Water, in the form of miniature lakes, is the crown—the centre of every far-eastern garden. Nowhere in the world are artificial lakes or ponds so perfected, so ablush with bloom, so aquiver with perfume, as they are in Korea. Sometimes they dot great green swards. Sometimes they softly ripple against the very foundations of a palace; oftenest they are the one blessed detail of a middle-class man’s dwelling. But they are almost always emerald with lotus-leaves, and in season, brilliant with the bloom, and fragrant with the breath of the lotus-flowers. Marble bridges span them, if they are in the king’s gardens; a unique island centres them wherever they are—a wee island that is shaded by its one drooping tree. There the master of the garden spends the long summer days, basking in the surrounding beauty, smoking, drinking tea, and fishing.
CHAPTER IV.
KOREA’S KING.
It has been with genuine indignation that I have recently read that the King of Korea is weak of mind and weak of character.
Statements could scarcely have less foundation. Journalism is indeed an exacting profession, and the pressman who would wield an up-to-date pen must, once in a way, write glibly upon a subject of which he knows nothing, or less than nothing. But surely, if one chooses for one’s theme a person whom one has never seen, and of whom one knows nothing authentically, the least one can, in common decency, do is to speak good, not evil of that person. If it is necessary to clothe persons of momentary interest with attributes that are wholly a fabric of guess-work, it seems to me that the most reckless scribbler is in honour bound to clothe the involuntary human lay-figure with whole, clean, garments of praise, and not with grimy rags of fantastic criticism.
As a matter of simple fact, Li-Hsi, the King of Korea, is an admirable man. He has most of the good qualities, and very few undesirable ones.
He has an exceptionally sweet nature. He has a heart of gold. He is patient, forgiving, persevering and hard-working. He is a man of decided mental strength, and of most considerable learning. The welfare of his people has been his unintermittent aim; and to-day he is staunchly enthroned in the hearts of those people.
It has been said that his Korean Majesty is a man of contemptible personal habits. And, worst of all, it has been said that he is entirely under his wife’s thumb. There is in all Christendom no monarch more sober, more unselfish than Li-Hsi. As for the last accusation, it is the one in which there is, I fear, a grain of truth. But what of it? The same thing was said of Frederick the Good. Was he weak-minded, morally corrupt? The same thing is said to-day (and not without some show of truth) of the Emperor of Germany, the King of Italy, and was said of the late Tsar of Russia. They are rather a wholesome, brainy, manly trio, aren’t they?
Unquestionably the Queen of Korea has great influence over the King. But surely even a king might commit a graver crime than that of being fond of his wife. For instance, he might be fond of someone else’s wife. Now that strikes me as rather worse form than the other. And certainly it is the more apt to lead to deeply dire results. On the whole, I think the King of Korea might almost be forgiven his one weakness—a weakness for his own wife.
Of civilized sovereigns, the King of Korea is rather uniquely placed. No monarch could have more absolute power in his own kingdom, no monarch could well have less influence abroad. Indeed even the King’s power at home seems rather tottery just now. But it has been shaken by the rough hands of alien invaders, not by the disloyal hands of his own subjects. To-day, when in Korea all is confusion and dismay, Li-Hsi is as absolutely king over the Koreans as he was when he ascended the throne thirty years ago.