The Gypsy Fortune-Teller

The ever-recurring excitements and excesses of which these people’s life is made up cannot fail to have a deteriorating effect on mind and body—early undermined constitutions and premature death or dotage being the penalty paid by many for the unbridled and senseless gratification of their passions. This life, however, while it destroys many, sharpens the faculties of those whose stronger natures have enabled them to defy these ravages, bestowing a singular power of penetration in all matters relating to the senses and passions.

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Chinese Fortune-Telling

Everybody who has frequented the narrow, dirty streets of a Chinese town must be familiar with one figure, unusually striking where all is novel and much is grotesque. It is that of an old man, occasionally white-bearded, wearing a pair of enormous spectacles set in clumsy rims of tortoiseshell or silver, and sitting before a small table on which are displayed a few mysterious-looking tablets inscribed with characters, paper, pencils, and ink.

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