But still ho will buy them on tiio
lowest tonus possible, in order to
mako tho highest profit, for ho is a
merchant. The historioM and novels,
tho epics and lyrics, tho essays and
philosophical systems, aro merchandise.
If Plato nnd Shakespeare are
famous, their fame alono makes their
uierchandfco merchantable. But if
they aro unknown, the marketable,
value of their merchandise must bo
tested by tho current public taste.
Can wo fairly select ono class of
traders nnd insist that they shall be
philanthropists?
Dealers in chinawaro, for instance,
may wo justly require that they
shall buy at tho highest prices all tho
bowls wo paint, or offer them on
commission, and pay us largo annual
profits becauso decalcomania is an
art so elevating and refined and
most of tho artists aro so poor?
George William Curtis in Harper's.
The jHpnnese Hell.
Tho Japaneso language has no
equivalent for our word "hell," but
has tho word "jigoku" instead.
consists of, first, eight immenso
hot bolls, ranging ono beneath tho
other in tiers. Each of theso hells
has sixteen additional hells outsido
it gates, liko so many antechambers,
so that thero aro in all 136 hot
hells. Second Thero aro eight largo
cold hells, each with its sixteen ante-hells,
making the same number of
cold that thore aro of hot bolls.
theso 973 hot and cold bells
for offenders of tho common sort,
tho wily Jap havo twenty mammoth
"bolls of utter darkness," into
which will bo consigned tho spirits
of children who tako tho namoof
Dal Butsa, or Great Buddha, in vain.
Boston Olobo.
Tha Trnth at Last About tho Honusnake.
