Isabel Anderson

“ Here we lived as if in a dream, reveling in the beauty of land and sea, of trees and flowers, enjoying the hospitality for which the Islands are famous, and exploring as far as we could some of the enchanting spots of this heaven on earth.
We were pleased with our little house, with its wide veranda, or lanai, as it is called there, which we made comfortable and pretty with long wicker chairs and Chinese lanterns. Mangoes falling with a thump to the ground outside, and lizards and all sorts of harmless creatures crawling or flying about the house, helped to carry out the tropical effect. ”

“ I wish to extend to the women of America the deep gratitude of the women of Belgium for the work which they are doing for my people. The food which your country is daily providing to our women and children comes like a ray of sunshine in the darkest hour in Belgium’s history. The Belgian women have fought a brave fight, and are still fighting for the common cause of human liberty, so dear to every American woman’s heart. ”

“ At Nikko the avenue of cryptomerias is still wonderfully fine, while the huge blocks of stone in the long flights of steps on the wooded mountain-side bring up a vision of the armies of coolies who placed them there to remain through the ages. The bronze tombs are the same, only more beautifully coloured with age, and the wood-carving and lacquers of the glorious old temples have been kept bright and new by faithful, loving hands. The Inland Sea is just as mysterious and ever-changing, while Fuji is worshipped to-day as it has been since the beginning of all time. ”

“ I treasure in my heart the memory of the rollicking fun of the escapade at the Carnival Ball, the Veglione, with its confidences, and the privilege, too, of that drive from the Duchess of Sermoneta’s, through the narrow streets, across the bridge, when I saw you home, and those afternoons and evenings in the little room in the roof garden, one after another. Each seemed more wonderful and more complete to me, till that last night before you went away to Sorrento, when I first spoke words of love. ”

“ At one end of the semicircle is Cocoanut Island, crowded with glorious palms that seem eager for the salt water, stretching their heads far out over it, as if they would drink it up. As it is on the windward side of the island, the trade winds bring Hilo a yearly rainfall of 150 inches, and the result is seen in the luxuriance of the vegetation, which nearly hides the buildings of the little city in its depths. With the bay in front, the dense forest belt in the rear, and the towering masses of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in the background, the situation of Hilo is glorious in its beauty. ”

“ There is an attempt being made to revive the Carnival fêtes—the races in the Corso—but the Veglione won’t be so much fun as last year, I know. Every moment of that night together is unforgettable. Poor erratic Pittsburgo, how you did tease him! And dear old Checkers! There’ll never again be anything so funny as he was in that round masque with its fixed grin, dancing about on the floor of the Costanzi. But now it isn’t carnival for me. Who could feel gay when his love is not here? So I am only an observer, while others sport and play the fool, more or less amusingly. ”

“ Then the windows of the guild-halls and the long galleries of the Hôtel de Ville—the glory of Brussels—were lined with people looking down into the square. Flags streamed from the buildings, and there was good music, and groups of happy burghers were drinking their beer at little tables. After dark there was continuous illumination of the lovely spire of the Hôtel de Ville, with varying coloured lights that showed its tracery and design in beautiful, mysterious relief—an entrancing sight. ”

“ AT every turn of the head the artist in Japan discerns a picture that delights his eye—a quaint little figure dressed in bright colours standing by a twisted tree, a fantastic gateway through which he sees a miniature garden, or the curving roof of a temple, half hidden among the trees.
As architecture is always more or less affected by climate, the Japanese, in their land of earthquakes and typhoons, have put up low wooden structures, using cedar or fir principally, because they are plentiful. ”

“ The last day or two in Florence, whither Embassy affairs took me, brought thronging memories of our hours together there. This morning as the train crawled across the Campagna in the weird twilight of the moon just before dawn, I gazed out of the window and watched the ruins rise out of the uncanny plain like tombstones of a dead civilization,—spectres of decay and times long past. Think of all the lovers they have looked on since first the aqueducts went marching off to the hills in gigantic strides. ”

“ In those times, when the love of art reigned supreme, each Flemish city possessed its monument. Ghent boasted its gigantic belfry, surmounted by its Byzantine dragon brought from the crusades; Louvain, its Gothic Hôtel de Ville; Bruges, its old parks and public buildings; while Antwerp glorified itself justly in its cathedral, of which no one dared to contest the superiority as a work of art and architecture. All the citizens viewed this sight with consternation, and asked each other anxiously who would be the individual bold enough to attempt such a perilous enterprise. ”

“ We passed among them, beneath the great gates guarded by fantastic demon gods, green and red and blue, and into temples, gorgeous but often dilapidated and dusty, past pagodas and through long avenues of stone lanterns. At Nara we saw the Golden Pavilion and the Silver Pavilion, the summer places of retired princes. There are entrancing gardens with little ponds filled with goldfish, tiny bridges and imitation mountains, the "wash-the-moon" cascade, and the platforms where warriors used to sit and look at the moon—those fierce, two-sworded warriors of other days. ”

“ Of all the spells what is more puissant than the spell of the tropics—the singing of dripping water, the rustle of the palm in the breeze. In this land you forget all trouble and dream of love and happiness, while the Southern Cross gleams brightly in the sky. ”

“ Last night Jan and I went again to Peppi’s studio. It seemed as if you were really in the terrace room—you seemed to pervade the place with its old tapestries and sketches, its rugs and easels and paints and books of photographs, and the northern window letting in a flood of moonlight. And there your shadow sat, while Jan played the piano delightfully, gavottes, mazurkas, ballets.
I have adopted a plan which makes me the happiest of men. ”

“ Surrounding the lobster, as a frame to its brilliant scarlet, are the yusuri branches, on which the young leaves are budding while the old have not as yet fallen, significant of the several generations of the family within. Almost hidden by the lobster and directly in the centre of the nawa, are perhaps the prettiest of all the emblems, two dainty fern-fronds, symbolical of the happiness and unity of wedded life, and carefully placed between the two, a budding leaflet emblematic of fruitfulness.
From Japanese mythology we learn the significance of the nawa—the rope of rice straw. ”

“ And the giant covered Atuix with his powerful hand before he could move a limb.
Frega, who had remained motionless with terror, threw herself on her knees in the boat. “Mercy, mercy upon Atuix,” she exclaimed. “Oh! mercy! what harm can our passing this river do to thee, we feeble and without any evil intention, he loving me and I loving him? Mercy! Ah, heavens! is there, then, no pity in thy soul?”
The giant interrupted with a terrible sneer: “Oh! my soul, sayst thou! My soul! Where hast thou learnt that I have a soul? Who has ever seen a soul? ”

“ Villages became more numerous and were very picturesque, on the spurs of mountain above the river, or embowered in coffee trees, where the mountain coasts were patched with pineapple plantations. And the paddy fields grew in terrace after terrace, most splendid engineering by these primitive people, rising above each other up into the clouds, fitting into the contours of the mountainsides, the terrace walls overgrown with green, and the pale green paddy within, and little cascades carrying the water down from terrace to terrace, most lovely, like some great hanging gardens ”

“ He challenged the men in all the neighbouring provinces to match their strength against his, and in the twenty battles which followed he was never defeated. He was like the silkworm eating up the mulberry tree, for just as the worm devours one leaf after another, so Hachiro fought and fought, one after another, the inhabitants of all the provinces anywhere around, till he had them all under subjection. By the time he was eighteen the boy had thus mastered the whole western part of Japan, and had made himself chief of a large band of outlaws noted for their reckless bravery. ”

“ Mona Lisa has disappeared from my life.
Of course your Aunt is set on your marrying the Prince. That has been plain all along,—how did he behave in Paris?—but you, my darling, who could have guessed whether or not you were ready to make up your mind to settle down? So I delayed asking you to marry me—in so many words. But now that we have quarrelled, I long to make up and have everything settled. There is no peace left your lover till he knows that you love him, once and always. ”

“ Our rule in the Philippines has been the greatest of all paradoxes, a benevolent despotism working ardently for its own destruction. This is very unusual, and rather fine. We ought to be proud of what we have done, and very anxious to see the work well finished. Good men have given their lives for it, and few of those who lived have come out after years of thankless toil in a tropical land, with as much as they had when they went into the service. We owe it to them and to our helpless wards, as well as to our national honour, to see the thing through. ”

“ FOREWORD Belgium has contributed generously to the world in the past. Much has been destroyed in this ruthless war, but much remains, for Belgium had much to give. How splendid are her unique guild-halls with their fretted towers, her massive mediæval gates and quaint old houses bordering the winding canals! ”

“ At the Boys' Festival, on the fifth of May, over every house where a boy has been born during the year a bamboo pole is set up, from which flies a paper carp, the fish moving in the breeze as if ascending a stream. The carp is the boldest of fish in braving the rapids, so to Japanese boys he symbolizes ambitious striving. In every household where there are sons the favourite heroes of olden time are set out in the alcove of honour of the guest-room. ”

“ Every day will bring me nearer to you, dear Polly, and twenty thousand times more happy. Dearest, a few weeks more, and we shall begin the first of our married life, and you—my wife!
A telegram was handed me on the train just now which quite takes my breath away, though its news does not surprise me as much as it will you. Peppi and his little divorcée, gray eyes, Mona Lisa smile, and all, were married today in Rome, with only Gonzaga, Pan, and Jonkheer Jan at the wedding! ”

“ As we approached the dock, we forgot to watch the frolicking porpoises and the silver flying fish, at sight of the daring natives on their boards riding the surf that broke over the coral reef. The only familiar face we saw on the wharf as we landed was Mr. George Carter, a friend of my husband's, who has since been Governor of the Islands.
Oahu is a beautiful island, and the town of Honolulu at once casts its spell upon you, with the luxuriance of its tropical gardens. ”

“ We passed an endless succession of wonderfully tilled fields in which the peasants were working with their primitive implements, and little red-roofed stone farmhouses with innumerable tow-headed children playing about them. I shall never forget how lovely were the apple trees about the farmhouses and in the orchards. They all had white blossoms, and while we missed the more varied pinks and mauves which we see at home, the effect was charming. Every now and then we would catch a glimpse of a château in its park, usually just beyond a lagoon and with a moat about it. ”

“ After our brief stay in Seoul we bade farewell to the Colonies and turned our faces toward the Land of the Rising Sun itself, making the crossing from Chosen to Shimonoseki in a single night. This is far pleasanter than the passage from Vladivostok, which requires several days. In order to attract travellers, the Japanese have put their best cars and boats on this route. Our last glimpse of the Hermit Kingdom was a picture of jagged peaks rising in lofty precipices from a moonlit sea, their black masses outlined in solemn grandeur against the heavens. ”

“ I believe you disappear because it is that we sail in a magic boat among the islands of the gods over water that is—what you call him—fairy water which is bewitched, and at sunset reflect the brilliant plumage of the phoenix and at night the silver of the lady moon. ”

“ Like most primitive peoples, the Hawaiians danced in order that their gods might smile upon them and bring them luck, or to appease the dreaded Pele and the other gods of evil. The much-talked of hula began in this way as a sacred dance before the altar in a temple inclosure, while the girls, clad in skirts of grass and wreaths of flowers, chanted their songs. ”

“ An arched stone bridge leads to still another shrine, and from this a path through a thicket of creepers conducts to a lake covered with lotus and fed by a stream which forms a lovely cascade. Another path crosses little mountains through thick foliage of bamboo and pine, passes the artificial sea with its treasure island in the centre, and leads over bridges, by waterfalls and around temples.
In these gardens the Japanese most perfectly realized their desire to transfer the features of a natural landscape to their immediate surroundings ”

“ A shudder ran through the giant’s body, a frightful rattle burst from his chest; his teeth chattered like the clashing of swords, his eyes rolled once more in their bloody orbits, and then closed forever. He was dead. Frega knelt on the ground and prayed. Upon that spot rose Antwerp. Now Antwerp is the Antwerpen of the ancient Flemish language, which still preserves [262] its original strength and richness in its Saxon garb—Antwerpen, in which word the chroniclers find Hand and Werpen, to throw, in remembrance of the giant Antigon and the hands which he threw into the Scheldt. ”

“ A girl! Guess if you can—Sybil! ! ! And she is the dearest girl in the world. Checkers is in kingdom come; he declares, “She’s as pretty as a pair of pink boots and as enticing as a glass of Kentucky moonshine. I can go to the races and lose; I can pick a horse with nothing but a mane and a tail; can’t pick a clown in a circus, but I can pick a blue-eyed doll all right!”
How did he ever do it? Why, those two scamps pretended, just to amuse each other and everybody else, to have a mock engagement—Checkers called it a “trial hitch.” ”

“ The country of the Meuse and the Sambre is by far the loveliest part of Belgium. It abounds in myths and legends suited to the wild, romantic scenery of its hills and valleys. It abounds also in the villas and châteaux of the Belgian noblesse and haute bourgeoisie. The wealthy people of the cities delighted in their summers among the mountains of the Ardennes, while many families of ancient lineage but lesser fortunes lived the year round in their old-world houses. ”

“ In every house new mats of rice straw are laid before the little shrines, and a tiny meal is set out for the spirits of the departed. When evening comes, the streets are brilliant with flaming torches, and lanterns are hung in every doorway. Those whose friends have only lately left them make this night a true memorial to their dead, going out to the cemeteries, where they offer prayers, burn incense, light lanterns and fill bamboo vases with the flowers they have brought. ”

“ In her game she plays the New World against the Old, and the Old World against the New, in the spirit of comedy, not without its tragic points. She uses her hemispheres like cymbals, for resonance and clash, for emotion and conflict, and also for joy, for wonder, for laughter, and for the leaping of the heart. ”

“ He had been visiting the families of that company of wonderful Belgian priests who were doing so much good in his far-away mountain home—sons of rich parents, who had taken up the work in a spirit of pure self-sacrifice.
It is a curious thing that the men of affairs in Belgium—often some of the Ministers of State and the captains of industry—who were broad, up-to-date men, forceful and interesting, one seldom met socially. Even some of the King’s entourage could not join the Cercle du Parc, the most exclusive club in Brussels. ”

“ The small, stocky horses that drag the carts with their picturesque loads are adorned with streamers of mauve and lemon and rose in honour of the first drive of the year, and many of the carts carry flags and lanterns on bamboo poles, so that the streets are very gay. Tokyo is especially gay the last evening of the old year, because a matsuri, or fair, is held in the principal street, with little booths illuminated by lanterns, where any one who is in debt can sell his belongings in order to pay all he owes and begin the New Year fairly. ”

“ The weather has been so beautiful since the first day of spring that one is sometimes surprised not to see parasols of flaming colours, and the silhouettes of pretty women walking on the beach, or to see happy children building forts, which the incoming tide soon destroys. Alas! are we not all big children, we Belgians, that resist the incoming tide, and our forts no better or stronger? ”

“ When I come, will you receive me kindly like the true friend who will always remain your obedient Boris?
POLLY TO A. D.
New York,
March.
Thank Heaven your clever old Ambassador has finally departed, but I am very cross that you didn’t come with him. Why wait for another Secretary? Can’t someone else turn over those ridiculous “affairs?” If you still linger in Rome, I shall complain to the Cruelty to Children Society, because your staying there is making me pine away. Besides, it may be months before your successor arrives. It isn’t by any chance Mona Lisa who is keeping you? ”

“ THE Spell of Japan owes no small part of its potency to the abundant flowers, which weave about the land an ever-changing veil of bright colours and exquisite textures. First appear the fragrant plums, earliest of the "One Hundred Flowers," and the freesias, and the wonderful display of cherry blossoms in March and April, then the wisteria and azalea, the iris and the peony, "the flower of prosperity"—in China it is called "the queen of flowers"—in July the lotus, and in the autumn the chrysanthemum, "the long-lasting plant." ”

“ Yvon Bruggermans: A Legend of the Antwerp Cathedral When you approach the old Flemish city, built upon the banks of the Scheldt, in one of the finest situations of Europe, the first object which attracts the attention of the traveler is the great spire of the Cathedral. This “Heaven-directed” spire is one of the loftiest and finest in the world. It is a masterpiece of pyramidal construction, delighting the vision not more by its vast height than by its exquisite proportions. It is surmounted by a cross of a size corresponding with the edifice itself. ”

“ It was from her religions that Japan drew her Knightly Code, Bushido, obedience to which raised the samurai from the mere brutal wielder of swords to the chivalrous warrior. From Shinto he imbibed veneration for his ancestors, the strongest possible sense of duty to his parents, and the most self-sacrificing loyalty to the sovereign. Buddhism gave him a stoical composure in the presence of danger, a contempt for life, and "friendliness with death." It made him calm and self-contained. Finally, the samurai obtained from the teachings of Confucius his principles of action toward his fellow men. ”

“ One of the most curious of all Japanese festivals is the Laughing Festival of Wasa, celebrated in October. A procession is formed of old men carrying boxes full of oranges and persimmons impaled on sharpened sticks, followed by children with the same kinds of fruits on bamboo rods. On reaching the shrine, the leader turns round and makes up a comical face, which is greeted with shouts of laughter.
According to the legend, the gods, once upon a time, met in the great temple at Izumo to consider the love affairs of the kingdom. ”