Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/26

 first of these concerned my own fitness for so delicate and difficult but altogether unaccustomed work. The second raised the doubt whether I could in this way be more useful to Japan and to humanity than by carrying out the original plan of spending the spring months lecturing in Kiushu. After consulting with the few friends to whom I could properly mention the subject, and reflecting that the judgment of His Imperial Majesty, with whom Marquis Itp would doubtless confer, as well as of the Resident-General himself, might fairly be considered conclusive, I accepted the invitation; but it was with mingled feelings of pleasure and of somewhat painful hesitation as to how I should be able to succeed.

The illness of Marquis Ito which, though not serious, compelled him to retire from the exciting life of the capital city to the seaside, and then to the hills, prevented my meeting him before I left Tokyo for Kyoto to fulfil my engagements in the latter city. But, by correspondence with a friend, I was kept informed of the Marquis' plans for his return to Korea, and thus could govern my engagements so as to be in the vicinity of some point on his route thither, at which the meeting with him might take place.

The expected conference followed immediately after our return from one of the most delightful of the many gratifying experiences which came to us during our year in Japan. We had taken a trip to the village of Hiro Mura, where formerly lived Hamaguchi Goryo, the benevolent patron of his village, whose act of self-sacrifice in burning his rice straw in order to guide the bewildered villagers to a place of safety when they were being overwhelmed by a tidal wave in the darkness of midnight, has been made the theme of one of Lafcadio Hearn's interesting tales. Mr. Hearn, it appears, had never visited the locality; and, indeed, we were assured that we were the first foreigners who had ever been seen in the village streets. A former pupil of mine is at the head of a flourishing