THE SIX FOLDING-SCREENS OF LIFE.

AN ORIGINAL JAPANESE NOVEL.

The mother Kutsiwa, taking it for granted that everything he had just said was true, opened the folding screen around her bed.

You leave us, then, my daughter," said she, "to enter upon an honourable service?"

"I do, my dear mother. My sister and her husband, Tofei, have cheerfully given their consent. I have delayed doing this for a long time, only because I had hoped to have seen you once more well, before I left you."

"Let me be no obstacle in your way, my daughter," said Kutsiwa. "Though I know your absence will greatly distress my son and wife, yet while I enjoy the esteem and love of Fanajo, I will try and bear your loss. I have never yet told you how much I loved you, and though I might do so now, yet this is no place to indulge my feelings. Some other time, if indeed that time should ever come, when I shall be in better health, I will tell you what it is I take so much to heart in this undertaking of yours. But there is one thing which I would know. This illustrious gentleman will, I am sure, inform me. Will you have the goodness, sir, to tell me in what quarter of the country it is that the Chief Justice resides?"

This was a puzzling question to Saizo, and he looked confused.

"His splendid palace," said he, after a moment's hesitation, "is in the valley of Fans. Near by is the field of the Sickle-Chamber. You pass in your journey thither the Hundred Trees that tower in the distance. Should you be taken ill upon the road, you can stop at the Temple of Recovery, upon the mountain of the Eight Banners. In passing this mountain you have the Travellers' Stopping Ground on the left, and any one will then tell you where the palace of the Chief Justice is?"

"I have often been in that quarter. of the country," replied Kutsiwa, after listening attentively to this account, but I have never heard or seen anything of this palace you speak of. When was it built?"

"Oh, a long time ago, a very long time ago," answered Saizo, slowly, as though he were at a loss for a reply. "It was built in the tenth year of the reign of Mirobu, by the subjects of that chief."

"It must be a very large palace?"

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"It is a most magnificent structure, I assure you," said Saizo. Why, the grand entrance-hall alone is covered with raw silk, fringed, Corean carpet of fifteen hundred distinct and brilliant colours and figures, in whose pile the foot sinks over the instep,the talk and wonder of everybody who sees it!"

When asked for the name of the Chief Justice, he hesitated for a moment, as though he had forgotten it. Misawo saw his embarrassment.

"The air, dear mother, is very keen to-day, and you run a great risk in thus exposing yourself. Come with me," said Misawo, and she took Kutsiwa's hand, led her into the sleeping-chamber, and carefully drew the folding screen around her bed.

Now, what sort of dress shall I wear?" said Misawo.

After making this inquiry, she pressed upwards her hair in front, but at last concluded not to put on the dress in which she had intended to disguise herself.

Saizo took a hundred taels out of a copper roll. Misawo unhesitatingly gave him her bond therefore, and taking the money in her hand, she gazed upon it intently for some moments. Immediately thereafter she inclosed it in a letter, which she had written to be left behind her, and which she had first laid before the two little figures or dolls, and hid the package in the

dressing-case surmounted, as has already been said, with the carved dog.

"Be careful of your health, dear mother," said Misawo," and you will soon recover."

When Kutsiwa heard these words, she again groped her way out of the sleeping-chamber.

"You are going to leave us, sure enough, my daughter?" said the old mother. "Would I could see how beautifully you are dressed to-day, but alas! I am blind, utterly blind! But come, let me feel your dress, and I shall be able at least to form an idea of its magnificence!"

To avoid an explanation on this point, Misawo untied, in no little alarm, an old-fashioned table-girdle made of black silk fringe, and strung with nuts gathered before the time of Buddha, that was fortunately hanging upon the altar at the moment, and placing it upon her knees, let her mother handle it. "Well done, daughter of Kadzemura!" said Kutsiwa, smiling. "Wear this garment, which is accessible neither to heat nor to cold, and with ordinary care, you will be able to keep your health!"

While the simple-hearted old creature was chuckling over the idea that Misawo was to be so well protected upon her journey in this extraordinary garment, Kojosi came running in, and seeing the table-girdle, innocently exclaim d—

"Mother! mother! what is this funny apron for?" Misawo instantly interrupted her.

"And so you think," said Misawo to Kojosi, "you are large enough to wear sister's muff? She will not let you do any such thing,-she even begrudges me the use of it."

Kutsiwa listened.

"i beg of you, Kojosi," continued Misawo, "give the stranger this little cup."

All this was incomprehensible to Kutsiwa, while Kojosi was hushed in bewilderment.

Saizo coughed.

"If you are ready," said he, "the affairs of the palace-I regret it—but your sedan-chair is ready."

Reminded of her duty, Misawo took leave of the old mother, with tears in her eyes, beckoned to Kojosi to go with her, and hastened into the autechamber.

"When your father and mother shall return, and shall inquire after me," said Misawo to Kojosi, “you will tell them the story of the picture in the picture-book of The Father of the Flowery House,' which I taught you yesterday evening, and then they will know where I have gone. Be sure not to forget this."

Casting a wistful look upon her house, she whispered to Kojosi:

"Your father and mother will look for me, and hence I have no instructions to give you further. I can say no more. My heart is too full. It will not be long before you shall hear from me."

Kojosi, after seeing Misawo seated in the sedanchair, ran back as fast as she could.

Tofei, the master of the house, returned home in great haste, and in utter ignorance of what had happened. He looked earnestly about him, as if in search of something, and at last found his pipe, which he had forgotten to take with him.

"This is too bad!" exclaimed Tofei, "I come back to hunt for my pipe, which I thought I had lost in the street; and lo! somebody in the meantime has smoked up all my green plants for tobacco! What! mother awake so soon!"

"Yes, entirely awake," replied Kutsiwa, "and I have a reason for being so, for a man from the house of the Lord Jenja came here this morning to carry away our Misawo, who, as he says, is to go into the service of this Lord. While she was getting herself ready I had a conversation with him. He allowed

her only time to put on an over-dress, and they both went away in a sedan-chair with golden shoulderhandles. Did you not meet them in the street?"

Tofei stood aghast.

"If it be as you say it is, mother," said he, after recovering somewhat from his astonishment, "why did she not say something about it to me when I conversed with her last? Had she done so, she would never have been permitted to go into the service of any one."

Kutsiwa smiled at these words.

"You and Fanajo gave your free consent to the step she has taken, were her own words, and Misawo would not be guilty of a falsehood for any considera. tion. You seem, my son, to be very forgetful all at once!"

"I assure you, mother, I know nothing whatever of this thing. Now, I remember, I did meet a fourhanded sedan-chair in the street, and could not comprehend why they let down the curtain so hastily the moment they saw me, and hid themselves from my view. It must have been they. I will pursue her forthwith."

As he was going out of the house, he encountered Kojosi.

Father! father! I know where sister Misawo has gone."

"And you, too, know it? Tell me then; be quick." When they came into the room she took up, with child-like simplicity, a picture-book that was lying near by, and opening it began :

"Once upon a time

Tofei stopped her.

"Kojosi, I do not want to know what that picture I am anxious to hear where our Misawo has gone. Tell me, my dear child!"

means.

Sister told me," said Kojosi, "when I would explain this picture to you, you would know where she has gone. This is what I was going to do, and I must do what she has told me to do."

She then continued:

"Once upon a time there was a man by the name of Siozeki Dzitsi-i, who saved the life of a young dog, and brought him up with great care. When the dog grew up, he said one day to Dzitsi-i-'When you go out with me in the morning, dig in the spot upon which I shall lie down, and follow the direction that I shall point out to you.' He awakened from his dream, and at the dawn of morning he went out with his dog and lay down'; after digging for some time he came upon a mass of gold in heavy pieces, known as lump-gold, and thereby he became at once a rich man.'

When Kojosi had told her story in the slow, stammering manner of a child, Tofei hastily exclaimed

"This furnishes me no clue whatever to her retreat. The truth is, the shortest way to get at it is to go in person, and search out the place where she has gone."

As he started to leave the room, he accidentally struck his foot against the dressing case surmounted by the carved dog.

"Ha! What's this?" shouted Tofei. "Lumps of gold! A dog falls down, and gold comes forth! and this is the meaning of the enigina-this dressing-case with a dog upon it is overturned, and gold fails out of it! How? A letter left behind, and addressed to my wife and me, and from Misawo, too? All this is utterly incomprehensible to me."

He broke the seal.

"What!" inquired mother Kutsiwa, "is that a letter from Misawo? Read it, and let me hear what she says."

As she put herself in the attitude of listening, he unrolled the letter, and though startled at the contents, his face took a pleasing smile.

"Be not alarmed, mother," said ho. "Between us and her father at home matters will come out right. Should your malady have a fortunate termination, I will inform her whether you will go with me to Kamakura, and in this event she will not again come back to our house; but since she goes directly to the family residence, we shall not see her again until we pay her a visit. Such are the contents of the letter which she bas left behind. But, have a care, mother. Should the cold air fall upon you, it will retard your recovery. Return, I beg of you, to your sleeping-room."

Here he led her to a side-chamber, and drew the paper screen around her.

"O Misawo, Misawo!" exclaimed Tofei, unconsciously, "your unbounded love for us has brought you into great trouble. Surely, I am not to be blamed for what you have done, when I did not even know that you went every day to the temple of Naujeu, with that face of yours concealed by a veil, for the purpose of gathering alms to keep us from starving! Alas! alas! although you resorted to an artifice to assist us in our poverty, yet I am sure you will never say that you were driven to it by any act of mine. You never read in my face any disapprobation of so praiseworthy an act, even after I came to know it. Oh! how deeply I feel this thing! I will find you, if I have to search the world through."

While he sat thus alone and wept, his wife came home at that moment, and overheard what he had said, as she passed the window.

"What!" said she, "has Misawo left the city ?" "What has happened needs but few words to tell Read this letter, so that mother cannot hear it, and you will know all."

Fanajo unfolded it slowly, and read:

"I leave behind me this letter for my sister. Up to the present moment I have tenderly loved you and your family; so much so, that I daily went forth with Kojosi, ostensibly to pray to Kuauwon, in the temple of that goddess, but in reality to gather alms, which helped, from day to day, to keep the family from starving. Though this pittance served for the time being, yet it was plain that your necessities would only increase, unless I could succeed in securing for you a more certain means of subsistence than that which I had already been able, with so much difficulty, to procure. Afflicted at such a prospect, I have sold myself for a hundred taels to a little mountain house in Utsino Senia, It is my wish that you should apply a portion of this money to the restoration of mother Kutsiwa. In the event you should be able to get into business at once, and should, hereafter, have any money to spare, send it to my father at Kamakura. So soon as the venerable old general shall receive so unexpected a remittance in this way, I will forthwith inquire of him what is his situation, and whether he is able to assist me; in which event I will speedily bring matters to a close"

Tofei could listen no longer. He seized the money, and started to leave the room. Fanajo detained him by the coat.

Stop; whither would you go?"

"In search of Misawo. I will return this money, and bring back my daughter."

That is impossible," said Fanajo. "If a bond to render personal service be once executed, it cannot be cancelled by an offer to return the consideration paid, or even double the amount, if the holder refuses his consent. That this is the law, is self-evident. Although we had no design to allow her to bind herself to per sonal service, yet the thing having been done there is no remedy for it in our hands. We must lay out this money, which she has left with this letter, to the best advantage, and do the most with it to add to our com forts. Let us regard it as a gift, which our sister has

sent to save us from ruin. In the mean time, I see no other way by which she can recover her liberty than by faithfully performing the bond she has entered into." By such arguments did Fanajo pacify Tofei. The mother confidently believed that Tofei would soon enter again into the military service at Kmakura. Tofei and Fanajo, by the aid of this money, were enabled to nurse her with greater care than ever, and to administer to her comforts. By degrees they cured their mother of the disease which had so long preyed upon her eyes, and when she recovered her sight, they removed her to Nauiwa, in Sessiu.

Misawo became a distinguished belle at Simano Utsi, and was regarded as having displayed wonderfnl ingenuity in the choice of her new name of Komatsu. She was highly intelligent, and usually wore in her hair two combs, in reference to her name, though that was not commonly understood. The people of Nauiwa, in consequence of her dressing her hair in this manner, called her Tutatsugusi Komatsu.

The rice-merchant, Sakitsi, who was never able to ascertain where Misawo resided, returned in despair to Nauiwa. In order to improve his health, he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring country. About this time he was in the habit of wearing a dress of the treble-threaded moon-flower. In consequence of this peculiarity the people gave him the name of Mitsumon Sakitsi, and spoke of him by that titler | though they did not address him by it. Notwithstanding he resided with her in Nauiwa, he never, in all his excursions, which stretched into the country far and near, encountered Misawo.

THE RIGHT OF SANCTUARY, AND ITS
WRONGS.

BY MRS. CAROLINE WHITE.

IN curious opposition to the sanguinary laws and terrible punishments of past ages, come the cities of refuge among the Jews, and the privilege of sanctuary granted by princes and arrogated by the Christian church in the six hundred and seventeenth year of its existence. Amongst the Hebrews the cities of refuge were only available to the manslayer through accident and then only to save him from the wild justice of private vengeance till he had received judgment at the hands of the congregation; when, if it was proved that no enmity had previously existed between him and his victim, or that the death of the latter had occurred through what our laws designate chancemedley, he was restored to the city of refuge, and remained there till the death of the high-priest, when he was free to return to his inheritance. If in the mean time, however, he ventured without the prescribed limits of his sanctuary, and was discovered by the avenger of blood and slain, no judgment fell upon the slayer-a rule so rigidly enforced under the papal system, that we are told with regard to those ancient roads in the island of Jersey leading directly from the churches to the sea-side, and which are said to have been the causeways by which criminals reached and retreated from these ecclesiastical sanctuaries, that if, in leaving their protection, the refugee (who was escorted to the coast by a priest bearing a white cross), ventured ever so little to the right or left of this beaten track, he forfeited the privilege of sanctuary, and immediately became amenable to the civil law. There was another analogy in this prerogative of the Catholic church and the practice of the ancient Israelites; both privileges rested with the priesthood, for the six cities of refuge set apart by Moses appertained to the Levites. It is very possible that the assumption of this power of giving sanctuary in churches and monasteries

might have originated in as righteous a spirit as the Hebrew lawgiver's cities of refuge, and, like them, might have aimed at assisting justice and mercy rather than the encouragement of crime; but in process of time distinctions came to be overlooked, and criminals of every calibre met with protection until they obtained a pardon from the crown or quitted the kingdom. In all ages of the world the sanctity which is attached to places of worship has rendered them to a certain degree sacred; and, on this account, the refuge in times of terror and bloodshed of the panic-stricken or defeated worshippers.

Behold the royal prophetess, the fair

Cassandra, dragged by her dishevell'd hair-
Whom not Minerva's shrine, nor sacred bands
In safety could protect from sacrilegious hands.

Hecuba again, and Priam, place themselves beside an altar, within the shadow of a sacred laarel,

Doddered with age, whose boughs encompass round The household gods, and shade the holy ground.+ and even that common bane of Greece and Troy, the graceless Helen, takes shelter in the hour of her extremity in the porch of Vesta's temple. Classic history abounds with instances germane to the matter, as well as that of the Hebrews, and more modern nations. But this superstition, which in past ages had driven men as a last resource to shelter themselves in the temples, and to set the sacredness of the place and the vengeance of the gods between them and the cruelty of their enemies, became in the Catholic church an established privilege, and a source of revenue and power. Nor were the ecclesiastics content to consider this immunity confined to sacred edifices: they created sanctuaries in other districts of their diocese, or procured the royal sanction for doing so. Thus, in the north-gate ward of Canterbury, it is said that St. Augustine procured of the king (Ethelbert) the privilege of making the borough of Stablegate tree from "all manner of public or private imposition, and to be a sanctuary or place of refuge for criminals;" so that if thieves, murderers, or any other notorious offenders, though they were indicted, yet if they could get thither, should be under the power and protection of the archbishop only, and be as safe as if they were in a church.

It was to this state of things that ancient London owed its Alsatia in the precincts of Whitefriars, and its little sanctuary in Westminster, besides those other strongholds of crime, the Mint, the Minories (so called from a convent of Minorites in the vicinity) the Clink in Southwark, the Sanctuary in St. Martinle-Grand, and various others, which "although attempts had repeatedly been made to regulate them, were not finally suppressed by the legislature till 1697, nine years after the revolution. Nay it was a good many years later, before they were all effectually rooted out. Hither resorted not only debtors, but felons of every description, claiming the asylum which these places were privileged to bestow, and which the banded numbers of their inhabitants was well calculated to maintain. In the churches the company at times does not appear to have been much more select, while the system which then commuted judicial punishment for penance, or a pecuniary fine, however much it may have enriched the monastic coflers, led to the same monstrous abuses of the law. Raines, in his history of Durham cathedral, has thus described the manner of claiming sanctuary there. The culprit, upon knocking at the ring affixed to the north door, was admitted without delay, and after confessing his crime, with every minute circumstance connected with it (the whole of which was committed to writing in the presence of witnesses), was clothed in a black gown having on the left shoulder a yellow cross, the badge of St. Cuthbert, whose girth or peace he had claimed. All this while the bell in the Galilee tower continued * Virgil. + Ibid.

FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES.

In reading and conversation we frequently meet with and are struck by the singular felicity and aptness of a quotation from the poets. The words may be and mostly are, familiar to us-we have a far-off, dreamy kind of remembrance of them, but no distinct recollection as to the chapter and verse: we have forgotten the source whence the music comes. We have often thought it would be a commendable service if a few of these jewel-waifs were strung together, with the author's name attached; and with this impression we have collected the subsequent brilliants for the benefit of those who have not the student's leisure to perform the task for themselves:

And even his failings leaned to virtue's side.
GOLDSMITH. The Deserted Village.
O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel' as others see us.

BURNS. Address to a Louse.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
SHAKESPEARE. Hamlet.
Westward the course of empire takes its way.
BISHOP BERKLEY.
Hills
peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.
POPE. Essay on Criticism.

The observed of all observers.

SHAKESPEARE. Hamlet. And made a sunshine in a shady place. SPENSER. Fairy Queen. A breath can make them as a breath has made.

GOLDSMITH. The Deserted Village.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

WORDSWORTH. Ode on Immortality.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.

GOLDSMITH. Edwin and Angelina.
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
POPE. Moral Essays.
Throw physic to the dogs.
SHAKESPEARE. Macbeth.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. GOLDSMITH. Deserted Village.

POPE. Imitations of Horace. Even Palinurus nodded at the helm.

Domestic happiness, the only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall.
COWPER. The Task.

POPE, The Dunciad. I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. POPE. Prologue to the Satires. Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Dillo. Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

Dilto.

Ditto.

Damns with faint praise. To point a moral or adorn a tale.

DR. JOHNSON. Vanity of Human Wishes. Good wine needs no bush.

SHAKESPEARE. As You Like It.

Doubtless the pleasure is as great

Of being cheated, as to cheat.

BUTLER. Hudibras, canto 3, part 2, lines 1 and 2.

And bid the devil take the hindmost.

Do. Canto 2, part 1, line 633.
And count the chickens ere they're hatched."
Do. Canio 3, part 2, line 924.

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.

Do. Canto 3, part 3, lines 547-8.
And look before you, ere you leap.

Do. Canto 2, part 2, line 503.
No line which dying he could wish to blot
It stands thus in the original:

Not one immoral, one corrupted thought.
One line which dying he could wish to blot.
LORD LY TELTON. Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

POPE. Essay on Criticism.

The perilous edge of batt'e.

MILTON. Paradise Lost, Book First. God made the country and man made the town.

COWPER. The Tusk.