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2nd. (29th of 4th Moon). (TABLE)
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==1. Yi Yong Ik==― Minister War==
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==2. Yi Kun Ho==― Minister Justice==
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==3. Yi Chi Yong==― Minister Home Department==
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==4. Yi Ha Yong==― Minister Foreign Office==
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==5. Yi Chai Kuk==― Minister Education==
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==6. Min Yung Chul==― Minister Household==
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==7. Park Jai Soon==― Minister Agriculture==
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==8. Yi Kun Taik==― Minister of==
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==9. Yi Bong Nai==― Vice Minister Home==
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==10. Yi Kun Sang==― Vice Minister Education==
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==11. Pak Yong Wha==― Vice Minister Household==
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==12. Yi Yoon Yung==― Vice Minister Agriculture==
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To My Guardian Angel and Darling in Heaven:
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My Love! It is raining and I feel lonely. Let me chat with you some, my Sweetheart. Last month, May, was a month of dinners and garden parties. On the 15th May Prince Uiyang 義陽 gave a dinner at Miss Sontag's to entertain the Japanese Legation and Military worthies and a number of Korean officials. I was invited in my capacity of the Acting Foreign Minister.
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The Dinner through, I called on Miss Sontag in her room. Her words of sympathy were so tender that I could not help having a good, though suppressed, sobbing. She was in tears too. She kissed me on my forehead first and then on my cheek. She asked me to give her our Laura to be her adopted daughter. She said she would take the best care of Laura. "I want someone to whom I may leave what I have," she said.
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My Darling, show me what to do. I dread to marry our Laura into a Korean home. It means sure slavery. There is no school in Korea for her. If I were sure of the constant love and care of Miss Sontag, I would let her have our girl. But Miss Sontag being French, she may have said all that in a moment of impulsive kindness. I shall see.
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On the 22nd May, the Japanese Prince, 博恭王, arrived at Seoul. He stayed in the 䃦德殿, the building next to the house now occupied by the Emperor. The Prince left Seoul on the 27th ult. One good thing about his coming was the repairing of some of the main streets in Seoul. The Prince sent me a silk tablecloth embroidered in gold and a pair of pretty little porcelain vases. By the way, Darling, now that you are gone, I have lost all taste or desire for pretty things. Those things you used to handle are sacred to me. It is my ambition now to have a room―a study, fixed up with my books and the chairs and tables, etc. which have the holy associations with your beloved memories. More than that I don't care in the way of luxuries.
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On the 27th and 28th May, the Baltic fleet was completely destroyed by the Japanese admirals. What a glorious campaign this has been to Japan! As a Korean, I have no special reasons for rejoicing over the uninterrupted successes of Japan. Every victory is a nail in the coffin of the Korean independence. The means which the Japanese have been using to chain Korea hard and fast to the wheel of the Japanese domination are mean indeed. Yet as a member of the Yellow Race, Korea―or rather I―feel proud of the glorious successes of Japan. She has vindicated the honor of our race. No braggart American, no arrogant Briton, no vain glorious Frenchman, will be, form now on, able to say that the Yellow man is incapable of great things. As the Chinese has proved himself the equal of any in industry and commerce, the Japanese has compelled the proud West to acknowledge the military and naval genius of the Far East.
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On the 25th May the formal opening ceremony of the Seoul-Fusan Railroad took place outside of the South Gate. The Japanese were jubilant. Koreans were ashamed of themselves―I mean such Koreans as could think.
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The Korean Cabinet is composed of:
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Hyon Yung Woon is expected to become the Vice Minister of War. Except Pak Jai Soon, there is not a decent man in the whole Cabinet I would not risk a pickel on the honesty of any of them. A precious collection of rascals.
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Our Japanese friends and Saviors know how to make the Korean Palace hateful to Koreans and disgusting to the world.
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On the 20th May, the Japanese took possession of the Department of Communication.
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14th.(12th of 5th Moon).
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To My Love and Darling Angel in Heaven:
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Of late I have often been seized, in the still hours of midnight as well as in the perplexities of the day, with an unutterable sadness for the tragedy of your life and an unspeakable longing for your loving companionship. When you went to Shanghai leaving me alone in Wonsan, in 1902, I had this intense longing for you, my Love.
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But then I was happy in the prospect of your return to me. Now that prospect is forever gone, Darling, put your spiritual arms around me as you used to with your arms of flesh.
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On the 4th inst. Mr. Stevens gave a luncheon in honor of Dr. Allen 宙合樓 in the Eastern Palace. The day was lovely and the trees and shades were delightful. All the folks of the Legations and the Consulates in Seoul were present. Mr. Pak Jai Soon 朴齊純 and Ko Hui Kyong were the only Koreans present, besides myself. I was the only one in the party who had seen Dr. Allen when he first came to Seoul in 1884.
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When the Doctor proposed the health of Mr. Stevens, said he, "Don't let Mr. Hayashi work you too hard. Mind Kipling's couplet about the man who tried to hustle the East. Let Korea take its sometime." These words were significant in view of the cudgel which Mr. Stevens has taken up against the Colbran and Bostwick Co, and of the fact the Dr. Allen attributes this anti-Colbran attitude to Japanese instigations.
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At 7:30 p.m. attended the banquet which the Vice Minister of War of Japan gave in 採寧樓. I did not enjoy it.
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At 7:30 p.m. on the 6th instant, the Foreign Office gave a dinner to Dr. Allen. All the Legations and Consulates were represented. Korean Ministers of State were invited too. Before going to the table, Dr. Allen, pale with emotions, said to me, "Why did you invite Yi Yong Ik, who tried to send me out of Korea? If he stays, I must go home. I have prepared a speech and I can not give it in that man's presence." I had the unpleasant task of sending away Yi Yong Ik.
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There were 38 guests. As I sat at the head of the table, I could look both ways throughout the length of the table, I was oppressed with emotions of sadness, of shame, of hopelessness. Everybody present seemed anxious to ingratiate himself with the Japanese, though in the Korean Foreign Office, the Foreign guests took no pains to disguise their indifference to the Korean Ministers present. Dr. Allen who had been in Korea over 20 years is leaving the country ten times more a dependency that she was in 1884, with ten times less hope. Min Yong Chul, Yi Chi Yong, Min Byong Suk, Yi Kun Taik and Yi Ha Yong turned the halls into a whispering gallery.
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Yi Ha Yong, the Foreign Minister, made no speech. So Dr. Allen had no chance to give us the benefit of his prepared address. After the dinner was over, the Doctor gave me the paper in which he had written out his speech in English and Korean.
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At 10 a.m. on the 8th inst. I went to the West Gate Station to see Dr. Allen off. A large number of Koreans and Foreigners were out. I could not keep back tears when I felt I was bidding farewell to a friend who had been so good to Mrs. Yun; and whom I may never again meet. The Doctor, sensitive like a girl―be it said to his honor―seemed much moved. Thus one by one our (My) friends are leaving me.
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On the 9th inst. the President of America officially proposed to Japan to open negotiations for peace with Russia directly, without any intermediary. On the 10th the Japanese government notified the U.S. Minister at Tokio of their acceptance of the proposal.
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To My Love and Angel in Heaven,
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Last Sunday I went to the Foreign Cemetery, to visit your grave. Our faithful friends, Kang Joo Sa, Sim Joo Sa, and Hong Joo Sa, accompanied me. Mr. Sim and I went on wheels. The road to the Cemetery has been repaired of late and one can wheel very comfortably all the way from Seoul. We weeded and trimmed the sods with which I had your grave covered. On our way back to the town I went in our old home and found everything―trees, shrubs, vines etc.―as green and beautiful as they had been this time last year. I sat in the room which used to be my study. O my Darling, I got to be so melancholy and lonely in that desolate house so full of tender associations for me that I would have gone crazy if I had had to stay there alone for any length of time. Just think, you, my precious Darling, left that little home in the afternoon of the 31st January never to return there until you passed it on the 18th of February to your grave!
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My Love, I have been trying to take a trip to Japan for the last half year. Mr. Stevens has been working for it yet with a very meagre success. Mr. Stevens, in his audience with the Emperor on the 15th inst. suggested to His Majesty that I be sent to Japan and also to Hawaii to investigate the condition of the Korean emigrants to the Bandwich Islands. His Majesty promised he would. Mr. Stevens had a talk with Yi Ha Yong, Hayashi and Megata on the subject. They all agreed that it was an excellent idea; but none of them seems particularly anxious to put the proposal into effect.
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Mr. Stevens informs me that His Majesty told him that I had been almost brought up in the Palace; that I had been a great favorite of the Late Queen; that my connection with the Independence Club had brought me into disfavor with the government, and that all my past indiscretions have been forgiven and forgotten. His Majesty spoke to Mr. Stevens very kindly of my Father.
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Am told that on the Russian man-of-war, "Alexander Ⅲ," a letter from the Korean Emperor, written by Yi Kun Taik, was discovered. Well time has past when such an evidence of the Imperial flirtation can in any manner or shape disturb the Tokio Cabinet. Yet the Japanese representatives in Seoul will no doubt use this find as a thumbscrew to extort rich bribes from both the Emperor and Yi Kun Taik.
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Min Hyong Sik, the son of Min Yung Joon, the Squeezer, asked Yi Ha Yung, the Mnister for Foreign Affairs, to intercede with the Japanese for his notorious father. Yi Ha Yung told the young man to use money. Min gave Yen 20,000 to Yi to be distributed among the leading suckers of the Japanese Legation. A fraction of this sum was so used but the great bulk of it went into Yi's pocket, and this too when Yi had been paid Yen 800 in the way of commission! Min has been trying to get the money back with very poor success.
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On the 17th, Yi Yong Ik was appointed the Director of the Imperial Treasury 內藏梡卿. He has bought over to his cause Colonel Nodzu, Hagiwara etc. etc. etc. With money, you can do anything. Japanese and Koreans are vying with each other to get rich by sucking the suckers 李容翊, 閔泳哲, 閔泳俊, 李根擇 and the Emperor. The whole scene is disgraceful and disgusting.
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The greatest criminals and traitors Korea has ever produced in its history are those who ruled or misruled the country between 1896 and 1904. It was within this period that Korea was in name and in fact an independent state. It was in this period that Korea could have laid the foundations of prosperity and progress without let or hindrance. Yet it was in this period that the hope of the Korean independence was forever extinguished by the vanity, wickedness and treachery of those whose duty and interest it was to keep the country independent and prosperous.
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Darling, I am more and more keeping away from Foreigners. The pitiful condition of Korea makes me to shun the company of the overbearing Foreigner with a morbid sensitiveness. By the way, Darling, do you think any of the Foreigners, except missionaries possibly, whom I know here would condescend even so much as to give me a nod if I were to meet them in, say, Shanghai or Yokohama? They are so haughty when not patronizing and so patronizing when not haughty in their behavior. Yet, from Hayashi and Hasegawa down, there is not a Japanese whom I know in Seoul who would not be polite and kind to me if I met him anywhere. Blood is thicker than water?
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The weather, which was rainy from the middle of April to the end of May, has been dry and, on the whole, delightful since the 1st June. The farmer is longing for rain.
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Father is building another house outside of the North Gate in a very pretty valley. He has a mania for the foreign style two-story house. What a strange taste, to be building here a little house and there another. I think he is now building for his dear little boy, Tae Yong-i, his pet. Mr. Paik Nak Hyon, a remarkably intelligent Korean scholar from Kang Kyong-i, asks me to lend my name to be the president of a school he has started in that port. He thinks that the lawless conduct of the Japanese is a blessing in disguise, as that alone will keep alive the spirit of independence in the Korean bosom.
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This generation with its slavishness, its dishonesty, its deadness, will pass away in groping, in groaning and in grieving. The rising generation will be the greatest sufferers from the sins of the past ages. The generation after that will have learned enough to begin a plan of national redemption, However, before that, Russia may drive out Japan. If the Japanese do not act wisely Koreans will welcome even Russia. Therein is the seed of another war. I am sick of it all.
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