Theebaw is banished, and Chulalongkorn compromises. And what of Li-Hsi? This, at least, he has made the longest and most hopeless fight of them all against the inroads of Western civilization.
There is no high office in Korea, civil or military, that can be bestowed without the king’s sanction, or that cannot be revoked at the king’s pleasure.
Unfortunately, Li-Hsi has to take the word of the men whom he trusts, as to the efficiency of the majority of the men whom he appoints to positions of power. Were Korean officials fewer in number, then might Li-Hsi know each and all personally; and then might his servants, civil and military, be less complete nonentities on the one hand, and more invariably worthy on the other, in the great pageant of Asia’s Western civilizationship.
The Chinese call their Emperor “The Son of Heaven.” The Japanese used to regard their Mikado with as much veneration, and even now speak of him with no less reverence. The Koreans seem to have caught, from China or Japan, the convenient idea of mediation. According to the religious law of Korea, which is seldom marked, and less often respected, only the king is fit to worship the gods. The subjects of the king must content themselves with worshipping him. To venture to pray to the king is as near heaven as an orthodox Korean may dare to come. And the king, if he be in gracious mood, will pass the prayer on to the god who is no more above him than he is above his people.
It seems a Jacob’s ladder sort of religion—the religion to which the Koreans pretend (for, as a matter of fact, as I shall try to prove later, they have no religion at all). The peasant throws his paper prayer at the feet of his king; the king, if to him it so seems fit, throws that paper prayer at the feet of the god; and perhaps none of the kingly prerogatives more clearly define the high position of the king than the fact that of all Koreans, he alone is fit to speak to the Korean god.
The royal house of Korea emphatically believes that it is descended from divine and royal spirits. If Li-Hsi cannot prove his descent from the denizens of the Korean heaven, we certainly cannot disprove it; and he has the courage of his convictions, for neither he nor any prince of his blood will wed with a maiden who cannot claim as exceptional, as divine, and as ethereal an ancestry. This keeps the royal family of Korea almost as narrowly blooded as the royal family of Siam.
Tinsel has not yet gone off the market even in Europe. Newsboys and Eton boys jostle each other on the curb-stones of Northumberland Avenue in their boyish desire to see a modern Lord Mayor’s Show. In the Orient tinsel is almost as common a commodity, as necessary an adjunct of daily life as is rice itself. When the King of Korea goes forth from his palace grounds he is followed by, preceded by, a glittering throng. Nobles, soldiers, secretaries, and servants arrayed in barbaric splendour, and carrying a hundred symbols of Asiatic majesty, attend upon him; and over him is carried a canopy rich with gold and jewels. Music, unless the king forbid, sounds his approach. But no other sound is heard. No one may speak. The procession moves slowly, silently. The very horses step softly, and would sooner think of cantering backwards than of neighing. The horsemen are followed by footmen. Both carry banners and insignia.
Immediately before the king walks a secretary of state. He carries an elaborate box. I have heard Koreans speak of it as “the mercy-box.” The king’s ear is open to the meanest of his subjects, in theory at least. When the king goes forth his route is probably strewn with papers, papers are thrown from over walls, papers hang by strings from windows and roofs, sticks are placed along the roadside, and in their notched or forked ends are more papers. All these papers are scrupulously gathered up and put into the “mercy-box.” Each paper contains a petition or the story of a wrong for which the sufferer beseeches the king’s redress. These papers are opened by the king in person, after he has returned to the palace. He and he alone decides which of the petitions shall be granted and how; which shall be refused. Often only he ever knows by whom they have been written.
Such is the outing of a Korean king, or rather such it was until a very few years ago. Within six or seven years the ceremonial has been slightly altered. Until then it had remained almost unchanged for centuries. Whether Li-Hsi will ever again go forth in like state I question. It’s more likely that, if he lives and reigns, he will be sending to London or Calcutta for a brougham. But of this I feel sure: while he continues to sit in power upon Korea’s throne, his ears will be keen to hear the cries of his people, and his heart hot to serve them.