Kore

“ We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard times. I will ask you a question if I may. Meyer? Who is Meyer? Everybody in this country is called Meyer!"
I smiled at this bizarre speech.
"This Eichenholz, now," I said, "... supposing he were my brother."
"He might congratulate himself," Kore said, blinking his little lizard eyes.
"And he sent me word to call and see you to find out his whereabouts. You seem to like riddles, Herr Kore.... I will read you one!"
And I read him the message from Francis ... ”

“ Korelenko! The word? What is it?
Kore. What you wished. We needed only the consent of the Social Democrats to Petrizoff's death——
Greg. Yes, yes!
Kore. And I have brought their sanction——
Greg. [Almost sobbing] Thank God!
Kore. If it is done under the leadership of the Shepherd of Lonz.
[Adrian staggers back against loom]
Greg. [Clutching Korelenko] Take back that infernal proviso!
Kore. I thought you wished it.
Greg. I did, when I believed the man there was human.
Kore. He is. The most human of us all. You don't know him. Adrian, you see that all depends upon you——
Adr. ”

“ Thus with the seas almost wholly encircling her, rich in mountains, glens, arable fields and fertile terraces, Korea is ever robed not only in tints produced by the constant caresses of the sunlight falling upon the moisture-laden air of countless valleys, but also in colours of spring and autumn that excel the storied shepherd's coat or a kingly robe. Their country is beautiful, and the people know and feel its charm. ”

“ The lofty crags that lift their heads three thousand feet into the air and almost overhang the city of Seoul are alpine in their grandeur. There is always distance, openness, sweep to a Korean view which is quite in contrast to the picturesque coziness of almost all Japanese scenery. This, together with the crystal atmosphere, make Korea, even after only a few years' residence, a delightful reminiscence. No people surpass the Koreans in love for and appreciation of beautiful scenery. ”

“ Korea is the land of beautiful scenery and lovely flowers. Snow white and ruby red are their chief colors. In the spring time when the ice has melted and the rivers have poured their floods into the sea, the whole country blushes with the pink bloom of azaleas. ”

“ APPENZELLER of Korea built himself as a living stone into Christian Cho-sen. The coming of a live, typical, American Christian in 1885, into the mysterious secrecy of an inhospitable hermit kingdom, the abode of cruelty, oppression, mental darkness, ignorance and disease, was like an invincible sunbeam. Bold as a lion, tender as a woman, aflame with zeal for the Master, yet able to work and live with all sorts and conditions of men, he won steady success. ”

“ As I sat amidst the dirt, squalor, rubbish, and odd and endism of the inn yard before starting, surrounded by an apathetic, dirty, vacant-looking, open-mouthed crowd steeped in poverty, I felt Korea to be hopeless, helpless, pitiable, piteous, a mere shuttlecock of certain great powers, and that there is no hope for her population of twelve or fourteen millions, unless it is taken in hand by Russia, under whose rule, giving security for the gains of industry as well as light taxation, I had seen Koreans in hundreds transformed into energetic, thriving, peasant farmers in Eastern Siberia. ”

“ As to colour in art, the Koreans are still as primitive as in ancient days. Their red is the red of blood or of the peppers that lie ripening on their roofs. Their green is the vivid green of the new-sprouting rice or the dark blue-green of the pinetree. Nature's colours are in their art as nature's sounds are in their wonderfully mimetic language. ”

“ Almost every house in these roadside villages and small towns has a low table of such food as Koreans love laid out under the eaves.
Beyond Ko-yang, standing out in endless solemnity above a pine wood on the side of a steep hill, are two of the strangely few antiquities of which Korea can boast. These are two mirioks, colossal busts, about 35 feet in height, carved out of the solid rock. They are supposed to be relics of the very early days of Korean Buddhism, when men were religious enough to toil at such stupendous works, and to represent the male and female elements in nature. ”

“ They are born to a slightly lower rank, it is true, but that signifies little, for in Korea every man must carve out his own niche in the social rock, and they, the children of the handmaidens, have as fair a start in life, and as clean a name, as the children of the wife. ”

“ Korea, Corea, or Chosen (morning calm) occupies the peninsula hanging down from Manchooria and Russian Siberia between China and Japan, and extending from the 33d to the 43d parallels of north latitude.
The area, including the outlying islands, is about one hundred thousand square miles. The population, according to the most reliable estimate, is a little more than sixteen millions. Yet, as the people live in cities, towns, and hamlets, the country does not seem to be thickly settled. ”

“ Not for her to lay at the man’s feet a son who may worship him into the most desirable corner of the Korean heaven; only for her to please him while she is with him, to touch for him odd instruments and sing to them soft, weird songs, to shake the soft perfume of her hair across his cheek and the perfume of the flowers she wears upon the bowl of food, or of fish, or fruit she humbly places before him ”

“ The eyes, though dark, vary from dark brown to hazel; the cheek bones are high; the brow, so far as fashion allows it to [Pg 13] be seen, is frequently lofty and intellectual; and the ears are small and well set on. The usual expression is cheerful, with a dash of puzzlement. The physiognomy indicates, in its best aspect, quick intelligence, rather than force or strength of will. The Koreans are certainly a handsome race. ”

“ So long as Buddhism was held within bounds, and was the servant rather than the master, the Koryu state flourished. The people began in a gradual way to assimilate some of the material for thought which the Chinese intellectual invasion had deposited here, and out of it all the Koreans evolved a rather nondescript, but still a workable, plan of national life. ”

“ It chanced, early in this first meeting, that I mentioned what I had told all the Court, that I was in truth a Korean of the blood of the ancient house of Koryu.
“Let be,” she said, tapping my lips with her peacock fan. “No child’s tales here. Know that with me you are better and greater than of any house of Koryu. You are . . .”
She paused, and I waited, watching the daring grow in her eyes.
“You are a man,” she completed. “Not even in my sleep have I ever dreamed there was such a man as you on his two legs upstanding in the world.”
Lord, Lord! and what could a poor sea-cuny do? ”

“ A Koreish chieftain commits a raid near Medina.—A.H., I.
The attitude of the Koreish towards the Prophet and his followers after the flight rapidly became more hostile. Kurz-ibn Jábir, one of the marauding chieftains of the Koreish, fell upon some of the camels and flocks of Medina, while feeding in a plain a few miles from the city, and carried them off. ”

“ HSU FUH A Japanese tradition assigns to the seventy-second year of the reign of Korei the advent of a Chinese Taoist, by name Hsu Fuh. Korei, seventh in descent from Jimmu, held the sceptre from 290 to 215 B.C., and the seventy-second year of his reign fell, therefore, in 219 B.C. Now, to the east of the town of Shingu in Kii province, at a place on the seashore in the vicinity of the site of an ancient castle, there stands a tomb bearing the inscription "Grave of Hsu Fuh from China," and near it are seven tumuli said to be the burial-places of Hsu's companions. ”

“ Dragon Spirit Hall " and many others. There are also what the Koreans call the mountain spirits. They are most like our angels of any of the Korean supernatural beings, but they are almost always represented as venerable men with long white beards. They live among the inaccessible peaks of the mountains and always in a state of bliss. Happy is the man who chances to catch sight of one of them. ”

“ While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one. As I say, it proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces. ”

“ The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation.
Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. ”

“ It is doubtful whether a supreme master of style could pack all the elements of truth that complete justice would demand into a hundred word account of what had happened in Korea during the course of several months. For language is by no means a perfect vehicle of meanings. Words, like currency, are turned over and over again, to evoke one set of images to-day, another to-morrow. There is no certainty whatever that the same word will call out exactly the same idea in the reader's mind as it did in the reporter's. ”

“ Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity, and a citizen of California by [p243] residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that, apart from the matter involved here, he is not law-abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.
Even more unusual is the series of military orders which made this conduct a crime. ”

“ We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and at an approximate area where our supply-line advantages were in balance with the supply-line disadvantages of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized his full military potential.
I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a solution.
Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said in effect that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. ”

“ Being now settled for the time being in Seoul, I must introduce you to the Corean, not as a nation, you must understand, but as an individual. It is a prevalent idea that the Coreans are Chinese, and therefore exactly like them in physique and appearance, and, if not like the Chinese, that they must be like their neighbours on the other side—the Japanese. As a matter of fact, they are like neither. Naturally the continuous incursions of both Chinese and Japanese into this country have left distinct traces of their passage on the general appearance of the people ”

“ From the pre-historic forays of the tribes beyond the Sungari, to the last new actors on the scene, the Russians, who stand with their feet on the Tumen, looking over the border on her helpless neighbor, Corea has been threatened or devastated by her eager enemies.
Nevertheless Corea has always remained Corea, a separate country; and the people are Coreans, more allied to the Japanese than the Chinese, yet in language, politics, and social customs, different from either. As Ireland is not England or Scotland, neither is Chō-sen China nor Japan. ”

“ Women, somehow or other, are scarce in Corea, and always in great demand. The coolies, and people of a similar or lower standing, cannot do without a female companion, for it is she who prepares the food, washes the clothes, and sews them up. She is beaten constantly, and very often she beats the man, for the Corean woman can have a temper at times. Jealousy en plus is one of her chief virtues. I have seen women in Seoul nearly tearing one another to pieces, and, O Lord! ”

“ All Korai, with its five provinces, its 176 cities, and its four or five millions of people, was annexed to the Chinese empire. Tens of thousands of Koraian refugees fled into Shinra, thousands into Pu-hai, north of the Tumen, then a rising state; and many to the new country of Japan. Desolated by slaughter and ravaged by fire and blood, war and famine, large portions of the land lay waste for generations. Thus fell the second of the Corean kingdoms, and the sole dominant state now supreme in the peninsula was Shinra, an outline of whose history we shall proceed to give. ”

“ The love of the marvellous, which forms so distinguishing a characteristic of all Eastern and a few Western nations, recently led a Japanese editor to regale his readers with a vivid account of the wonders of Corea. We are no longer told of golden sarcophagi and royal tombs bursting with inexhaustible treasures. That fable seems to have died out, and in its place we are assured that Corea is a land where Nature, and not art, has played some of her strangest freaks. The Seven Wonders of the Old World were all the works of men. ”