aid: "_Nitchevo_,--that's all right; you
may have whatever you please." I never had occasion to avail myself of
the offer, but I know that Russians who are well posted do so, although
I also know that many Russians are not aware of their privileges in this
direction. It is customary to require from Russians who receive
literature of this sort a promise that they will let no other person see
it,--an engagement which is as religiously observed as might be
expected, as the authorities are doubtless aware.

I did not pursue my search for the missing papers. I had allowed so much
time to elapse that I perceived the uselessness of further action; they
were evidently lost, and it mattered little as to the manner. Shortly
afterwards I received the first of my only two specimens of censorial
"caviare." It was on a political cartoon in a New York comic paper. I
sent it back to America for identification of the picture, and it was
lost between New York and Boston; which reconciled me to the possible
carelessness of the Russian post-office in the case of the newspapers
just cited.

My next experience was with Count Lyeff N. Tolstoy's work entitled
"Life." This was not allowed to be printed in book form, although nearly
the whole of it subsequently appeared in installments, as "extracts," in
a weekly journal. I received the manuscript as a registered mail packet.
The author was anxious that my translation should be submitted in the
proof-sheets to a philosophical friend of his in Petersburg, who read
English, in order that the latter might see if I had caught the sense of
the somewhat abstract and complicated propositions. It became a problem
how those proof-sheets were to reach me safely and promptly. The problem
was solved by having them directed outright to the censor's office,
whence they were delivered to me; and, as there proved to be nothing to
alter, they speedily returned to America as a registered parcel. My own
opinion now is that they would not have reached me a whit less safely or
promptly had they been addressed straight to me. The bound volumes of my
translation were so addressed later on, and I do not think that they
were even opened at the office, the law to the contrary notwithstanding.
All this time I had been receiving a New York weekly paper with very
little delay and no mutilation. But at this juncture an amiable friend
subscribed in my name for the "Century," and I determined to make a
personal trial of the w