| | | 16 September |
Seoul, Sept 16 1892
Dear Amy,
I hope we are not going to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing your writing much longer. It is all well to hear that your are improving; we can rejoice at that, but we should like to hear it from your own lips. I am tempted to wonder if you can read writing, since you cannot see to write; & when I reflect what a dreadful scribble my writing has become I no longer think it readable. However it is a pleasure for me to talk with you, so I will suppose you are there to listen and continue my bavardage. Max keeps up wonderfully. She has her deep fits of depression, but they are not long or frequent. I told her at the first that the best way to fight off her own grief was to try to take an interest in the concerns of others, & she has acted in the spirit. She ordinarily gives no sign of sorrowing, & a stranger would not notice tha she was not in her usual ????, but to me she is very different from the gay girl of a year ago.
I confess I have more misgivings about the course of affairs than she has ?????. It would be very easy if the authorities were likely to ??? into his ????, & try to carry them out. But I'm afraid the worse will be the case, & they will try to thwart him & his projects.
Mr. ???? is for home as soon as he receives his letters from ????. I learn what the Emperor's refusal means which will be at the end of this month to send in his resignation & at its acceptance, which Max expects to be immediate, to come down here as soon as the river opens, say end of March or April. They wd then be married and go home -- to Europe. In this she admits there may be a doubt - as B. told us the "resignation" may be accepted here & he may be put in disponibilitis the only practical difference being that in the latter case his annual pension is $1000 less. Brandt says they must accept his resignation. The only possibility is they may offer him a year's leave which he would take means to avoid.
But it seems to me that if they don't want to get rid of him, but want to prevent him from marrying an American, there are a good many ways to give him annoyance & delay, if of not actually ultimately checkmating him, & I cannot help fearing they will be practiced. They may begin by offering him a year's leave, which he will decline; but that will take time. They may accept his resignation, but require him to keep his post till his successor is named & arrives.
In fact there are more ways than one to kill a cat. And with such a cat and such an Emperor nothing is too much to expect. B. is not a man to be patient under ??? or to submit to injustice; but there are limitations, & the German system is so utterly soul-killing & arbitrary that no exaction would surprise me! I hope to live long enough to see some of the gas punched out of it. Brandt is not a Prussian by heredity, which accts for his being a decent fellow. Kiss the boys for me. Their pictures are a great delight.
As ever
A.H.
| | | 16 September |