GENERAL NOGI.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144131, 28 June 1913, Page 7

GENERAL NOGI.

Some significant and beautiful anecdotes concerning the dead General aro told in a London journal. Of those, one of the most delightful concerns his love for his horse. It is well known that General Nogi was very fond of hoi'.'i.'S. AVhen he was once put on the retired list he gave one of his three chargors to General Sato, who valued it highly. Some time after, when they mot, 'General Sato asked him if ho had not regretted tho horse. “Oh, yes,” said the donor. “They say that after a man has 'divorced his wife h« always feels sorry, 'I don’t know what i z is, but I feel somehow like that.” The story is typical of a man vho held that a soldier should buy as good a horse as he possibly could. The stern soldier had all the truly Japanese passion for flowers, and during half his life he was a constant visitor to the famous private garden cf Tokio, called Hyak-ka-en. Himself a poet, he was fascinated -by the beauty of tho plum-tree, with its gnarled stejn and rich white or red blossom, which has been for centuries a favourite theme of the.poets of Japan. Of this aspect of General Nogi’s character, too, Kinya Taraaru has an anecdote to toll. Like others, ho loved tho plum-tree must. Late one night in spring he knocked at the gate of the Hyak-ka-en garden. The master wondered who the ardent lover of the blossoms might be. He found the General standing outside and apologising for his late visit. The host was agreeably surprised, and conducted him to the garden, and made special arrangements for lighting to show up the beauty of the blossoms—the branches and flowers in the still night time reflecting tho soft light are indeed poetical. The General’s gratification was unbounded.