Morilla Maria Norton

“ Korea is a land of stupendous beauty and attractiveness, the kingdom of toil, and it is to this they are looking. To the onward marching lines of men who see the future, Korea and Manchuria are the stepping stones. The wide fields extend in every direction, the hills “rejoice on every side.” Japan marches her soldiers at every station, law and order go with her, and out of chaos, Asiatic chaos, she will bring—who that sees her at work can doubt—civilization in the modern sense. ”

“ MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES
Just outside of Asia proper as in a proscenium box are these islands, half mystic, half savage, like the kings who sent men out to conquer the world, with sword in one hand and hostia in the other!
No place on earth has had possibly a more romantic experience, full as it has been, of the acts of primitive unchained manhood and the infinitely worse aspects of human nature, the avarice, intrigue political and ecclesiastical eccentricities of civilization. ”

“ Said one of the leaders of the Christian faith in Japan, “It is only with sinking heart one can point to a faith which bears such fruits, when the so-called heathen can teach us any day conduct which outshines ours as the sun a glow worm.” From within must come the truth of God in her own soul as men are every day more powerless to live it or teach it, though the truth remains eternally vital.
May the God of light guide this great, glorious Orient into a future of illustrious achievement and untarnished ideals. ”

“ But the sun still rises in splendor over Manila and we hope and wait and long, as they have since the first whiteness followed the first darkness—for the day. There is late talk of giving up the task America has set herself in the East. If she does, it will be another sign of the triumph of those qualities which are disintegrating her life at home, greed, ambition, social, religious and political, the unsatisfied passion for pleasure which makes her one of the most lawless and frivolous modern Nations. ”

“ Life is ever the master passion of all such souls and they live only in to-day. Higher education is not new, but like all great movements, this of Japan began long, long ago, and once women held the place of almost the equal of their lords, but the strange story of reaction and retrogression, which marks the advance of the East, came in to disfigure the wonderful march of the thought life of women. ”

“ The ethical beauty of the home life of Japan, the charming routine of the schools, the fraternal relations in the army and navy, the courtesy between master and servant, in the factory and the shop, and in the home is all delightful to see, and the welcome to the stranger, that finest flower of civilization, as of character, to feel! ”

“ Born in a feudal castle in the picturesque country of the Japan mountain region, with the country spirit still in her, which the life for many years in the palace of Tokyo could not destroy, that spirit you feel in the touch of her diminutive hand, in the glance of her powerful eyes, where dwells unquenched the freshness of free spaces. ”

“ Occasionally this takes a tragic aspect, as when in working on the telegraph wires in the streets of Seoul they warned to no purpose over and over again a poor Korean, to whom electricity and its deadly power was as unknown a quantity as a Sanskrit root to a London fishwife, and at last they hit him a blow, and he fell—dead!
But force is always the weapon of men who have power over others and none over themselves, whether in Bombay, Manila or Seoul. But that the patience of English and American and Japanese is often tried to the uttermost is also true, doubtless. “Patience conquers all things” ”

“ Chosen to represent in the Great Exposition the country of which his proudest boast is to be a son, he combines those distinguished attainments, which a long past of services well rendered have given in turn, and is not only a fine example of Modern Japan at its present moment of leadership, but is also a man of the world,—moulded by the best scholarship of the last century, and while working to-day in the formation and perfecting of his own government, his thought has the catholicity of a statesman and embraces the interests of every land as well. ”

“ But as it is autumn in the park, we gathered the red [Pg 20] berries and the men ornamented the jinrickshas with them and we ride home across the plain in a glory of red that out lasts all. The sun is a perfect disk magnified by the perspective of the plain into a gigantic size, worthy of Manchuria, and there is the Japanese flag! May it bring better days to this land of toil and patience! That is the heart’s wish for this colossal country of Manchuria!
Over the mountains sky high, over the plains of Moukden, over more mountains, and you approach the city of Dalny. ”

“ The children enter the kindergarten at the end of the toddling age, and the little lads and lassies sit side by side in their delightful rooms and make their first songs of life, as they end them, together, their little arms and hands making the first efforts at rhythm together, awkward movements full of grace. They pass at eight years to the primary department and begin the toilsome upward pull of real study, and here their ways part,—the boys for the Peers’ School and the ruder ways of masculine effort. ”

“ About the end of October is the exhibition in physical exercises, and about the end of March that awe-inspiring epoch of graduation, when the high functionaries of State and the distinguished clientele of Tokyo come to see their girls step out of the schoolroom into the school of life—a moment mingled in every land and school with gaiety and pathos. ”

“ Such is Port Arthur!
At Waterloo, at the Plains of Marathon, on the battle fields where all our race rose in an hour to another epoch of its stupendous destiny, what can be said! What is not felt!
At the entrance of these streets you feel it is other ground, you tread softly for immortal valor is there before you. You [Pg 21] have thoughts of pride; a pride that wells as a gushing stream, to your heart. Yea, here men were conquerors, not over a mortal foe, but over Death and Self. The deadly enemies of men! ”

“ Port Arthur is the sharp beak of the promontory, which cuts into two waters and can guard the lands of Japan, Korea and China. As you stand then on the top of “203 Metres Hill” you have at your back hills, in the front the towns, the circling mountains about the water, the advanced cliffs of the defensive works and the bays and the sea. Your guns can command any point and your view has every detail before it. ”

“ JAPAN IN NOVEMBER
There is no time when Nature is so approachable as in autumn. That season is like the green room of the actress, when she lays aside her stage attire and in deshabille she is communicative and you gain many a secret into her methods and her ideals and aims! ”

“ Japan is the most deceptive country externally; you scarcely meet a single lady, or gentleman in the street, so you do not meet them on the cars or the parks. A Japanese lady sends for her goods to the house, a promiscuous crowd alone meets you so that you rarely come in contact with the well-bred people of the country. So it is also the undesirable people who go to America, oftentimes either in misfortune financially through the fault of others, he is preparing himself by an industrious life in a foreign country, and often he is trying to retrieve his life or that of his family. ”

“ The colors defy all art to reproduce them, the declining year, the memory of the rich hued summer, the pathos of something gone, the hush of stream, the absence of bird notes, the quiet, the intimate quiet of Nature, which is never oppressive, never aught but refreshing, and which leaves no scar nor wound!
The delicacy of the laying away the past and the hopefulness [Pg 98] of it all! We would almost like too, to fade away into the ether, laying off the coarse garment of the flesh and finding what Buddha and every sage has sought! ”

“ The soft grey coloring, the subdued green, the reserve of forest and field, unlike our own exuberant Philippines, at first seem shy, demure, not a little austere, but as you pass the days and nights there the subtle influence of the Northern Italy works its miracle and you yield as every one has before you, captivated by an influence too complex to define. ”

“ Sensitive to the feelings of a stranger as the Japanese are, they certainly are not. The prosperity of Korea is tempting to the avaricious Japanese, and they have been guilty of such transactions as are some of the monopolies of America, crushing to the wall the less clever. It is an old story; Japan can show England and America nothing new in greed. We have exhausted the repertoire!
Seoul is one of the most enchanting cities in the world ”

“ The aged granddame the Orient is being taught by a [Pg 108] somewhat flighty and exceedingly imperious and headstrong youngster and she smiles through her wrinkles often a superfine smile as she has seen so many toy inventions and toy states rise, fall and even pass from memory while she still lives on. She enjoys the spectacle of western sweat and energy and she watches as all age does to see what sort of beings this fancied superiority has produced. ”

“ I never heard once either in Japan or Manchuria, or Port Arthur, where pride, military pride, if ever, would be admissible, one word of boasting and one little Jap said at Port Arthur, “The Russians need never be ashamed of Port Arthur. To the everlasting disgrace be it of a nation which will punish men for doing as well as they could.” ”

“ What would one expect of a woman who had spent her middle life in educating the upper classes of her people, that she would want to rest? Oh, no! for the remaining years she is to devote herself just as earnestly to the educating of middle and lower class Japanese women. ”

“ Consequently we expect to make the Asiatic exhibit the special point; we want to exhibit all the products of Asia and the Indian Archipelago, the Philippines, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Australia, New Zealand, and Formosa, and so we will have the first Asiatic expression of commerce on so large a scale, showing unity of language, racial features, religion and customs, for we can collect from all those peoples and realize a unifying of the Oriental Nations, and enlighten the world as to the Oriental essence, thought, ideals,—past and future. ”

“ TOKYO OBSERVATORY
If you look at an astronomical map of stations of observation, you will see what looks to be a meteoric shower of dots on Europe, where there are one hundred and thirty observatories, sixty-five in North America, six in India, six also in Australia, two in the West Indies, three on the coast of China, and following the line of sea and shore northward in a vast region of watery waste only two lone spots which are the two Japanese observatories. Their importance to science is therefore obvious. ”

“ There is something intensely human, in our city, expressed by the Spanish word “simpatica”! All the personalities are so well known, so intimately and injudiciously discussed and so ineptly criticised and then in a moment of abandonment, the praise is so real, the encomiums worthy of an Attic sage! ”

“ Ozaki, Tokyo has a very unique mayor, a man with as many sided an existence as his city! “Self made,” [Pg 45] as he proudly said, he has been a public man all his life and yet likes the quiet of his country life and the family quite as much as the most humble man of the city. A great reader of men and of events, he is a democrat to the backbone and has a manner simple as a child and a mind as keen as one of the damioes swords. ”

“ It is no wonder she still keeps on smiling as she sees the pitiful result of so much dazzling modernism and exquisite theories and grandiloquent faith shattered the moment you touch its adherents. It is a very, very old story as old as when woman first bore the transgression for herself and for man and through her patience and heroism brought atonement. ”

“ Financial security always goes with freedom, the United States has such serious abuses of power that freedom becomes disturbed and so as by a paradox tyranny often reigns.
“The continual warfare between labor and capital gives rise to uneasiness and disturbs the market, as does the lax social conditions the sequel of the indiscriminate immigration and it has the seeds of revolt against established rule.
“Something must be done with the banking system in America and there must be reforms also in the monetary system. ”