Miss Ladd

“ Caroline, her young brain excited by the importance of the evening, contented to feel at peace with all the world, including Miss Ladd, proud of her young husband, and eager to return to the incomparable baby, almost danced by Alfred's side as they went on the dimly-lighted road and over the bridge which spanned the canal. ”

“ It won't do nobody no good, and——'
'Bless the man!' said Miss Ladd, raising her voice impatiently, 'that was only a fit of the tantrums on my part. I'm too much of a woman to do anything spiteful to hurt the poor girl's feelings just now.'
'Good on ye!' said William Finnis heartily.
The door of the kitchen opened, and the bird-like young nurse flew in. Finnis bowed awkwardly, and backed to the dresser; the white-winged young woman as she went to the fireplace corroborated Miss Ladd's testimonial in regard to the new arrival. Finnis managed to hint delicately to her that Alfred was in trouble ”

“ If only she could have added "aged twenty-one, and generally considered a very pretty woman." She would have liked him to know that, even if she were never to see him again; would have liked to tantalize his curiosity in regard to the unknown Phyllis Ladd whose name was signed at the end.--Though he probably received bushels of notes. All actors were said to. And being a man he would probably like some of the warmer ones better--those from frankly adoring shop-girls, hampered neither by social position nor backwardness. ”

“ He wanted to leave the world better for his having been, and all that--and seemed to have what might be called an excruciating sense of duty. "A very quiet and rather a sad man," wrote Phyllis, "whom one might easily mistake for a muff if one hadn't seen him on horseback. He rides superbly, and I never saw a ring-master in a circus who could come anywhere near him."
All this worked up to a telegram that reached Mr. Ladd a few weeks later: "I accepted him last night, and, Papa, please come on quick and bless us." ”

“ This time it was a full set of furs for Mrs. Ladd; and to think we can remember the time he was a barefoot boy without two shirts to his back! It is strange he hasn't married, with all his money, and him so fond of children that he always has a pack of them at his heels."
"There's hope for him still, though," said Miss Jane smilingly; "for I don't s'pose he's more than thirty."
"He could get a wife in Riverboro if he was a hundred and thirty," remarked Miss Miranda.
"Adam's aunt says he was so taken with the little girl that sold the soap (Clara Belle, did you say her name was?) ”

“ You'll look very well in crape, only it does spot so. The leastest shower of rain and there you are.'
Caroline, tearful, but her lips set firmly, as one determined to keep much of her grief to herself and Trafalgar, escaped the well-intentioned women and came into the reception-room. Miss Ladd followed, and was about to ask for lights, but Caroline begged her not to do so. ”

“ Ladd; but though Mrs. Ladd came to see her at the flat which had been Mrs. Lenoir's, she received no invitation to Mrs. Ladd's house. The pressure of public opinion, the feelings of Mr. Attlebury's congregation, the 'awkwardness' which would arise with Mrs. Ladd's old, if too exacting, friend, Cyril Maxon, forbade. The one friendship which had proved able to resist the disintegrating influence was ended now by death.
Well, great benefits cannot reasonably be expected for nothing. If she was alone, she was also free—wonderfully free. ”

“ Ladd says that you are almost wasted on Wareham," said Rebecca thoughtfully.
"He is wrong; my talent is not a great one, but no talent is wholly wasted unless its owner chooses to hide it in a napkin. ”

“ Alfred submitted to the motherly embrace, and then, seated on a chest of drawers in the stuffy, varnish-scented arch, prepared for the game of bargaining. He had never in the old days had to deal with Mother Fayres; Ladd had done all that, and Ladd had always complained of her as a bitter handful to deal with. But then, Ladd had complained of everybody. ”

“ Preaching, beating of drums, praying and clapping of hands, the clinking of small coins as they fall into the collection-boxes, blend in a strange low monotone of sound; while the sight of some faces upturned in religious ecstasy and the sight of others gaping with curiosity or giving signs of mirth, invite our sympathy in somewhat conflicting ways. ”

“ As his railway train approaches the city, the first objects that catch his eyes are a cluster of buildings, some in foreign style, others in half foreign and half Korean style, which crown the hill-tops and constitute the most conspicuous feature of the magnificent landscape that developes itself before his eyes. ”

“ The principal rooms added in this way were a large salon, or assembly hall, and a refreshment hall. Both these rooms were beautifully decorated, with that mixture of lavishness and reserve in which the best Japanese art of decoration so much excels, with silks, flags of the nations, artificial cherry trees in full bloom, and real pomegranate and persimmon trees loaded with fruit. ”

“ To this an added significance is given by tying into the queerly knotted rope at its centre a collection of fern leaves, strands of straw, stalks of rice, streamers of Shintō paper, dried fish, and an orange or a boiled lobster. Peace, plenty, long life, prosperity, and happiness,—everything that the human heart can desire or hope for—are supposed to be symbolised in this way. ”

“ From such a point of view, the city itself, which is for the most part mean and filthy when seen from the streets, appears as a sort of grayish carpet, with dark-green spots made by the pines, for the plain beneath one's feet. As has already been indicated, the hillsides, both within and around the walls, are uninhabited. They are devoted—and thus wasted—to the mounds that cover the long-forgotten dead. ”

“ As a souvenir of this friendship both host and guests cherish a photograph in which four generations of this Japanese family, and its trusted and aged head-steward, are grouped around the foreign visitors.
From the village of Kuroé to Hiro-mura the jinrikisha ride is one of almost unexampled charm. Indeed the landscapes through which we were passing combined the three qualities of such charm—beauty of form, beauty of colour, and human interest—in a higher degree, I think, than does either the drive around the Bay of Naples or along the Bosphorus. ”

“ The comparatively damp climate of Japan covers with that exquisite soft haze which the Japanese artists appreciate so highly and reproduce so well, the same kind of soil and of rocks which shine out so bright and strong in their coloring across the straits in Korea. ”

“ This room, with its shoji drawn aside, looked out upon one of those gardens which the Japanese are able, without exhausting a large space, to make so very exquisite. In a darkened cage, which hung in the verandah outside, a nightingale occasionally burst forth in song. ”

“ Until the Chino-Japan war, when Japanese influence made itself felt in a controlling way, the brutal spectacles were not infrequent of men having their heads hacked off with dull swords, or their bones broken by beating with a huge paddle. ”

“ Of fine buildings, of museums, picture-galleries, temples, theatres, parks, and public gardens, there is little or nothing to compare with any European or Japanese city of the same size. There is, how- ever, here as everywhere in the peninsula, no little of antiquarian and historical interest which awaits the researches of those trained and enthusiastic in such pursuits. Of those sights which the city of Seoul within the walls can show, there are three principal classes—the so-called palaces, the shrines, and the monuments. ”

“ It is the Gates of Seoul which emphasize the visitors interest in the city wall and which give most of character to its picturesque features. In themselves, they are mere "tunnels pierced in the wall" ”

“ I have no feelings of anger toward these people; they are so ignorant, they have been so long deprived of all honest and enlightened government, they are so poor and miserable, I am not angry with them. ”

“ She was only fair in Latin or French grammar, but when it came to translation, her freedom, her choice of words, and her sympathetic understanding of the spirit of the text made her the delight of her teachers and the despair of her rivals.
"She can be perfectly ignorant of a subject," said Miss Maxwell to Adam Ladd, "but entirely intelligent the moment she has a clue. ”

“ There is no need to describe the attractions of Ikao, with its main street consisting of a nearly continuous steep flight of steps, and its houses on the side streets hanging over each other as they sit on the terraced slope of Mount Haruna, or border on the deep ravine of Yusawa, through which rushes a foaming torrent. For centuries lovers have met about the old well in the centre of its lower end. ”

“ And when to these more essential matters there is added the cultivation of the native love of nature and taste for flowers, it is not an extravagant hope to picture Seoul as becoming, in many respects, a not undesirable place for residence, before many years are past. Even now, with the spring covering of bloom from plum, apricot, apple, and cherry, and with the profusion of flowering shrubs which adorns the valleys and the mountain-sides, one feels inclined to overlook, at least for the months of April and May, the foul sights of the gutters and the surrounding hovels. ”

“ There are few memories in the life-time of at least one American teacher, which he more gladly recalls, and more delights to cherish, than those which signalise his many meetings with the school children of Japan: and among them all, not the least pleasant is that of the three hundred boys of Kameoka, standing in a row upon the banks of the Katsura-gawa and shouting their “banzais” to the departing boat. ”

“ But for the individual who cannot expect to find within himself whatever is necessary to understand and interpret this unity, and especially for the observer who does not care even to detect and recognize the existence of such a unity, the difference between Orient and Occident is a puzzle—perpetually baffling and seemingly insoluble. ”

“ This word ‘independence’ is a sort of fetich to which they bow, but they think that independence means liberation from outside control alone, forgetting that genuine independence means likewise a liberation from evil influences within, and that liberty, so far from being carte blanche to do as one pleases, is in truth the apotheosis of law. ”

“ For the moral principle of loyalty itself has been so narrowly conceived, and so intensely and passionately put into unreasoning practice, as to obscure in thought and confuse or destroy in conduct, other equally important and sacred virtues and duties of our mixed human life. ”

“ This last and worst of all the many influences tending toward the degradation of the professorial office is definitely connected with the present system of university administration. One can not wonder, and one can scarcely blame, the younger generation if they neither have nor profess the same unstinted devotion for an institution as that which sustained their forebears during lives of self-denial, hard work and low living. ”

“ In Japan every national festival and, indeed, almost every form of social gathering or species of entertainment partakes more or less of the character of a garden party. At the remotest and meanest tea-house in the mountains or by the sea, if the weather permits, you take your cup of tea where you can look upon a scene which nature or man has made into a work of art. ”

“ I have spoken of the four audiences which I have had the honour to enjoy, with His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, with some detail and with all the frankness within the limits of a courteous reserve, because they seem to me to throw light upon his personality as a man and as a ruler of men. ”

“ For the people, of all sorts, ages, and sizes, were gathered in groups, with that mild-mannered and unabashed curiosity which characterises the old-fashioned country folk of Japan, to watch the doings of the strangers who had so suddenly and unexpectedly appeared within their borders. ”

“ To the imagination of the ignorant populace of Korea, who can have no conception of what real civic beauty and decency are in these modern days, and who are accustomed to express themselves with Oriental hyperbole, Han-yang is the "Observation of all Nations," the King's city in the clouds," "a city that spirits regard and ghosts conceal" ”

“ In the street of the village was standing one of those gorgeous palanquins which serve as biers, and which give the lifeless body of the poorest Korean his one ride in state to the hillsides where the tombs of the dead hold the ground against the fields needed for cultivation by the living. ”

“ It would be terrible if even such a dear old man as this could saddle our science forever with his patient whimseys, and, in a world so full of more nutritious objects of attention, compel all future students to plough through the difficulties, not only of his own works, but of the still drier ones written in his refutation. ”

“ And now the ghostly forms fall upon their knees, and the woman, as though to propitiate Heaven, magnifies the courage and fidelity of the hero and recites his death-song in the recent battle. At this the chorus break out into loud lamentations that the entire family of so famous a hero has perished and that no soul is left alive to pray for the souls departed. After a period of kneeling, with their hands covering their faces in an attitude of hopeless mourning, the ghosts rise and slowly move off the stage; and the first act of the drama comes to an end. ”