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 therein stranger than that of the nation of Flying Heads. “Irrepressible bursts and luxurious ease,” ―such was always one enthusiastic strain. “For ever indulging in liberal thought,” ―thus spoke another openly without restraint. Were men like these to open my book, I should be a laughing-stock to them indeed. At the cross-road men will not listen to me, and yet I have some knowledge of the three states of existence spoken of beneath the cliff; neither should the words I utter be set aside because of him that utters them. When the bow was hung at my father's door, he dreamed that a sickly-looking Buddhist priest, but half covered by his stole, entered the chamber. On one of his breasts was a piece of plaster like a cash; and my father, waking from sleep, found that I, just born, had a similar black patch on my body. As a child, I was thin and constantly ailing, and unable to hold my own in the battle of life. Our home was chill and desolate as a monastery; and working there for my livelihood with my pen, I was as poor as a priest with his alms-bowl. Often and often I put my hand to my head and exclaimed, “Surely he who sat with his face to the wall was myself in a previous state of existence;” and thus I referred my non-success in this life to the influence of a destiny surviving from the last. I have been tossed hither and thither in the direction of the ruling wind, like a flower falling in filthy places; but the six paths of transmigration are inscrutable indeed, and I have no right to complain. As it is, midnight finds me with an expiring lamp, while the wind whistles mournfully without; and over my cheerless table I piece together my tales, vainly hoping to produce a sequel to The Infernal Regions.