Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/314

282 been unified into a consistent "character." The average Korean is not only liable to be called, he is liable actually to be, kindly and yet cruel, generous and yet intensely avaricious, with a certain sense of honor and yet hopelessly corrupt in his official relations. Accordingly, as one puts emphasis on this virtue to the exclusion or suppression of that vice, or turns the eye upon the dark and disgusting side of the picture and shuts out the side that might afford pleasure and hope, will one's estimate be made of the actual condition and future prospects of the nation.

But let us begin our brief description with the man who has been for more than a generation the chief ruler of Korea, the now ex-Emperor. He is a typical Korean especially in respect of his characteristic weakness of character, his taste for and adeptness at intrigue, his readiness to deceive and corrupt others, and himself to be deceived and corrupted. For all this no specially occult reasons need to be assigned. With a weak nature, his youth spent under the pernicious influence of eunuchs and court concubines and hangers-on, his manhood dominated by an unceasing and bloody feud between his wife and his father, his brief period of "independence" one orgy of misrule, and his latest years controlled by sorceresses, soothsayers, low-born and high-born intriguers, and selfish and unwise foreign advisers: what but incurably unsound character, uncontrollable instability of conduct, and a destiny fated to be full of disaster, could be expected from such a man so placed?

The father of the ex-Emperor was Yi Ha-eung, Prince of Heung Song, who was long the so-called "Regent" or "Prince-Parent," and is best known in history as the "Tai Won Kun." It has been said of him that "he was the grandson of a great and unfortunate crown prince, the great-grandson of a famous king, the nephew of another king, and the father of still another king." The lineal