A POETIC EMPRESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 14, 1 September 1911, Page 6

A POETIC EMPRESS.

A July magazine reminds the world that Haruko, Empress of the Japanese, has now borne that Imperial style for over forty years. Looking back over the history of the New Nippon, we can find no more significant fact than the distance between the Empress of pre-Meiji days, and that gracious lady whose great achievement is to have become the “mother of the nation.” A Japanese writer, scarcely yet middle-aged, remembers his old nurse’s warning when he made his first visit as a child to the capital: “You must not, you must never look upon, the august faces of their Majesties, the Emperor and the Empress, because, if you do, then yon will see no more. The faces of their Majesties are like the sun; if yon dare look at them;you will loso your eyesight!” And to-day in 1911, the poorest children of Tokyo, in the children’s ward of the Charity Hospital, look upon that face with the'perfect love that cafets out fear, as tlie Empress carries round toys and gifts with her own august hands. Only lately there was a .curious reminder of this ancient drCad. A grateful pensioner, one of the oldest, women in the country, was brought unexpectedly into the presence of the Empress. “The poor woman fell upon her face as if she had been struck by lightning, and no. amount of Encouragement could induce her to lift her snow-white head from the sands of the garden court.” To this survivor of a past age, an Empress was a safe benefactor only at a safe distance, and even a centenarian docs not want to die. If she had gained courage to look, she might have had a fresh shock from the fashion-of the royal garments. Since 1883, Haruko has gone clad in Parisian gowns. The shock was then international. Leading ladies of America even concocted a public letter, calling attention to the dangers of European dress for women not to the manner horn. ■ But an Empress who was adopting Western modes of thought and freedom of action, was not to be deprived of her Western dress, or of the imported shoes, in which, as Professor Chamberlain remarked, “a Japanese lady finds it so hard to walk without looking as if she were just a little incapable!” But the Imperial love of dross was easily beaten by tho Imperial spirit of charity at a time when tho needs of the Red Cross Hospital were so pressing they could be met only by cutting down personal expenditure, and for months the Empress hardly bought a pair of gloves or a pocket handkerchief. Palace life in Japan is simple rather than magnificent. Harnko’s pleasures are in garden walks or in boating on the Jewel River. And to the other graces the Empress adds one that appeals to all her people, whether of tho old School or tho new. In that country of poets, her Majesty ranks high as a poet.