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OUTPOSTS
of
ASIA
By
MORILLA MARIA NORTON
Author of
Songs of the Pacific
A Kingdom of the Sea
Verses from the Orient
Gloria Victis
THE MAGNET PUBLISHING CO.
MANILA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
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COPYRIGHT, 1909
MORILLA MARIA NORTON
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
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To M. B. N.
Great Mother, dead but living,
Living but dead,
The snow falls fast,
In this death month of all the year.
White flakes like messengers
Sent upon the blast,
From Heaven to light upon thy bier.
Like this death month of Nature
Such thou wert and art;
Cold with unsullied purity of will,
White with the soul’s austerity of charity,
Yet holding all the flames
Of summer’s glory in thy heart.
Yokohama
January 7, 1909
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FOREWORD
In writing this book of a journey through Manchuria, Korea and Japan,it is partly a tribute to the hospitality of the Imperial Railwaythrough whose kindness I made the picturesque tour on the track of thefighting line across countries on which so much attention has beenfocused in these last years, partly to fulfill a pledge made to theManila Merchants Association, to write in a book of travel throughRussia a chapter on Manila, which chapter is the last in the volume.
Among the few treasures which the traveler feels he must carry awayfrom that land of art—Japan—the writer chose a kakemono representingthe grim old fighter Ieyasu dressed in his stiff brocade of choicepattern which the elegance of his life demanded.
He sits not on horse, nor in palanquin, but at ease and in reflectivemood in his home, his queer head-dress arching out from his falcon-likehead, holding in one hand a sword even in this hour of leisure, readyto spring upon his country’s foes, in the other hand a roll of paper,for he was like the great Charlemagne, a man of letters, as well as ofbattles.
Sensitive, fine and piercing as a blade, is his glance, delicate asa woman in the finish of his attitude, yet commanding, imperious,indomitable and over all and through all, a scholar, not in theinfinitesimal detail of the school, but in the magnificent senseof life, one who learns from all experience and progresses througheverything and acquires in every phase of fortune and misfort