though the farmstead of the Loykas had regained its old appearance. For a good year or more the neighbours had disaccustomed themselves to come to the farm as they used to come in times gone by. To-day, just as though the word had been passed round, they were all here, in order to be witnesses of Loyka’s banishment from the farmhouse. Did they come to soothe or to pity him?

And by something more than accident the musicians had also gathered here in order to celebrate the memory of the day. But you may be sure that they did not place themselves on the side of the noisy, laughing youth, but beside the two silent old folk, and endeavoured to open their hearts by strains of melody and cheerful songs. They posted themselves beside that time-worn furniture, beside which sat the time-worn Loyka and his time-worn wife. Here they played and sang, as if conscious that they did so for the last time, as if to-day they would fain pay off a debt long due, and would show their gratitude once more.


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 Sué Owari-no-Kami, who built for himself a palace of incense-woods, and set fire to it on the night of his revolt, when the smoke of its burning perfumed the land to a distance of twelve miles. … Of course the mere compilation of materials for a history of mixed-incenses would entail the study of a host of documents, treatises, and books,—particularly of such strange works as the Kun-Shū-Rui-Shō, or “Incense-Collector’s-Classifying-Manual”;—containing the teachings of the Ten Schools of the Art of Mixing Incense; directions as to the best seasons for incense-making; and instructions about the “different kinds of fire” to be used for burning incense—(one kind is called “literary fire,” and another “military fire”); together with rules for pressing the ashes of a censer into various artistic designs corresponding to season and occasion. … A special chapter should certainly be given to the incense-bags (kusadama) hung up in houses to drive away goblins,—and to the smaller incense-bags formerly carried about the person as a protection against evil spirits. Then a very large part of the work would have to be devoted to the religious uses and legends of incense,—a huge subject in itself. There would also have to be considered the


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 curious history of the old “incense-assemblies,” whose elaborate ceremonial could be explained only by help of numerous diagrams. One chapter at least would be required for the subject of the ancient importation of incense-materials from India, China, Annam, Siam, Cambodia, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and various islands of the Malay archipelago,—places all named in rare books about incense. And a final chapter should treat of the romantic literature of incense,—the poems, stories, and dramas in which incense-rites are mentioned; and especially those love-songs comparing the body to incense, and passion to the eating flame:—

… The merest outline of the subject is terrifying! I shall attempt nothing more than a few notes about the religious, the luxurious, and the ghostly uses of incense.


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The common incense everywhere burned by poor people before Buddhist icons is called an-soku-kō. This is very cheap. Great quantities of it are burned by pilgrims in the bronze censers set before the entrances of famous temples; and in front of roadside images you may often see bundles of it. These are for the use of pious wayfarers, who pause before every Buddhist image on their path to repeat a brief prayer and, when possible, to set a few rods smouldering at the feet of the statue. But in rich temples, and during great religious ceremonies, much more expensive incense is used. Altogether three classes of perfumes are employed in Buddhist rites: kō, or incense-proper, in many varieties—(the word literally means only “fragrant substance”);—dzukō, an odorous ointment; and makkō, a fragrant powder. Kō is burned; dzukō is rubbed upon the hands of the priest as an ointment of purification; and makkō is sprinkled about the sanctuary. This makkō is said to be identical with the sandalwood-powder so frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts. But it is only the true


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 incense which can be said to bear an important relation to the religious service.

“Incense,” declares the Soshi-Ryaku, “is the Messenger of Earnest Desire. When the rich Sudatta wished to invite the Buddha to a repast, he made use of incense. He was wont to ascend to the roof of his house on the eve of the day of the entertainment, and to remain standing there all night, holding a censer of precious incense. And as often as he did thus, the Buddha never failed to come on the following day at the exact time desired.”

This text plainly implies that incense, as a burnt-offering, symbolizes the pious desires of the faithful. But it symbolizes other things also; and it has furnished many remarkable similes to Buddhist literature. Some of these, and not the least interesting, occur in prayers, of which the following, from the book called Hōji-san is a striking example:—

—“Let my body remain pure like a censer!—let my thought be ever as a fire of wisdom, purely consuming the incense of sîla and of dhyâna, —


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 that so may I do homage to all the Buddhas in the Ten Directions of the Past, the Present, and the Future!”

Sometimes in Buddhist sermons the destruction of Karma by virtuous effort is likened to the burning of incense by a pure flame,—sometimes, again, the life of man is compared to the smoke of incense. In his “Hundred Writings” (Hyaku-tsū-kiri-kami), the Shinshū priest Myōden says, quoting from the Buddhist work Kujikkagō, or “Ninety Articles”:—

“In the burning of incense we see that so long as any incense remains, so long does the burning continue, and the smoke mount skyward. Now the breath of this body of ours,—this impermanent combination of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire,—is tike that smoke. And the changing of the incense into cold ashes when the flame expires is an emblem of the changing of our bodies into ashes when our funeral pyres have burnt themselves out.”

He also tells us about that Incense-Paradise of which every believer ought to be reminded by the


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 And thus the personality of old Loyka was, as it were, completed. On one side stood Vena, in whom, as it were, were embodied his bitter moods. On the other side stood the musicians in whom, as it were, were embodied all the gentleness and gaiety of his mind. Each formed, as it were, a single wing, and on these wings Loyka felt himself for the moment resigned to rest.

“It comforts me, lads, to think that you do not quite forget old Loyka, it does indeed comfort me”, said Loyka to express to them his gratitude. “Truly, it does indeed comfort me. Only that now I have no place for you as formerly, and my heart is but poor accommodation. But come, lads, let us be merry, let us celebrate this one little day, that it may never drop out of our recollection.”

And old Loyka showed his old self once more. All his old hospitality emerged in him in its full vigour and in full self-consciousness, and thus his old friends could still recognize face to face the image of his former self, pure and uncorrupted.

And when people standing by the gate and in the court saw him thus, their old courage came back to them, the young lads insinuated themselves thither where the music sounded, where the cheery songs were hummed and chanted, and thus old Loyka for this one day had still the consolation of seeing that every one was on his side, and that the young folk had not a single living soul except the servants to take their part.

This aspect of affairs pleased him; just as if the blood of his young days circulated through his veins, just as if it all depended on him how long the merriment should last, just as if he was not the least aware that Joseph by a single nod could make an end of all.

But we must add that Joseph did not by any such nod make an end of all. He pretended to see nothing of it at all, and was for all the world like a gamester who, having won, also throws a few kreuzers under the table for luck’s sake. Moreover, with all his faults, Joseph was not so foolish as not to perceive that he would give general offence if he was to-day to thwart old Loyka. On the contrary, it was his cue to make the whole village believe that after all the new vejminkar [pensioner] was really not so badly off, and that evil was the tongue which asserted anything else. It was his cue to let the whole village see what peace and comfort were reserved even for a drivelling father, to let them see how true was the announcement of that father’s dotage which had been made publicly and privately, and to make them feel how much he had suffered from it.


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 perfume of earthly incense:—“In the Thirty-Second Vow for the Attainment of the Paradise of Wondrous Incense,” he says, “it is written:—‘That Paradise is formed of hundreds of thousands of different kinds of incense, and of substances incalculably precious;—the beauty of it incomparably exceeds anything in the heavens or in the sphere of man;—the fragrance of it perfumes all the worlds of the Ten Directions of Space; and all who perceive that odor practise Buddha-deeds.’ In ancient times there were men of superior wisdom and virtue who, by reason of their vow, obtained perception of the odor; but we, who are born with inferior wisdom and virtue in these later days, cannot obtain such perception. Nevertheless it will be well for us, when we smell the incense kindled before the image of Amida, to imagine that its odor is the wonderful fragrance of Paradise, and to repeat the Nembutsu in gratitude for the mercy of the Buddha.”


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But the use of incense in Japan is not confined to religious rites and ceremonies: indeed the costlier kinds of incense are manufactured chiefly for social entertainments. Incense-burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since the thirteenth century. Probably you have heard of the Japanese tea-ceremonies, and their curious Buddhist history; and I suppose that every foreign collector of Japanese bric-à-brac knows something about the luxury to which these ceremonies at one period attained,—a luxury well attested by the quality of the beautiful utensils formerly employed in them. But there were, and still are, incense-ceremonies much more elaborate and costly than the tea-ceremonies,—and also much more interesting. Besides music, embroidery, poetical composition and other branches of the old-fashioned female education, the young lady of pre-Meiji days was expected to acquire three especially polite accomplishments,—the art of arranging flowers, (ikébana), the art of ceremonial tea-making


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 (cha-no-yu or cha-no-é), and the etiquette of incense-parties (kō-kwai or kō-é). Incense-parties were invented before the time of the Ashikaga shōguns, and were most in vogue during the peaceful period of the Tokugawa rule. With the fall of the shōgunate they went out of fashion; but recently they have been to some extent revived. It is not likely, however, that they will again become really fashionable in the old sense,—partly because they represented rare forms of social refinement that never can be revived, and partly because of their costliness.

In translating kō-kwai as “incense-party,” I use the word “party” in the meaning that it takes in such compounds as “card-party,” “whist-party,” “chess-party”;—for a kō-kwai is a meeting held only with the object of playing a game,—a very curious game. There are several kinds of incense-games; but in all of them


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 the contest depends upon the ability to remember and to name different kinds of incense by the perfume alone. That variety of kō-kwai called Jitchū-kō (“ten-burning-incense”) is generally conceded to be the most amusing; and I shall try to tell you how it is played.

The numeral “ten,” in the Japanese, or rather Chinese name of this diversion, does not refer to ten kinds, but only to ten packages of incense; for Jitchū-kō, besides being the most amusing, is the very simplest of incense-games, and is played with only four kinds of incense. One kind must be supplied by the guests invited to the party; and three are furnished by the person who gives the entertainment. Each of the latter three supplies of incense—usually prepared in packages containing one hundred wafers—is divided into four parts; and each part is put into a separate paper numbered or marked so as to indicate the quality. Thus four packages are prepared of the incense classed as No. 1, four of incense No. 2, and four of incense No. 3,—or twelve in all. But the incense given by the guests,—always called “guest-incense”—is not divided: it is only put into a wrapper marked with an


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 of the Chinese character signifying “guest.” Accordingly we have a total of thirteen packages to start with; but three are to be used in the preliminary sampling, or “experimenting”—as the Japanese term it,—after the following manner.

We shall suppose the game to be arranged for a party of six,—though there is no rule limiting the number of players. The six take their places in line, or in a half-circle—if the room be small; but they do not sit close together, for reasons which will presently appear. Then the host, or the person appointed to act as incense-burner, prepares a package of the incense classed as No. 1, kindles it in a censer, and passes the censer to the guest occupying the first seat, with the announcement:—“This is incense No. 1.” The guest receives the censer according to the graceful etiquette required in the kō-kwai, inhales the perfume, and passes on the vessel to his neighbor, who receives it in like manner and passes it to the third guest, who presents it to


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 the fourth,—and so on. When the censer has gone the round of the party, it is returned to the incense-burner. One package of incense No. 2, and one of No. 3, are similarly prepared, announced, and tested. But with the “guest-incense” no experiment is made. The player should be able to remember the different odors of the incenses tested; and he is expected to identify the guest-incense at the proper time merely by the unfamiliar quality of its fragrance.

The original thirteen packages having thus by “experimenting” been reduced to ten, each player is given one set of ten small tablets—usually of gold-lacquer,—every set being differently ornamented. The backs only of these tablets are decorated; and the decoration is nearly always a floral design of some sort:—thus one set might be decorated with chrysanthemums in gold, another with tufts of iris-plants, another with a spray of plum-blossoms, etc. But the faces of the tablets bear numbers or marks; and each set comprises three tablets numbered “1,” three numbered “2,” three numbered “3,” and one marked with the character signifying “guest.” After these tablet-sets have been distributed, a box called the “tablet-box” is placed


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 And so, then, to-day on the farm were two sorts of gaiety: one like the fire flickering in the embers, and that was the gaiety of the old folk; the other like a fire just emerging from the faggots, and that was the gaiety of the young folk, and the one sort of gaiety—the gaiety of the old folks was extinguished that very day. When evening spread itself above the patriarchal acres and above the farmstead, and the musicians were departed thence and the old folk crept into their isolated hall, to their pension house, it seemed to them as though around them and within their heart yawned a mighty void which could not be filled by any sounds of earth. No expansiveness of heart was possible, and every hearty expression died away upon their lips. And when they glanced fearfully around, it seemed to them as though the spirit of the aged grandfather entered into them, and said, “I am freed at last from these torture-chambers, ye have entered into them.”

The other gaiety, the gaiety of the young folk, lasted long into the night, and when they stepped into the hall of their farmhouse they seemed to hear even the walls re-echoing with mirth and jollity, and they had but to lightly hint their will and all was full of merriment. And they did hint their will: and it was as though the tutelary deity of the place threw wide the doors, and said, “Ye enter here omnipotent; so, then, tarry not, but enter.”

HEN Frank learnt that his parents dwelt in the pension house, he began to yearn for home. To his shame, be it said, not for the sake of his parents, to whom he had already become disaccustomed owing to his fondness for his grandfather, but for his own sake, because he longed to see once more a spot where he had fashioned for himself in company with his grandfather so special a mode of existence that he fancied on the whole estate there was nothing to be compared with it.

As we know, Frank at present tramped the world, and, indeed, in the true sense of tramping. But it is much stranger that his parents should have permitted him to tramp abroad, aye, that later they wholly ceased to search for him in order to forbid it. From the beginning old Loyka had learnt that he walked about with the kalounkar, the fiddler, or the sieve-maker—let him walk with them, thought Loyka to himself, to be sure, even at home


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 before the first player; and all is ready for the real game.

The incense-burner retires behind a little screen, shuffles the flat packages like so many cards, takes the uppermost, prepares its contents in the censer, and then, returning to the party, sends the censer upon its round. This time, of course, he does not announce what kind of incense he has used. As the censer passes from hand to hand, each player, after inhaling the fume, puts into the tablet-box one tablet bearing that mark or number which he supposes to be the mark or number of the incense he has smelled. If, for example, he thinks the incense to be “guest-incense,” he drops into the box that one of his tablets marked with the ideograph meaning “guest;” or if he believes that he has inhaled the perfume of No. 2, he puts into the box a tablet numbered “2.” When the round is over, tablet-box and censer are both returned to the incense-burner. He takes the six tablets out of the box, and wraps them up in the paper which contained the incense guessed about. The tablets themselves keep the personal as well as the general record,—since each player remembers the particular design upon his own set.


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 The remaining nine packages of incense are consumed and judged in the same way, according to the chance order in which the shuffling has placed them. When all the incense has been used, the tablets are taken out of their wrappings, the record is officially put into writing, and the victor of the day is announced. I here offer the translation of such a record: it will serve to explain, almost at a glance, all the complications of the game.

According to this record the player who used the tablets decorated with the design called “Young Pine,” made but two mistakes; while the holder of the “White-Lily” set made only one correct guess. But it is quite a feat to make ten correct judgments in succession. The olfactory nerves are apt to become somewhat numbed long before the game is concluded; and therefore it is customary during the Kō-kwai to rinse the mouth at intervals with pure vinegar, by which operation the sensitivity is partially restored.

To the Japanese original of the foregoing record were appended the names of the players, the date of the entertainment, and the name of the place where the party was held. It is the


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 religious and political liberty for all. This ship had the embryo elements of all that is useful, great, and grand in Northern institutions; it was the great type of goodness and wisdom, illustrated in two and a quarter centuries gone by; it was the good genius of America.

But look far in the South-east, and you behold on the same day, in 1620, a low rakish ship hastening from the tropics, solitary and alone, to the New World. What is she? She is freighted with the elements of unmixed evil. Hark! hear those rattling chains, hear that cry of despair and wail, of anguish, as they die away in the unpitying distance. Listen to those shocking oaths, the crack of that flesh-cutting whip. Ah! it is the first cargo of slaves on their way to Jamestown, Virginia. Behold the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth Rock, the slave-ship in James River. Each a parent, one of the prosperous, labour-honouring, law-sustaining institutions of the North; the other the mother of slavery, idleness, lynch-law, ignorance, unpaid labour, poverty, and duelling, despotism, the ceaseless swing of the whip, and the peculiar institutions of the South. These ships are the representation of good and evil in the New World, even to our day. When shall one of those parallel lines come to an end?

The origin of American slavery is not lost in the obscurity of by-gone ages. It is a plain historical fact, that it owes its birth to the African slave trade, now pronounced by every civilised community the greatest crime ever perpetrated against humanity. Of all causes intended to benefit mankind, the abolition of chattel slavery must necessarily be placed amongst the first, and the negro hails with joy every new advocate that appears in his cause. Commiseration for human suffering and human sacrifices awakened the capacious mind, and brought into

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 ancient Japanese temples also include such foreign incense among their treasures. And very rarely a little of this priceless material is contributed to an incense-party,—much as in Europe, on very extraordinary occasions, some banquet is glorified by the production of a wine several hundred years old.

Like the tea-ceremonies, the Kō-kwai exact observance of a very complex and ancient etiquette. But this subject could interest few readers; and I shall only mention some of the rules regarding preparations and precautions. First of all, it is required that the person invited to an incense-party shall attend the same in as odorless a condition as possible: a lady, for instance, must not use hair-oil, or put on any dress that has been kept in a perfumed chest-of-drawers. Furthermore, the guest should prepare for the contest by taking a prolonged hot bath, and should eat only the lightest and least odorous kind of food before going to the rendezvous. It is forbidden to leave the room during the game, or to open any door or window, or to indulge in needless conversation. Finally I may observe that, while judging the incense, a player is expected to take not less than three inhalations, or more than five.


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 In this economical era, the Kō-kwai takes of necessity a much humbler form than it assumed in the time of the great daimyō, of the princely abbots, and of the military aristocracy. A full set of the utensils required for the game can now be had for about $50.00; but the materials are of the poorest kind. The old-fashioned sets were fantastically expensive. Some were worth thousands of dollars. The incense-burner’s desk,—the writing-box, paper-box, tablet-box, etc.,—the various stands or dai,—were of the costliest gold-lacquer;—the pincers and other instruments were of gold, curiously worked;—and the censer—whether of precious metal, bronze, or porcelain,—was always a chef-d’œuvre, designed by some artist of renown.

Although the original signification of incense in Buddhist ceremonies was chiefly symbolical, there is good reason to suppose that various beliefs older than Buddhism,—some, perhaps, peculiar to the race; others probably of Chinese or Korean derivation,—began at an early period


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 to influence the popular use of incense in Japan. Incense is still burned in the presence of a corpse with the idea that its fragrance shields both corpse and newly-parted soul from malevolent demons; and by the peasants it is often burned also to drive away goblins and the evil powers presiding over diseases. But formerly it was used to summon spirits as well as to banish them. Allusions to its employment in various weird rites may be found in some of the old dramas and romances. One particular sort of incense, imported from China, was said to have the power of calling up human spirits. This was the wizard-incense referred to in such ancient love-songs as the following:—

There is an interesting mention of this incense in the Chinese book, Shang-hai-king. It was called Fwan-hwan-hiang (by Japanese pronunciation, Hangon-kō), or “Spirit-Recalling-Incense;” and it was made in Tso-Chau, or the District of the Ancestors, situated by the Eastern Sea. To summon the ghost of any dead person—or


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 stepped aside to avoid a patch of brightness cast by a lighted window on the grass; lights in our house were worse than darkness, affection worse than hate elsewhere. He wore a dreadful, decent smile; I knew how his voice would resolutely lift in greeting us. He walked not loose-limbed like a boy, as he had done that very afternoon, but with the soldier's hard tread upon the heel. It recalled to me that, bad as we were, we were yet not the worst circumstance of his return. When we had lifted the yoke of our embraces from his shoulders he would go back to that flooded trench in Flanders, under that sky more full of flying death than clouds, to that No-Man's-Land where bullets fall like rain on the rotting faces of the dead.

"Jenny, aren't they there?" Kitty asked again.

"They're both there."

"Is he coming back?"

"He's coming back."


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 action the enlarged benevolence, of Georgiana Carlton. With respect to her philosophy—it was of a noble cast. It was, that all men are by nature equal; that they are wisely and justly endowed by the Creator with certain rights, which are irrefragable; and that, however human pride and human avarice may depress and debase, still God is the author of good to man—and of evil, man is the artificer to himself and to his species. Unlike Plato and Socrates, her mind was free from the gloom that surrounded theirs; her philosophy was founded in the school of Christianity; though a devoted member of her father's church, she was not a sectarian.

We learn from Scripture, and it is a little remarkable that it is the only exact definition of religion found in the sacred volume, that "pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." "Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." "Whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them."

This was her view of Christianity, and to this end she laboured with all her energies to convince her slaveholding neighbours that the negro could not only take care of himself, but that he also appreciated liberty, and was willing to work and redeem himself. Her most sanguine wishes were being realized when she suddenly fell into a decline. Her mother had died of consumption, and her physician pronounced this to be her disease. She was prepared for this sad intelligence, and received it with the utmost composure. Although she had confidence in her husband that he would carry out her wishes in freeing the negroes after her death, Mrs. Carlton

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 me by the implication that the matter was not settled:

"I oughtn't to do it, ought I?"

"Of course not! Of course not!" I cried heartily, but the attention died in her eyes. She stared over my shoulder at the open door, where Kitty stood.

The poise of her head had lost its pride, the shadows under her eyes were black like the marks of blows, and all her loveliness was diverted to the expression of grief. She held in her arms her Chinese sleeve dog, a once-prized pet that had fallen from favor and was now only to be met whining upward for a little love at every passer in the corridors, and it sprawled leaf-brown across her white frock, wriggling for joy at the unaccustomed embrace. That she should at last have stooped to lift the lonely little dog was a sign of her deep unhappiness. Why she had come up I do not know, nor why her face puckered with tears as she looked


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 especially responsible for that door so far as I can ascertain," said Mr. Farr.

"All responsibility," said Mr. Dad, with an expression of peevish insistence, as though Mr. Farr had annoyed him, "all responsibility that is not delegated rests with the Head. That's a hard and fast and primary rule of business organisation. In my factory I say quite plainly to everyone who comes into it, man or woman, chick or child"

Mr. Dad was still explaining in a series of imaginary dialogues, tersely but dramatically, his methods of delegating authority, when Sir Eliphaz cut across the flow with, "Returning to Mr. Huss for a moment"

The point that Sir Eliphaz wanted to get at was whether Mr. Huss expected to continue headmaster at Woldingstanton. From some chance phrase in a letter Sir Eliphaz rather gathered that he did.

"Well," said Mr. Farr portentously, letting the thing hang for a moment, "he does."

"Tcha!" said Mr. Dad, and shut his mouth tightly and waved his head slowly from side to side with knitted brows as if he had bitten his tongue.

"I would be the first to recognise the splendid work he did for the school in his opening years," said Mr. Farr. "I would be the last to alter the broad lines of the work as he set it out. Barring that I should replace a certain amount of the biological teaching and practically all this new history stuff by chemistry and physics. But one has to admit that Mr. Huss did not know when to relinquish power nor when to devolve responsibility. We, all of us, the entire staff—it is


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 Rh evening papers a few hours afterward that the uncle of the young King of Siam had been assassinated. The connection between these two events I am unfortunately not at liberty to explain; the consequences to the Vatican would be too serious. I doubt if it could remain top-side up.

These, however, are but passing incidents in a life filled with danger and excitement. They would have remained unrecorded and unrevealed, like the rest of my revelations, were it not that certain recent events have to some extent removed the seal of secrecy from my lips. The death of a certain royal sovereign makes it possible for me to divulge things hitherto undivulgeable. Even now I can only tell a part, a small part, of the terrific things that I know. When more sovereigns die I can divulge more. I hope to keep on divulging at intervals for years. But I am compelled to be cautious. My relations with the Wilhelmstrasse, with Downing Street and the Quai d’Orsay, are so intimate, and my footing with the Yildiz Kiosk and the Waldorf-Astoria and Childs’ Restaurants are so delicate, that a single faux pas might prove to be a false step.

It is now seventeen years since I entered the Secret Service of the G. empire. During this time my activities have taken me into every

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 Rh

mainder of the Sugar-Canes after the juice is squeezed out for the making of Sugar, but now of late 'tis kept in heaps, that so after their new clear'd Land has by Tilling been worn out, they may Dung it with this.

They clear ground, likely to be useful, by felling the Trees as near the Root as they can, the Timber if near their Work, they cut into smaller pieces, split it, and use it in the Stokeholes as Fire-wood to boil up the Sugars, if not they gather the Branches, put them in heaps, and fire them here and there in the Field, wherby the Field is not only clear'd, but made rich with the Ashes. The most part of Fields are not stub'd up, but the Roots of the Trees, with about three, four, or five Foot of the Truncs stand in the Field, and sometimes the fallen Body of the Tree lies along till it decays and rots. A Field being so clear'd, Negros with Hoes, make smaller or deeper holes, at nearer or farther distances according to the thing to be planted, and another coming after throws in the Seed, or plants the Root, and covers it with Earth, and so if a good Season has preceded it seldom misses to thrive, and is kept clear of Weeds till it be able of its self to choak them.

Fields which have before been planted several times are before Rain is expected clear'd of the Stalks and Roots of any Plants may have grown there, and they being gather'd in heaps, are burnt; and so the Fields are planted after a Season, or let grow in Grass for Pasture, as occasion requires.

There is no places after Rain more fruitful than the Savannas.

Where the Roots of Trees do not hinder, trial has been made of the Plow, and it has done well for Sugar-Canes, &c. to be planted in.

The Inhabitants of Jamaica are for the most part Europeans, some Creolians, born and bred in the Island Barbados, the Windward Islands, or Surinam, who are the Masters, and Indians, Negros, Mulatos, Alcatrazes, Mestises, Quarterons, &c. who are the Slaves.

The Indians are not the Natives of the Island, they being all destroy'd by the Spaniards, of which I have said something before, but are usually brought by surprize from the Musquitos or Florida, or such as were Slaves to the Spaniards, and taken from them by the English. They are very often very much checquered in their Skin, by Cupping with Calabashes, are of an Olive colour, have long black lank Hair, and are very good Hunters, Fishers, or Fowlers, but are nought at working in the Fields or slavish Work, and if checkt or drub'd are good for nothing, therefore are very gently treated, and well fed.


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 Rh quarter of the globe, at times even into every eighth or sixteenth of it.

It was I who first brought back word to the Imperial Chancellor of the existence of an Entente between England and France. “Is there an Entente?” he asked me, trembling with excitement, on my arrival at the Wilhelmstrasse. “Your Excellency,” I said, “there is.” He groaned. “Can you stop it?” he asked. “Don’t ask me,” I said sadly. “Where must we strike?” demanded the Chancellor. “Fetch me a map,” I said. They did so. I placed my finger on the map. “Quick, quick,” said the Chancellor, “look where his finger is.” They lifted it up. “Morocco!” they cried. I had meant it for Abyssinia but it was too late to change. That night the warship Panther sailed under sealed orders. The rest is history, or at least history and geography.

In the same way it was I who brought word to the Wilhelmstrasse of the rapprochement between England and Russia in Persia. “What did you find?” asked the Chancellor as I laid aside the Russian disguise in which I had travelled. “A Rapprochement” I said. He groaned. “They seem to get all the best words,” he said.

I shall always feel, to my regret, that I am personally responsible for the outbreak of the

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 and hers, using words like a hammer, looking wise, doing it so well.

"Aren't they coming back?" asked Kitty. "I wish you'd look."

There was nothing in the garden; only a column of birds swinging across the lake of green light that lay before the sunset.

A long time after Kitty spoke once more:

"Jenny, do look again."

There had fallen a twilight which was a wistfulness of the earth. Under the cedar-boughs I dimly saw a figure mothering something in her arms. Almost had she dissolved into the shadows; in another moment the night would have her. With his back turned on this fading unhappiness Chris walked across the lawn. He was looking up under his brows at the overarching house as though it were a hated place to which, against all his hopes, business had forced him to return. He