"How long have you been travelling?" "What interested you most?" "What is the country like?" "What do the people do?" "What are their ambitions?" and so on. He seemed to be interested in my own country, and especially in all the different manners and customs of the West.
"Is your country a very hilly one?" "Are the people agricultural, as here?" "Is your capital a very fine one, and what is the Emperor's palace like? I hear there are magnificent Court functions, and pageants with a great many carriages. My envoys, coming home from the European tour, gave me very interesting details of your magnificent cities and great wealth, and brought home many valuable souvenirs and pictures. I am sorry to be too old, otherwise I myself would start to see all I have heard about."
The state coaches seemed to appeal most to his imagination, which, after all, is but natural, considering that such a thing as a carriage has never been known to the Koreans. His Majesty even expressed a wish to order one in Europe.
Question after question came, giving me scarcely time to give answers. I, of course, could not ask questions except in an indirect way, for in this respect Korea sticks firmly to the etiquette of all Courts, which provides that the monarch alone is allowed to start a new topic of conversation.
"You must have been very glad on your arrival at Seoul to find that the finest building is your cathedral? What it must have been to have built up such a high tower! and I am told its interior is beautiful. Who was your architect? How much did it cost?" I explained that it was built by one of the fathers who studied with great care the architectural books of Viollet Le Duc, and that the expense had been very limited, on account of nearly everything being made on the spot.
But he was even more interested to hear about our orphan schools close by, where nearly two hundred children are saved from misery and death. He was pleased to hear a little more of what happens outside the palace gates, to know something more about the charitable work carried out in his own country.
It was astonishing to see with what keen interest he followed my explanations.
He wanted to know my ideas concerning Koreans, and especially Korean children and the rising generation trained in our schools. I was glad to have an opportunity of expressing my satisfaction, and I told him how very much surprised I was at seeing the Korean children at work, and hearing their answers.
I could scarcely believe that boys out here could be such good Latin scholars, some of them far in advance of boys of the same age in European schools. I was even more astonished to see the real pleasure it gave them to study and to improve. To me it shed quite a new light on the Korean character and mind. What is more satisfactory still is, that when these children go back to their forlorn homes, as they do for several months each year, they seldom fail to return, and never forget what they have been taught.
Next the Emperor sat the Crown Prince, a man slightly over thirty years of age, overgrown and heavy, apathetic, and lethargic in all his movements. He shows little interest in anything outside his own sphere, and scarcely any capacity for the reception of new ideas. He is married, but has no family.