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 Haunting

Modernity and

the Gothic

Presence

in British

Modernist

Literature

Daniel Darvay
Haunting Modernity and the Gothic Presence in
British Modernist Literature
 Daniel Darvay

Haunting Modernity
and the Gothic
Presence in British
Modernist Literature
Daniel Darvay
Colorado State University–Pueblo
Pueblo, Colorado, USA

ISBN 978-3-319-32660-3 ISBN 978-3-319-32661-0 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32661-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940599

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: © Adam Burton / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
 PREFACE

Expanding key Gothic conventions, modernist writers employ them to

show not their symptomatic capacity or destructive face but their genera-
tive potential. They use this genre as if they were fully conscious of its
artifice, and yet in ways that suggest a willingness to participate as both
subjects and objects of its sleight of hand. In this study I am concerned
with the ways late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British writers
transform the artifice of Gothic ruins into building blocks for a distinc-
tively modernist architecture of questions, concerns, images, and argu-
ments. Since these issues are both diverse and wide-ranging, creating a
single overarching definition of the modernist Gothic becomes increas-
ingly problematic if not outright impossible to propose, and searching for
such overarching perspective, as if it really existed, is not necessarily the
most rewarding route to take while delving into this topic. This might
also explain why the major book-length collections on this topic—Gothic
Modernisms (2001), edited by Andrew Smith and Jeff Wallace; and Gothic
and Modernism: Essaying Dark Literary Modernity (2008), edited by John
Paul Riquelme—offer multiple viewpoints as stimulus for further inquiry
rather than pronounce a decisive last word on a fully delimited subject.
I focus on authors who share a certain degree of consistency and coher-
ence when it comes to expressing the various roles the Gothic assumes in
the early twentieth century, but authors whose work illustrates nonetheless
the great depth and diversity these very roles entail. For example, while
the generative functions of the Gothic enable modernist writers to use this
genre as a way of addressing specific forms of crisis, they do so in very dif-
ferent ways and to widely different purposes. For Virginia Woolf, the crisis

v
vi PREFACE

is mainly epistemological, as she seeks to evince inscrutable, often terrify-

ing mechanisms of the psyche through the fantastic nature of vision she
identifies with artistic perception, photography, and abstract art. Joseph
Conrad and E.M. Forster both recognize the crucial role of the Gothic
in what they see as a much-needed redefinition of Englishness, but they
are motivated by highly individualized sets of assumptions. Frustrated
with the xenophobic milieu of pre-War English society, Conrad uses the
Gothicized image of Russia to justify his ethnic Polish identity as funda-
mentally Western. Forster, on the other hand, proposes a quite different
geopolitical segmentation of Europe: the redemption of post-Victorian,
rural England through the image of Italy as both a Gothic dungeon and a
tourist attraction. Last but not the least, the dark aspects of attraction help
Oscar Wilde and D.H. Lawrence to lend an aura of power and authenticity
to sexual identity articulated as homosexuality through Catholic imagery
for Wilde, and as blood consciousness through a Gothic tropology of elec-
tricity for Lawrence. Although each chapter is more or less self-sufficient,
taken together, they add to our understanding of the complex interaction
between modernism and the Gothic tradition, both of which are revealed
in the process to be prismatic categories that easily lend themselves to
multiple shapes and configurations.
My aim is to throw light on some of these configurations with a view to
illuminating some of the blind spots of Gothic criticism and to expanding
the range of cultural material that falls under the banner of this tradition. I
share Chris Baldick and Robert Mighall’s frustration with the extant body
of “Gothic Criticism [that] has done little to define the nature of Gothic
fiction except by the broadest kinds of negation.”1 My approach to this
genre is largely consistent with their observation that Gothic narrative,
instead of reflecting “anti-Enlightenment rebellion,”2 actually “witnesses
the birth of modernity.”3 At the same time, I seek to draw out the impli-
cations of this definition in relation to several distinct strands running
through the history of ideas from the early modern period to the first
decades of the twentieth century.
While this book is not cast as a historical survey, my inquiry into the
Gothic aspects of modernism will take me back to early exemplars of the
genre thematically rooted in the English Reformation as well as to some
of its significant Victorian transformations. In addition, the eclectic nature
of the modern Gothic makes it equally at home in nineteenth-century
medico-scientific discourse and the cultural history of electricity, in the
social history of the art museum, in the politics of ethnicity and empire,
 PREFACE vii

and in the late nineteenth-century ritualist controversy within the Church

of England. Other notable contributing precursor genres include not only
eighteenth-century Gothic romance, a body of works that is quite hetero-
geneous in itself, but also anti-Catholic novels of the nineteenth century,
mid-Victorian sensation fiction, and fin-de-siècle spy narratives. One way
to launch the discussion on how all these versions of the Gothic eventu-
ally get plugged into modernism is to focus on their shared preoccupation
with the idea of the enemy within, regardless of whether that enemy is
made out to be psychological, sexual, domestic, religious, or political.
As far as the English Gothic is concerned, the prototypical model of
the enemy within is to be found in the supernatural resurrection of the
Catholic past in seventeenth-century stories of sacrilege, which propose
the unsettling possibility that the very stones of one’s country house might
easily come alive to punish descendants of families that had been guilty
of impropriation at the time of the Reformation. To create a foundation
for my understanding of the modern Gothic, I discuss the early modern
contexts in which sacrilege narratives came to bear extended meanings in
politics, society, and culture. The detour taken for the charting of these
contexts actually brings us closer to the early twentieth century, and it
helps identify as Gothic key elements of modernism that on the face of it
would seem to be only tangentially related to the very tradition that gave
them birth.

Pueblo, CO, USA Daniel Darvay

NOTES
1. Chris Baldick, and Robert Mighall, “Gothic Criticism,” in A New Companion
to the Gothic, ed. David Punter (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 273.
2. Ibid., 273.
3. Ibid., 278.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Like an invisible family member or some mysterious presence familiar from

Gothic fiction, the arguments presented in this book decided one day to
befriend me, and over the years many people helped me better understand
this friendship. I would like to thank Daniel Cottom, Vincent B. Leitch,
Francesca Sawaya, and Ronald Schleifer for providing helpful feedback on
earlier versions of this study. I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Daniel
Cottom, for his unfailing encouragement and his continued belief in this
project; his wisdom, generosity, and sense of humor continue to inspire
my research and teaching. For his professionalism, friendship, and long-
time mentorship, I owe special thanks to Vincent B. Leitch, who has been
a sharp-eyed reader always offering speedy and constructive feedback. I
want to express my gratitude to the amazing community of colleagues,
faculty, and friends at the University of Oklahoma and at Colorado State
University—Pueblo. I also want to thank Sanda Berce and Virgil Stanciu
for their support and encouragement to further my interest in modernism
while a student at Babeș-Bolyai University; their mentorship was crucial in
laying the foundations for this book.
I also benefited greatly from the support given by a number of institu-
tions, publishers, and academic organizations. Much of the research for
this book was conducted during my time as graduate student and post-
doctoral fellow at the University of Oklahoma, and I am grateful to the
English Department and Bizzell Memorial Library for giving me the time
and resources necessary for the successful completion of this project. The
initial ideas for many of the chapters in this book grew out of constructive
debates and scintillating discussions at the annual MLA Convention, and my

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

thanks go to the organizers of these events, including the D.H. Lawrence

Society of North America. I want to thank the editors and publishers of
Modern Fiction Studies and Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, where
earlier versions of Chapters 3 and 5 appeared as “The Politics of Gothic in
Conrad’s Under Western Eyes,” Modern Fiction Studies 55 (Winter 2009):
693–714, © 2009 for the Purdue Research Foundation by Johns Hopkins
University Press and as “The Gothic Sublime in Virginia Woolf’s To the
Lighthouse,” Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 44 (Summer 2011):
129–56, © 2011 University of Oklahoma, reprinted by permission of the
present publisher, Duke University Press. I am grateful to the editors at
Palgrave Macmillan for their support and for all their work during the
final preparation of the manuscript and to the anonymous readers for their
detailed and thoughtful feedback.
My warmest gratitude goes to Lőwy Maya, my first English teacher,
whose intellectual curiosity, generosity, and kindness have been ideals to
aspire to ever since my childhood years. I owe special thanks to my aunt
P. Dombi Erzsébet and my uncle Péntek János for inspiring me to take an
interest in the humanities. I cannot even begin to describe how grateful I
am to my parents Darvay Márta and Darvay Béla for their continued sup-
port, love, and encouragement. The same is true of my daughter Nóra,
who teaches me every day what is important in life, and my wife Tünde,
whose colorful paintings are an endless source of delight and inspiration.
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction: Catholicism, Sacrilege, and

the Modern Gothic 1

2 Labyrinths of Reason from Augustine to Wilde 35

3 Specters of Conrad: Espionage and the Modern West 71

4 The Haunted Museum: E.M. Forster, Italy, and

the Grand Tour 97

5 Detectives of the Mind: Virginia Woolf and the

Gothic Sublime 131

6 Dark Vibes: D.H. Lawrence and Occult Electricity 159

7 Conclusion 187

Bibliography 191

Index 211

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Catholicism, Sacrilege,

and the Modern Gothic

SACRILEGE AND THE ORIGINS OF GOTHIC

On a first reading, Andrew Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House” appears to
be a country-house poem, a popular seventeenth-century genre in which
the poet praises the owner through the description of the house. The
poem was written between 1650 and 1653, during the period of Marvell’s
employment as tutor to the daughter of the retired general Thomas
Fairfax. Its overarching theme rests on the identification of the moral
integrity and elevated social status of Lord Fairfax with the providential
history and grand architecture of Nun Appleton House. However, in try-
ing to incorporate the history of Appleton into his encomium, Marvell
quickly found himself entangled in issues of dispossession, questionable
heritage, and family drama—the very elements that would come to typify
the Gothic genre at the height of its popularity in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth century. A Cistercian priory dissolved in 1539, Nun
Appleton was acquired by the Fairfax family in 1542 as a direct effect of
the Dissolution of the Monasteries decreed by Henry VIII in 1536 and
gradually implemented over the course of the next five years. By Marvell’s
time, the fate of the new Appleton House, which was built in part from
the stones cannibalized from the original priory, was a politically charged
subject as a result of a rich, century-long tradition of literature on sacrilege
and impropriation of church assets. To stress the legitimacy of his patron
as rightful owner, Marvell invented a providential version of the history
of Appleton based on the idea that the functional shift from nunnery to

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

D. Darvay, Haunting Modernity and the Gothic Presence in British
Modernist Literature, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32661-0_1
2 D. DARVAY

country house meant a divinely sanctioned removal of corrupt Catholic

nuns from a building that could finally live up to its reputation as symbol
of purity, integrity, and justice. By grafting this idea onto a dramatized
account of ancestry laced with suspicious familial relations, Marvell cre-
ated in the story of the early sixteenth-century heiress Isabel Thwaites,
Thomas Fairfax’s great-great-grandmother, a precursor to the Gothic.
According to Marvell’s version of the story, which takes up about two
dozen stanzas and forms the linchpin of his anti-Catholic stance, Isabel
Thwaites is beguiled by “the subtle nuns” (94) and is later confined within
Appleton by her aunt and guardian, the Prioress, only to be rescued by
her heroic future husband William Fairfax. Here, as in later Gothic fic-
tion, the convent and its inhabitants, like Catholic religion in general,
stand for moral corruption and sexual depravity. The dubious origins of
Nun Appleton are established early on through a metaphorical description
that pokes fun at alleged bastard offspring of licentious nuns: “A nunnery
first gave it birth/ (For virgin buildings oft brought forth)” (85–6). The
nuns’ promiscuity, combined with the acquired craftiness stimulated by
their religious order, achieves a twofold purpose in the poem: it discredits
monastic existence while also turning the nuns into extraordinary enemies,
who can easily seduce with their “smooth tongue” (200) the “blooming
virgin Thwaites” (90). Taken from the subtle nun’s treacherous speech,
which is replete with sexual connotations, the following lines illustrate the
rhetorical adroitness with which Marvell carries out this twofold purpose:

Here we, in shining armor white,

Like virgin Amazons do fight.
And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
Lest the great bridegroom find them dim. (105–8)

By blending the mythological figure of the Amazon with the biblical ref-
erence to the “Parable of the Ten Virgins,” Marvell creates the powerful
image of the vigilant virgin warrior presumably engaged in fighting sin and
temptation in an attempt to maintain chastity. The allure of such an image
would, in Marvell’s view, help inveigle unsuspecting victims like Isabel
Thwaites. Yet the image of the nuns waiting for the great bridegroom and
savior Christ is also self-contradictory and sexually charged in multiple
ways—one of which is that the need for the artificial trimming of the
lamps undermines their natural chastity and subverts the entire metaphor
to suggest obscene self-indulgence rather than abstinence. When William
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 3

Fairfax appears in the mythical role of Protestant deliverer, he saves Isabel

from the tyranny of a Cistercian order that is crumbling, at least in part,
under the weight of its own corruption.
Marvell reinforces this idea by deliberately reversing the religious
assumptions underlying traditional narratives of sacrilege that dominated
social, political, and religious life in mid-seventeenth-century England.1
In doing so, he anticipates the Gothic genre’s overriding concern with
themes of ancestry, usurpation, and retribution.2 The extension of the
moral depravity of the inhabitants to the physical disintegration of Nun
Appleton enables Marvell to voice contemptuous conjectures about the
past and complacent forebodings about the future:

Were there but, when this house was made,

One stone that a just hand had laid,
It must have fallen on her head
Who first thee from thy faith mislead.
..........................................................
But sure those buildings last not long,
Founded by folly, kept by wrong. (209–12, 217–18)

As a way of fulfilling this ominous prediction, and in a final attempt to

secure the providential fate of Appleton House, the poem circumvents
the over two decades separating Thwaites’s real-life marriage with Fairfax
(1518) and the Dissolution period itself (1536–1541), essentially fusing
the two affairs into a single divinely ordained event:

The wasting cloister with the rest

Was in one instant dispossessed.
At the demolishing, this seat
To Fairfax fell as by escheat [i.e. reversion],
..................................................
Though many a nun there made her vow,
’Twas no religious house till now. (271–74, 279–80)

To become a genuine house of God, Nun Appleton first has to toss out
the unworthy residents infecting its walls before it can welcome the right-
ful owners, who will restore it to its due glory and prosperity. What might
seem to be stolen property is lawful restitution; what might look like des-
ecration is secular justice; and, finally, what might appear to be heresy is
in fact true Christianity. Thus is the Henrician Dissolution recuperated at
4 D. DARVAY

once as a preemptive attack on potential Catholic retribution, as the true

legacy of the English Reformation, and as the cornerstone of modernity
purged from the superstitious past.
Marvell’s focus on sacrilege is rooted in the pervasive religious turmoil
of his time. The general fear of divine revenge for religious dispossession
was at the center of social and political controversy at the mid-seventeenth
century, and it reflected England’s uneasy relationship with its Catholic
past.3 The Civil Wars (1642–1651), which ended with the victory of
the Parliamentarians over the Royalists, led to the execution of Charles
I, the exile of Charles II, and the establishment of the Commonwealth
and Protectorate under the military rule of Oliver Cromwell. In terms
of religious politics, this victory also meant the abolition of episcopacy in
England and the formal authorization in 1646 of the sale of church lands
that had been considered to be God’s property entrusted for safekeeping
to bishops and archbishops by virtue of apostolic succession. Narratives
of sacrilege such as Joseph Mede’s Diatribae (1642–52), Lancelot
Andrewes’s Sacrilege a Snare (1646), and most significantly perhaps, Sir
Henry Spelman’s The History and Fate of Sacrilege (written in 1632 but
not published until 1698) described the various misfortunes and calami-
ties that befell those who dared to defraud God’s property. The surge of
publications on sacrilege during this period suggests that many of these
narratives were mobilized in support of the Royalist cause, which sought
to maintain the king’s authority over the Church through bishops.4 As
Thomas Fairfax had fought with Cromwell against Charles I, Marvell
showed support for his Protestant patron by turning the traditional sac-
rilege narrative against itself, and also against a king who labeled “the
alienation of Church lands” as “a sin of the highest sacrilege.”5 However,
unlike Marvell’s idea of instant dispossession, which evoked a teleological
version of history as uninterrupted progress in the wake of a sudden break
with the past, seventeenth-century disputes over church property suggest
the picture of a nation still very much entangled in its Catholic genealogy,
caught on the cusp between sin and crime, between religious superstition
and secular law.
If we are to understand the many faces of Gothic fiction, and, among
them, the genre’s constant preoccupation with infinitely dubious family
lineage and the social and political implications emerging from it, we must
examine the period in history when England began using the idea of a
doubtful past to invent a forward-looking present. The period in ques-
tion, broadly conceived, coincides with the years of convoluted church
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 5

reforms, including the Henrician (1530–1538), Edwardian (1547–1553),

and Elizabethan (1559–1563) Reformations.6 However, its effects extend
well into Marvell’s time, as indicated by the persistence of the sacrilege
motif in his work, and by the religious turmoil characterizing mid- and
late seventeenth-century England. A focus on this time period, albeit
often combined with a Catholic Mediterranean setting, is also a common-
place of eighteenth-century Gothic writing. Emblematic Gothic novels
such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian
(1797) feature remote Continental settings, and Horace Walpole’s inau-
gural The Castle of Otranto (1764) is allegedly based on an Italian manu-
script printed in 1529 and discovered “in the library of an ancient Catholic
family in the north of England.”7 Sketching the intellectual background
and the political legacy of the English Reformation enables us to see why
Gothic authors chose to select this particular period in history as the main
object of spatial, temporal, and aesthetic removal from everyday life, and
how this removal would come to redefine nonetheless their conception of
that very life. Doing so also helps explain the plasticity of the Gothic, as it
continues to adapt to changing conceptions of everyday life in the hands
of modernist writers. Marvell’s revision of traditional stories of sacrilege to
fit the worldly needs of Thomas Fairfax is a prime example of such generic
adaptability.
Long before the Enlightenment created a philosophical context for the
introduction into Gothic fiction of animated artworks as anachronistic
markers of a purported age of credulity, sacrilege narratives had advanced
the idea of supernatural punishment by way of church monuments that
come alive in order to ruin the guilty and inhibit the gullible. These nar-
ratives are ghost stories rooted in the memory of the Dissolution of the
Monasteries, one of England’s greatest officially authorized acts of icono-
clasm, and perhaps the most exclusively targeted architectural destruction
in the history of modern England.8 Between 1536 and 1541, by the order
of Henry VIII, Catholic churches and religious houses were systemati-
cally divested of precious ornaments, defaced, pulled down, sold, or con-
verted—all in the best interests of the court. Lead was stripped from the
roofs, boards plucked up, and stones repurposed to repair and build royal
buildings and private houses. The shift of ownership meant that for centu-
ries to come successive generations of English nobility would periodically
become frustrated with the idea that the country houses they inhabited
were remnants of a disavowed past destined to haunt them. The history
of the Fairfax family is a case in point. But by the end of the seventeenth
6 D. DARVAY

century, Spelman’s The History and Fate of Sacrilege grew into a com-
prehensive catalog of similar chronicles supported by additional examples
from as early as the time of the Old Testament.
According to Spelman, the particular accidents and misfortunes dog-
ging the numerous families guilty of impropriation should invariably be
ascribed to divine vengeance. In some cases, the repercussions are long
drawn out, such as when entire families are slowly consumed by inter-
nal feud and are eventually driven to bankruptcy, madness, murder, and
extinction. In other cases, however, God shows indulgence by swiftly act-
ing through the brute force of material reality that the wise should take to
be omens of more pervasive tragedies to come. Toxic lead poisons some of
the usurpers; church bells sink the ships that attempt to haul them away;
church steeples topple over onto houses, crushing those within; monas-
tic buildings cast their sacred stones and walls on the defilers. Marvell
and Thomas Fairfax might have been familiar with Spelman’s account of
Edward Paston, who, as the third-generation owner of Bingham Priory,
changed his original plans for building his stately new house “upon or near
the priory,” and instead ended up building it at Appleton (just a few miles
from Nun Appleton House) after “a piece of wall fell upon a workman,
and slew him.”9
The imaginative recuperation of material punishment for sacrilege
exhibited in Marvell’s poem would come to play a prominent role in the
birth of the Gothic novel. Traditionally considered to be the founding text
of Gothic fiction, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) puts on
display for an eighteenth-century audience what is essentially a fictitious
story of sacrilege. As some of the unfortunate descendants in Spelman’s
catalog, the protagonist of Walpole’s novel is forced to suffer the devas-
tating consequences in the form of divine retribution of his ancestor’s
usurpation. Manfred, the actual lord of Otranto, is pursued by the curse
of Alfonso the Good, the rightful owner, who had been unlawfully dis-
possessed by Manfred’s grandfather Ricardo. Like those offenders on
Spelman’s list that are sensible enough to atone for their crimes before too
late, Ricardo is quick to make reparations in hopes of appeasing the wrath
of God. However, even though he makes a “vow to St. Nicholas to found
a church and two convents” (CO, 105), the saint can only delay but not
deflect Alfonso’s imprecation that “the Castle and Lordship of Otranto
should pass from the present family whenever the real owner should be
grown too large to inhabit the castle” (CO, 27). It takes more than three
generations for the curse to be fulfilled, and for Ricardo’s descendants to
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 7

realize that even claims to nonecclesiastical property are subject to reli-

gious approval.
In agreement with sacrilege narratives, while also setting a generic trend
for future Gothic plots, Walpole makes his protagonist go through the
utterly terrifying physical ordeal that cuts Manfred’s ties with his family
and offers him the prospect of imagining himself as a discrete subject who
internalizes the supernatural through self-scrutiny and feelings of remorse.
For Manfred, the family is an infinite source of distress. It is not sufficient
that he is about to lose his property due to the sins of his grandfather. In
addition, fate ordains that he bear the responsibility for bringing about
in effect the death of his own son, and thus for the extinction of his own
lineage.
As his son Conrad is crushed to death by a giant helmet falling down
from the sky, Manfred is still unwilling to interpret the tragedy as the lit-
eral fulfillment of Alfonso’s prophecy. Instead, to compound his problems,
he insists on marrying his deceased son’s fiancée Isabella, after accusing
his wife Hippolita of failing to supply him with a male heir. Finally, his
stubborn refusal to acknowledge the will of God leads him to stab his own
daughter, as he mistakes her for Isabella, whom he is trying by any means
to prevent from marrying Theodore, the true heir of Otranto. Walpole’s
story follows the classic structure of sacrilege narratives: once the crime is
committed, retribution is inevitable, so it is only a matter of time before
the guilty parties are punished and made to repent. In Manfred’s case,
renunciation of wealth, a murdered son, and filicide are the brute material
conditions of atonement, the price he is made to pay for the introspection
that prompts him to finally yield and conclude, “I question not the will of
heaven—poverty and prayer must fill up the woeful space, until Manfred
shall be summoned to Ricardo” (CO, 105).
As in Marvell’s poem, Walpole’s approach to sacrilege rests on the con-
tradistinction between the invocation of an antiquated Catholic mysticism
rooted in brute material punishment, on the one hand, and the making of
a progressive Protestant reason circumscribed by imaginative abstraction,
on the other. In showing how the two are in fact inextricably conjoined,
the Gothic expands Marvell’s co-optation of sacrilege and reveals itself
a genre indebted to inherently self-contradictory aspects of the English
Reformation. We can see these aspects come to life in Reformation debates
gravitating toward the frustrating realization that the internalized, indi-
vidualized conception of conscience and discipline is an imaginary con-
struct inscribed within the very realm of false idols, corrupt doctrines, and
8 D. DARVAY

external rituals that it seeks to eliminate and supplant. Controversies over

key issues of the English Reformation—such as transubstantiation, auricu-
lar confession, the existence of Purgatory, and the extravagantly decora-
tive elements of Catholic ritual—offer so many versions of this logic in
action. To be sure, in their fiction Gothic authors distance themselves
from religious frameworks and often abandon them altogether. However,
those who do so are also the ones who offer in fact the most revealing
testimonies to the worldly implications and the remote ramifications of
the paradoxical logic of the Reformation. The modernist authors I discuss
here (with the exception of Wilde perhaps) represent a special category
within this group of authors, for the effect of their distance from these
early religious roots is heightened greatly by their resistance to the Gothic
tradition itself, which is typically taken at face value by critics who meet
with raised eyebrows the claim that the Gothic might constitute anything
but the lesser part of the life and work of writers such as E.M. Forster or
Virginia Woolf.
To see the Gothic in modernism for more than just a marginal generic
device, we must first revisit the genealogy of the Gothic from as early as
Walpole’s inaugural The Castle of Otranto, whose foundations were also
cast in the crucible of the English Reformation. As it turns out, Walpole
had good reasons for writing about sacrilege. Alison Shell is among the
first to observe that Walpole’s family and their home at Houghton are also
included in Spelman’s catalog, even though they are mentioned “as one of
the ‘good’ families who did not receive impropriations and therefore pros-
pered.”10 However, Walpole’s aversion to Catholicism is well illustrated by
his memorable remark, “I hate Papists, as a man, not as a Protestant. If
Papists were only enemies to the religion of other men, I should overlook
their errors. As they are foes to liberty, I cannot forgive them.”11 It is not
surprising that the Walpole who protested against the loss of liberty due
to Papist influence should preface his work by distancing himself as author
from the story of Manfred, who is eventually enslaved by the ghosts of the
Catholic past. This strategic distancing is carried out by his “Preface to the
First Edition,” which proposes that the entire manuscript might be a piece
of Counter-Reformation propaganda written by a presumably Catholic
priest with the express purpose of intimidation and scaremongering:

Letters were then [i.e., at the time the manuscript was written] in their most
flourishing state in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of supersti-
tion, at that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not unlikely, that
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 9

an artful priest might endeavor to turn their own arms on the innovators;
and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm the populace
in their ancient errors and superstitions. If this was his view, he has certainly
acted with signal address. Such a work as the following would enslave a
hundred vulgar minds, beyond half the books of controversy that have been
written from the days of Luther to the present hour. This solution of the
author’s motives is, however, offered as a mere conjecture. Whatever his
views were, or whatever effects the execution of them might have, his work
can only be laid before the public at present as a matter of entertainment.
(CO, 17)

This passage places Walpole’s novel in the context of a broad anti-Catholic

discourse extending from the time of the Reformation well into the
Enlightenment period in order to produce a distinctly Protestant English
identity emancipated from superstition. In many ways then, The Castle of
Otranto adapts to an eighteenth-century audience a Gothic project that
was launched more than two centuries before by the Protestant Reformers.
The grand project of emancipation, however, turns out to be rooted in
the very tradition it seeks to displace. Manfred’s story of sacrilege, alleg-
edly written to “enslave a hundred vulgar minds,” is also the story used
by Walpole to liberate similar minds. Moreover, he is doing so by using
the strategy of the artful priest he condemns—that is, by putting in jeop-
ardy the material existence of humanity, including its social and historical
extension through the institution of the family, in order to secure the con-
ditions for disembodied thinking purified from all material encumbrances.
To bring Isabel Thwaites to the brink of corruption and to leave Manfred
in utter distress is to knock some sense into those who are stupid enough
to believe that England’s repudiated Catholic past could still somehow call
into question the lordship of Fairfax in the seventeenth century and the
project of modernity in the eighteenth. The Gothic genre is born from a
historically sustained compulsion to sublimate the troublesome origins of
modernity into literature, entertainment, and art.

CATHOLICISM AND THE POLITICS OF GOTHIC

Maurice Lévy’s classic study Le Roman ‘Gotique’ Anglaise (1968) identi-
fies the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as one of the major political upheav-
als crucial to the formation of the Gothic novel.12 Lévy’s observation
resonates with the Gothic dimensions of sacrilege narratives; after all, the
10 D. DARVAY

Glorious Revolution established a Protestant Settlement in England by

overthrowing James II—the disavowed Catholic brother of Charles II—
and by doing so saved the country from the influence of Papacy. But one
could just as well highlight similar moments of religio-political triumph
earlier in history such as the succession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth
I in 1558 after the rabidly anti-Protestant Mary I; or England’s miracu-
lous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588; or, better yet, the marvelous
delivery in 1602 of James I (and symbolically, of an entire nation) from
the Gunpowder Plot masterminded with help from Catholic recusants by
Guy Fawkes. Indeed, a number of critics note that Gothic authors draw
on Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy as well as a range of themes
and topics developed by the cultural tradition of the period, notably the
rise of Protestant individualism and the formation of the bourgeois self.13
This book owes much to these valuable studies. But it also seeks to com-
plement them, especially when it comes to their often routine and rather
cursory interpretation of Gothic material, including the genre’s overt anti-
Catholicism, as a source of anxiety in the present or as a sign of nostalgia
for the past.14 Robert Miles quite cogently defines the “usual Gothic don-
née” as the conviction “that modernity sets us apart from the past, that the
Reformation and the Enlightenment, its child, form a progressive bridge
we can only glance back over with pleasing nostalgic horror.”15 However,
for all the effort on the part of Marvell and Walpole to create the cordon
sanitaire necessary for the progressive conception of history Miles speaks
of, their treatment of sacrilege, even when pleasingly nostalgic, reveals an
active incorporation of rather than a sentimental yearning for the past.
This holds true all the more so when that past is stripped of practicality
and is made to take on the aura of unreality and mystery.
To be sure, the theme of sacrilege is by no means the passkey to all famil-
ial and religious aspects of The Castle of Otranto, let alone to all Gothic
literature. Following Walpole, the family curse is often placed in broader
social contexts where it tends to lose its religious overtone. Nor is Gothic
fiction by default anti-Catholic. Literary rewritings from a Catholic per-
spective of the history of the English Reformation, for instance, are well
within the orbit of the genre. One cannot help but feel sorry for Rosetta
Ballin’s heroine in The Statue Room (1790), Catherine of Aragon, the
pregnant wife of Henry VIII, who learns, as does Manfred, that the image
of the family is not to be trusted unless it is portrayed as the source of
inevitable distress and ruination. Catherine is banished from court by her
husband and ends up committing suicide but not before being driven to
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 11

madness and pushed to the verge of murdering her niece, Elizabeth I. The
representation of Protestantism as the extension of the whims and caprices
of cruel and spiteful sovereigns of the Tudor and Stuart lines is also the
focus of Sophia Lee’s The Recess (1785), which tells the story of how the
secret system of passages under the ruined abbey of St. Vincent serves to
shelter the two Catholic daughters of Mary Stuart from the persecutions
of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. Such examples complicate our
understanding of the Gothic well beyond the Catholic/Protestant split.
Despite certain individual features we find in various kinds of Gothic
literature, however, a focus on the theme of sacrilege can lead to a number
of important conclusions about the persistence and the morphology of
Gothic conventions. The Gothic had been under construction for at least
two centuries before it came to dominate the literary scene at the end of
the eighteenth century. Sacrilege narratives serve as testimony. The fami-
lies who profit from impropriation are also the ones responsible for the
distress suffered by their descendants, whose struggles in turn provide the
aesthetic and cultural material for successive generations of future reader-
ship.16 Gothic conventions are recognized as such in part because they can
be interpreted within a wider literary and cultural tradition, or in Alastair
Fowler’s words, because of the “meaningful departures” that a particular
work makes in relation to already established types.17 Over the course of
several centuries of modern history, the Gothic transformation of sacri-
lege—from a distinctive epiphenomenon of the Reformation to a crucial
element of a broader anti-Catholic discourse to the blueprint for a yet
more pervasive fear of foreign intrusion into the English nation—displays
the operations of a plastic genre at work in multiple structures of meaning
across society.
If there is a certain structural pattern behind the plasticity of the Gothic
genre, it has to do with the perpetuation of the illusion that human sub-
jectivity acquires the liberty to reinvent itself as if out of thin air pre-
cisely while recognizing its defenselessness against and dependence upon
external mechanisms of control. Whatever metaphorical variation on the
impossibility of solitude a particular work may describe, the result turns
out as expected: the terror of the hidden interior of physical spaces is
mirrored in the self-realization following the newly expanded realm of
the imagination. There is no lock secure enough, no chamber without a
trap door, no simple passage without an entire labyrinth, and no personal
boundaries capable of protecting Gothic protagonists from the iniquities
of society or the intrusion of others, and much less from their own evil
12 D. DARVAY

counterparts. Yet all these encumbrances stand for the symbolic rebirth of
subjectivity from within. They create the necessary conditions for Gothic
characters to measure their existence against standards of thinking that
are made to appear distinctively clear, transparent, and private, but only
once these same qualities are called into question by worldly impediments
magnified to hyperbolic dimensions.
We can see this logic launched by the institutional establishment of
Protestant English identity under Elizabeth I and periodically echoed at
key moments in history, when social and political conditions demanded
yet another guise for a nation in need of renewal. The secret interior of
English Protestantism becomes visible in the late sixteenth-century prac-
tice of recusancy, the refusal on the part of English Catholics to attend
established religious services. It finds its emblematic manifestation in the
image of a tonsured monk, ensconced in what has come to be known as a
priest hole, usually an oubliette designed for the express purpose of hiding
a private chaplain employed by recusant families. As in Gothic fiction, the
resourcefulness of those who are in concealment feeds the bewilderment
and the curiosity of those who are exposed. In the late sixteenth century,
the cat-and-mouse play involved the ingenious priest holes made famous
by the carpenter and Jesuit lay brother Nicholas Owen and the tireless
efforts at discovery of the infamous priest-hunter Richard Topcliffe. The
bloody nature of the play is evidenced in the execution of the recusant
poets Chidiock Tichborne and Robert Southwell, both of whom were
hanged, drawn, and quartered—the former for his participation in the
Babington Plot of 1586 aimed at assassinating Queen Elizabeth, and the
latter, captured by Topcliffe, for his involvement in the Jesuit Mission
to England initiated by Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons in 1580.
Educated at the English College in Douai, a major center, along with
Rome and Louvain, of Catholic academic exiles at this time, Southwell
was one of the hundreds of seminary priests who were trained abroad and
smuggled into England in order to consolidate the underground existence
of the Catholic church.18 This small but highly skilled army of undercover
priests fueled the continuing stigmatization of Catholicism, and especially
of the Jesuit Order, as a supranational threat equally capable of blurring
national boundaries and subverting domestic life by overcoming the
two main—geographic and moral—defenses of Englishness: the English
Channel and the Protestant family.
With the invocation of a hyperbolic threat shown explicitly to pervade
all aspects of society, the stage is set for the reinvention of Englishness
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 13

through a series of legal and administrative measures aimed at maximizing

the participation of law-abiding citizens in the making of a new national
identity. These measures are reflected in the increasing severity of anti-
Catholic laws enforced by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Their
claim at universal clarity and moral transparency was seen to be directly
proportional not only to the rigor of their application and the intensity
of their internalization, but also to the virtual impossibility of their abil-
ity to measure up to the magnitude of the Catholic menace. The forma-
tion of the European nation state is traditionally considered to be in part
the result of the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, more than a half-
century after the religio-political developments I discuss here. However,
the insular isolation of England, combined with the convoluted process
of a decisive separation from Rome, helped accelerate the construction of
an “imagined community,” to use a term bequeathed on us by Benedict
Anderson.19 The idea of a shared national sentiment, to be sure, is far too
complex and multifaceted to be simply considered as a subdivision or a
by-product of Protestantism. Nonetheless, through a sustained histori-
cal presence the Gothic incorporated a wide range of social and cultural
material into building blocks of a wider community imagined in terms of
seemingly indisputable, timeless, and universal criteria. The stigmatization
of Russian society in Conrad’s work and the decayed grandeur of Roman
tradition in Forster’s novels, for example, are meant to offer indubitable
grounds for the consolidation of Englishness as positively forward-looking
and Western for Conrad and inherently post-Victorian and anti-urban for
Forster. Both scenarios are telling examples of the adaptation to distinc-
tively contemporary concerns of a Gothic tradition that surfaced in tan-
dem with the English Reformation, was typified into a generic convention
in the eighteenth century, and was kept alive, adapted, and transformed
by literary and cultural history over the Victorian period and into the early
twentieth century.20
As background in the formation of the Gothic, the reconstruction of
Elizabethan society took the form of a moral and political necessity in
part because of the successful invocation of a fantastic invisible enemy
threatening the integrity of Protestant England. The change started in
1559 with the passing by Parliament of two important statutes: the Act
of Supremacy, which established Elizabeth I as the Supreme Governor of
the Church of England, and the Act of Uniformity, which reintroduced
the Book of Common Prayer (suppressed earlier by Mary I) and enforced
a fine for absence from church services. In a fashion that later becomes a
14 D. DARVAY

trademark of Gothic fiction, tension mounts in British history as well with

the disturbing appearance after long years of absence of a somewhat dis-
tant family member. When Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s first cousin
once removed, returned to England in 1568, her presence as a potential
contender to the throne initiated a series of political and religious conflicts
that culminated in the Northern Rising of 1569, a failed attempt by the
Catholic nobility to put Mary into power. The following year Pius V issued
the papal bull of Regnans in Excelsis, which excommunicated Elizabeth
and officially released her Catholic subjects from allegiance to her. The
papal bull beefed up an already well-established practice of recusancy and,
combined with the influx of seminary priests from the Continent, accentu-
ated the conception of Catholicism as a disinherited foreign relative with
no respect for national boundaries and no fidelity to a royal sovereign.
The fine for recusancy was drastically increased, and the new Act Against
Jesuits and Seminarists (1585) made it high treason for Catholic priests
to enter England and a crime for anyone to give them shelter. The act
remained in place until the Catholic Relief Acts of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth century when the Gothic genre also peaked in popularity.
However, for these anti-Catholic measures to be even more effective, the
newly proclaimed Protestant identity must be more than the simple denial
of Catholicism: it must put on the appearance of unmediated existence
by virtue of that very act of denial. The more the English Reformation
defines itself in opposition to, or as the victim of, Catholic doctrine, the
closer it gets to being perceived as a literal reformation, a return to the
true origins of Christianity. Not surprisingly, the argument is made by
what is considered to be the single greatest document of Protestant mar-
tyrology of the time. John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, also known as
The Book of Martyrs, first appeared in 1563, and through a series of sub-
stantial additions and revisions that explain the four editions the book
went through in the author’s lifetime, it grew into a monumental work
of record. It developed into a vast compendium of popular literature on
ecclesiastic history written in genres as diverse as martyrologies, poems,
sermons, ballads, heresy examinations, letters, autobiographies, adventure
narratives, monologues, and more. The critical debate continues over the
many aspects and dimensions of this massive work, including its contem-
porary reception as well as its broad social and political significance.21 But
there seems to be general consensus on the fact that Foxe’s vast undertak-
ing sought to establish reasonable grounds for the existence of a proto-
protestant church long before the activity of the Reformers, which in this
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 15

new light was made to look like a work of restoration and recovery rather
than one of mere disapproval and dissent. The hundreds of pages of evi-
dence of Romish abuse were meant to suggest the gradual deterioration of
an institution that had once been intact, and even the present corruption
of which gave nothing but further proof of a righteous Church of England
that fell under the deadly spell of Catholicism. However, with the apparent
triumph over the ruinous past, as so many Gothic characters realize, comes
the painful recognition of the precariousness of the purified present. If
Protestant England lives in fear of a Catholic infiltration, then that fear is
also of itself and of its own permeable nature—a permeability evidenced
in the sneaking suspicion that the noxious influence of alien priest-spies
will somehow still find or create a hotbed of subversive activity on domes-
tic soil. Yet again, Gothic fiction is replete with such fears. What at first
appears to be an external source of danger almost always turns out to have
a hidden interior, which, once disclosed and brought to light, leads back
to the protagonist’s most intimate entourage, usually in the person of a
close friend, family member, or in some cases the imaginary double of our
seemingly innocent protagonist.
These important features of the Gothic are eventually brought to bear
upon a pre-World War I British society that found itself to be the front-
runner in the scramble for imperial expansion yet in constant dread of
cultural regression.22 One can see these conflicting tendencies at work in
what Patrick Brantlinger has called “imperial Gothic,” a genre that mixes
a progressive, Darwinian ideology of imperialism exhibited in the fin-de-
siècle adventure novel with atavistic impulses and occult material handed
down by the Gothic tradition.23 But the Gothic dimensions of imperial-
ism are also visible in Britain’s implication in the growing competition
among European nation-states and the increasing paranoia of a looming
Continental invasion. Defensive nationalism, the inalienable secret inte-
rior of empire, motivates colonial expansion in keeping with John Robert
Seeley’s puckishly entertaining observation that the British Empire was
acquired in a “fit of absence of mind.”24 Forster draws a similar conclu-
sion in “Notes on the English Character” (1926), where he diagnoses the
“underdeveloped” and fundamentally “incomplete” nature of the English
character both as a by-product of the obscure gap at the center of a sprawl-
ing empire and as the impulse behind a possible revitalization of English
society.25 As in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), whose blood-thirsty vam-
pire brings the imaginary horrors of a mystified Transylvania into the heart
of civilized England, some of the modernist works I discuss in this book
16 D. DARVAY

calibrate a historically inherited system of cultural values to a geopoliti-

cally segmented Europe that is about to undergo the cataclysmic changes
ushered in by the Great War.
The politics of Gothic, as it comes to capture the imagination of cer-
tain modernist writers, continues the generic transformation that grad-
ually widened the range of enemy figures and increased the impact of
their potential destruction. Initially, the guilt of sacrilege was restricted
to a relatively small circle of families, whose possible willingness to make
amends is not even remotely comparable to the perceived malice of a
greater number of recusant households and that of an entire army of semi-
nary priests. Ironically, though, by the time anti-Catholicism became an
established feature of Gothic fiction, it also began to lose its power to
convince, at least in the extravagantly fantastic forms it took in works
like Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk (1796) and Charles Robert
Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). After all, Maturin’s novel
came shortly after the publication of Jane Austen’s parody of the genre,
Northanger Abbey (1817), and was published in the midst of the ongoing
liberalization of anti-Catholic legislation that eventually restored impor-
tant civil liberties to Catholics in 1829.26 This is not to say, however, that
anti-Catholicism was removed from the Gothic genre as a dysfunctional
element discredited by recent developments. Quite the contrary, it main-
tained the longtime role of the Gothic in calling attention to the dangers
of a foreign incursion, which, although previously deferred, was thought
to have come back with a vengeance and in an ever smarter and more
efficient guise.27
The religious disorder characterizing mid-nineteenth-century England
created ideal conditions for the Gothic genre to transfer old fears into a
new historical context. These fears were renewed by the growing suc-
cess of the Oxford Movement, also popularly known as “Tractarianism,”
after the publication between 1832 and 1841 of Tracts for the Times, a
series of polemical articles aimed in part at reintroducing certain elements
of Catholic ritual into the Church of England. The debate became so
heated that even those convinced by Anglo-Catholic doctrine thought
that things went too far when Cardinal John Henry Newman rejected
his previous commitment to High Church Anglicanism and converted in
1845 to Roman Catholicism. Indeed, in 1850, through what is commonly
referred to as the “Papal Aggression,” Pope Pius IX reestablished the hier-
archy of the Roman Catholic Church in England by appointing at its head
the Spanish-born Irishman Nicholas Wiseman as the first Archbishop of
 INTRODUCTION: CATHOLICISM, SACRILEGE, AND THE MODERN GOTHIC 17

Westminster. It seemed that by a singular turn of events the old issues and
problems from the time of the Reformation resurfaced to cast a shadow
on the glittering domed glass roof of the Crystal Palace built for the Great
Exhibition of 1851 as a symbol of Britain’s industrial power and imperial
superiority.28
In representative mid-Victorian variations on the Gothic—notably, anti-
Catholic fiction and sensation novels—protagonists must deal with inse-
curities similar to those of Marvell’s Lord Fairfax. They have to face the
disconcerting possibility that the very lives they lead, much like the houses
they live in and the country they love, might not be entirely their own and
could therefore turn against them any moment. This fundamental perme-
ability of Protestant identity finds expression in what these novels depict as
one of the worst possible scenarios of all—that due to a natural susceptibil-
ity to hypnosis or some other form of insidious influence, innocent victims
will fall prey to the charming accoutrements and the elaborate ceremonial
deployed by crafty Jesuit zealots. Endowed with mesmeric powers, the
charismatic General of the Society of Jesus, Antonio Scaviatoli, in Frances
Trollope’s Father Eustace: A Tale of the Jesuits (1847), is one such zealot,
who, in an attempt to capture the fortune of the young heiress Juliana de
Morley, sends forth the handsome Edward Stormont—in truth, Father
Eustace, himself a victim of Scaviatoli’s mind games—to seduce her. For
Eustace, true salvation from the almost superhuman tyranny and surveil-
lance of a supranational organization bent on universal control lies in the
steadfastness with which Julianna is able to resist the Catholic temptation,
which, in a characteristic Gothic fashion, turns out to be a part of her
past she needs to disown, like her penchant for visiting her late Catholic
father’s private chapel hidden deep within the walls of Cuthbert Castle.
Main characters in other works learn to deal with other aspects of the same
problem. In Villette (1853), Charlotte Brontë’s refreshingly original take
on Catholicism, M. Paul slowly unlearns the indoctrination of his bigoted
Jesuit tutor Père Silas, as he gradually yields to Lucy Snowe’s Protestant
ideas, which, in an interesting reversal of roles, are now presented as
symbolically invading a Catholic country together with Lucy, who in the
meantime has relocated as English teacher to Madame Beck’s boarding
school in the small town of Villette. Of course, Lucy is not exempt from
the typical temptations of Catholicism, which come through a series of
emotional appeals—to pity in the “honeyed voice” of Père Silas’s pam-
phlet about orphans; to vanity in the mesmerizing splendor of Rome; and
to fear in the Gothic tale of the undead nun who was buried alive in the
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harbors. In the political sphere Korea has denounced, as
having been made under compulsion, all her treaties with
Russia and all concessions granted to Russian subjects. On
the other hand, Russia has declared that she will regard as
null and void all the acts of the Korean Government while
under Japanese tutelage, and her newspapers loudly proclaim
that, if our (English) neutrality were genuine, we should raise
objections against the Protocol, as being inconsistent with the
Treaty of 1902, whereby we, in conjunction with Japan,
mutually recognize the independence of Korea. In reality
there is no inconsistency, because, as we have just seen, it is
clear from the first Article of the Treaty that the independence
is not an ordinary independence, but a diplomatic variety
which was perfectly consistent with recurring interventions to
ward off foreign aggression and put down domestic revolt. In
other words, it was a dependent independence, or no
independence at all, and such it remains under the
agreement of February, 1904. That instrument undoubtedly
establishes a Japanese Protectorate over Korea, and the
beauty of Protectorates is their indefiniteness. As Professor
Nye, the great Belgian jurist, says in his recently published
work on Le Droit International: “Le terme ‘protectorat,’
désigne la situation créée par le traité de protection.... Le
protectorat a plus ou moins de développement; rien n’est fixé
dans la théorie; il est cependant un trait caracteristique
commun aux Etats protégés c’est qu’ils ne sont pas
entièrement indépendants dans leurs relations avec les autres
Etats.” These words exactly fit the condition of Korea under
its recent agreement with Japan. Indeed, the description
might be extended to its internal affairs also. Susceptibilities
are soothed, and possibly diplomatic difficulties are turned, by
calling it independent; but in reality it is as much under
Japanese protection as Egypt is under ours; all state-paper
description to the contrary notwithstanding.
 The new Treaty of August 22, 1904, shows that this is fully
understood at Tokyo. A financial adviser and a diplomatic adviser are
to be appointed by the Korean Government on the recommendation
of Japan, and nothing important is to be done in their departments
without their advice. No treaties with Foreign Powers are to be
concluded, and no concessions to foreigners granted, without
previous consultation with the Japanese Government.
That the view of this authority as to the significance of the
Conventions of 1904 is not the view of any individual alone has been
clearly demonstrated by the acceptance of its conclusions, in a
practical way, though the official action of foreign governments since
the date of the conventions themselves.
In particular it is to be noted that the Government of the United
States has expressed an opinion touching the effect in international
law upon the status of Korea of the February and August Protocols
which is substantially identical with that of Professor Lawrence.
Before there was any occasion for a formal expression of opinion a
significant indication of the views of the Department of State upon
the subject could be found in the Foreign Relations for 1904. Over
the Protocols as published therein may be found the caption
“Protectorate by Japan over Korea.” (437 f.) Later on, Secretary Root
had occasion expressly to state this opinion. This was when, in
December, 1905, Mr. Min Yung-chan, whilom Korean Minister to
France, came to the United States for the purpose of protesting
against recognition by the United States of the Treaty of November
17th of the same year. In a letter to Mr. Min, explaining the reasons
which made it impossible for the American Government not to
recognize the binding force of that instrument, the Secretary added
that there was another and a conclusive reason against interference
in the matter. This reason, he said, was to be found in the
circumstance that Korea had previously concluded with Japan two
agreements which, in principle and in practice, established a
Japanese Protectorate in Korea, and to the force of which in that
particular the Treaty of November 17 added nothing.
 To this view of the virtual significance of these earlier Protocols
there is only to be opposed the demonstrably false assertions of the
now ex-Emperor and the opinions and affirmations—quite
unwarranted as the next chapter will show—of writers like Mr.
Hulbert, Mr. Story, and other so-called “foreign friends” of His
Majesty. These assertions and opinions are certainly not made any
more credible by the willingness of their authors to denounce the
President and Acting Foreign Minister of the United States in Korea,
and, by implication, all the other heads of foreign governments who
neither share their opinion, nor approve of their conduct in support
of the opinion![32]
By the Treaty of Portsmouth the Russian Government not only
definitely relinquished all the political interests she had previously
claimed to possess in Korea, but also recognized in all important
particulars the rights acquired in the same country by Japan through
the Conventions of February and August, 1904. Article Second of the
Treaty stipulates: “The Imperial Russian Government, acknowledging
that Japan possesses in Korea paramount political, military and
economical interests, engages neither to obstruct nor interfere with
the measures of guidance, protection and control which the Imperial
Government of Japan may find it necessary to take in Korea.”
Thus did the war with Russia, which was fought over the relations
between Japan and Korea as an issue of supreme importance,
terminate the second main period in the history of these relations.
The Chino-Japan war removed forever that foreign influence which
had continued through centuries, not only to prevent the immediate
realization of a true national independence on the part of Korea, but
also to unfit the Korean Government to maintain such independence
when conferred upon it as the gift of another nation. The Russo-
Japanese war terminated the attempt of a more powerful foreign
nation to supersede the controlling influence of Japan in Korea. At
the same time it gave a convincing further demonstration of Korea’s
inherent and hopeless inability to control herself, under any existing
conditions of her government or of her system of civilization. Thus
the provisions for a Japanese Protectorate, which shall secure for
both nations the largest possible measure of good, offered to the
Marquis Ito his difficult problem as Imperial Commissioner to Korea
in November, 1905.
 CHAPTER XI
THE COMPACT

It will need no argument for those familiar with the habitual ways
of the Korean Government in dealing with foreign affairs to establish
the necessity that Japan should make more definite, explicit, and
comprehensive, the Protocols of February 23 and August 22, 1904.
Foreign affairs have always been with the Emperor and Court of
Korea a particularly favorable but mischievous sphere for intrigue
and intermeddling. The Foreign Office has never had any real control
over the agents of the government, who have been the tools of the
Emperor in their dealings with foreign Legations. The Korean Foreign
Minister in 1905 was not an efficient and responsible representative
of either the intentions or the transactions of his own government;
instructions were frequently sent direct from the Palace to Ministers
in other countries; foreign Legations had, each one, a separate
cipher to be used for such communications; and there were several
instances of clandestine communication with agents abroad, even
during the Russo-Japanese war. To guard, therefore, against the
repetition of occurrences similar to those which had already cost her
so dearly, Japan’s interests demanded that her control over the
management of Korea’s foreign affairs should be undivided and
unquestioned.
It was not, however, in the interests of Japan alone that the
management of Korea’s foreign affairs was to pass out of her own
hands. It was distinctly, as events are fast proving beyond a
reasonable doubt, for the advantage of Korea herself. In any valid
meaning of the word, Korea had never been “independent” of
foreign influences, dominating over her and corrupting the officials
within her own borders. For centuries these influences came chiefly
from China; for a decade, chiefly from Russia and other Western
nations. The Treaty of 1905 was also, just as distinctly—so, we
believe, the events will ultimately prove—for the advantage of these
Western nations, and of the entire Far East.
It is, therefore, highly desirable, not only as vindicating the honor
of Marquis Ito and of the Japanese Government, but also as
establishing the Protectorate of Japan over Korea upon foundations
of veracity and justice, that the exact and full truth should be known
and placed on record before the world, concerning the Convention of
November, 1905. This is the more desirable because of the gross
and persistent misrepresentations of the facts which have been
repeated over and over again—chiefly by the same persons—down
to the time of the appearance of the so-called Korean Commission at
The Hague Conference of 1907.[33] His Majesty the Emperor (now
ex-Emperor) of Korea has, indeed, publicly proclaimed his intention
not to keep a treaty “made under duress” and through fears of
“personal violence”; he has also made it appear that the signatures
and the Imperial seal upon the document were fraudulently
obtained. Meantime, he has sedulously (and, we believe, with such
sincerity as his nature admits) cultivated and cherished the
friendship of the Japanese Resident-General who negotiated, and
who has administered affairs under, the Treaty. How he lost his
crown, at the hands of his own Ministry, for his last violation of the
most solemn provisions of the same treaty, is now a matter of
universal history.
Marquis Ito arrived at Seoul, as the Representative of the
Japanese Government, to conclude a new Convention with Korea,
during the first week of November, 1905. He was the bearer of a
letter from his own Emperor to the Emperor of Korea, which frankly
explained the object of his mission. What follows is the substance of
His Japanese Majesty’s letter.
“Japan, in self-defence and for the preservation of the peace and
security of the Far East, had been forced to go to war with Russia;
but now, after a struggle of twenty months, hostilities were ended.
During their continuance the Emperor of Korea and his people, no
doubt, shared the anxiety felt by the Emperor and people of Japan.
In the mind of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, the most
absorbing thought and purpose now was to safeguard the future
peace and security of the two Empires, and to augment and
strengthen the friendly relations existing between them.
Unfortunately, however, Korea was not yet in a state of good
defence, nor was the basis for a system of effective self-defence yet
created. Her weakness in these regards was in itself a menace to the
peace of the Far East as well as to her own security. That this was
unhappily the case was a matter of as much regret to His Majesty as
it could be to the Emperor of Korea; and for this reason the safety of
Korea was as much a matter of anxiety to him as was that of his
own country. His Majesty had already commanded his Government
to conclude the Protocols of February and August, 1904, for the
defence of Korea. Now, in order to preserve the peace which had
been secured, and to guard against future dangers arising from the
defenceless condition of Korea, it was necessary that the bonds
which united the two countries should be closer and stronger than
ever before. Having this end in view, His Majesty had commanded
His Government to study the question and to devise means of
attaining this desirable result. The preservation and protection of the
dignity, privileges, and tranquillity of the Imperial House of Korea
would, as a matter of course, be one of the first considerations kept
in view.
“His Majesty felt sure that if the Emperor of Korea would carefully
consider the general situation and its bearing upon the interests and
welfare of his country and people, he would decide to take the
advice now earnestly tendered to him.”
It should be noticed that this address from His Imperial Majesty of
Japan to the Korean Emperor—the sincerity of which cannot be
questioned—is pervaded with the same spirit as that which has
characterized the administration, hitherto, of the Japanese
Residency-General.
Marquis Ito informed the Korean Emperor that he would ask for
another audience in a few days. His Majesty consented, adding that
in the meantime he desired carefully to study the letter from the
Emperor of Japan.[34]
On the 15th of November, Marquis Ito had a private audience
which lasted about four hours, and in which he frankly explained the
object of his mission.... The Emperor began the interview by
complaining of certain injuries done by the Japanese civil and
military authorities during the war. He dwelt at length upon past
events, saying, among other things, that he had not wished to go to
the Russian Legation in 1895, but had been over-persuaded by those
about his person.
Marquis Ito replied that as he would remain in Korea for some
time, there would be ample opportunity for a full exchange of views
regarding the matters to which His Majesty referred. At the present
moment he felt it to be his imperative duty to beg His Majesty to
hear the particulars of the mission with which he had been charged
by his Imperial Master. From 1885 onward, he went on to say, Japan
had earnestly endeavored to maintain the independence of Korea.
Unfortunately, Korea herself had rendered but little aid in the
struggle which Japan had maintained in her behalf. Nevertheless,
these efforts had preserved His Majesty’s Empire, and, although
there might have been causes of complaint, such as those to which
His Majesty had just referred, in justice to Japan it should not be
forgotten that in the midst of the great struggle in which she had
been engaged, it was unhappily not possible wholly to avoid such
occurrences. If His Majesty would consider all the circumstances, he
would undoubtedly realize that in the midst of the absorbing anxiety
of that momentous contest and of the heavy burdens it imposed
upon Japan, whatever fault might attach to her as regarded the
matters of which His Majesty had spoken was at least excusable.
Korea, on the other hand, had borne but a small portion of the
burden created by the necessity of defending and maintaining a
principle in which she was as deeply interested as Japan—namely,
the peace and security of the Far East. Turning to the future,
however, it could be clearly perceived that in order effectively to
ensure the future peace and security of the Far East, it was
imperatively necessary that the bonds uniting the two countries
should be drawn closer. For that purpose, and with that object in
view, His Majesty the Emperor of Japan had graciously entrusted
him with the task of explaining the means which, after mature and
careful deliberation, it had been concluded should be adopted.
The substance of the plan which had been thus formulated might
be summed up as follows: ... The Japanese Government, with the
consent of the Government of Korea, to have the right to control and
direct the foreign affairs of Korea, while the internal autonomy of the
Empire would be maintained; and, of course, His Majesty’s
Government, under His Majesty’s direction, would continue as at the
present time.
Explaining the objects of the Agreement thus outlined, the
Marquis pointed out that it would effectively safeguard the security
and prestige of the Imperial House of Korea, while affording the
surest means of augmenting the happiness and prosperity of the
people. For the reasons stated, and for these alone, the Marquis
went on to say, he strongly advised the Emperor to accept this plan;
and, taking into account the general situation, and the condition of
Korea in particular, he earnestly hoped that His Majesty would
consent. The Japanese Minister was authorized to discuss the details
with His Majesty’s Ministers.
The Emperor in reply expressed his appreciation of the
manifestation of sincere good-will on the part of the Emperor of
Japan, and his thanks. Although he would not absolutely reject the
proposal, it was his earnest desire to retain some outward form of
control over the external affairs of Korea. As to the actual exercise of
such control by Japan, and in what manner it should be exercised,
he had no objections to urge.
Marquis Ito enquired what was meant by “outward form.”
The Emperor replied, “the right to maintain Legations abroad.”
 The Marquis then stated that, in accordance with diplomatic rules
and usage, there was in that case no difference between the form
and the substance of control. Therefore he could not accept the
suggestion. If Korea were to continue to have Legations abroad, she
would in fact retain control of the external relations of the Empire.
The status quo would be perpetuated; there would be constant
danger of the renewal of past difficulties; and again the peace of the
East would be threatened. It was absolutely necessary that Japan
should control and direct the external relations of Korea. This
decision was the result of most careful investigations and
deliberations; it could not be changed. Marquis Ito further stated
that he had brought a memorandum of the agreement which it was
desired to conclude; and this he then handed to the Emperor.
The Emperor, having read it, expressed his implicit trust in Marquis
Ito, saying that he placed more reliance upon what he said than
upon the representations of his own subjects. [It may seem a
strange comment upon the working of His Majesty’s mind, but all my
observations and experiences, while in Korea, lead me to believe in
the veracity of this declaration. To the last, the Emperor trusted the
word of the Marquis Ito.]... If, however, he accepted the agreement
and retained no outward form of control over Korean foreign affairs,
the relations of Japan and Korea would be like those of Austria and
Hungary; or Korea’s condition would be like that of one of the
African tribes.
Marquis Ito begged leave to dissent. Austria and Hungary were
ruled by one monarch; whereas in this case His Majesty would still
be Emperor of Korea, and would continue as before to exercise his
Imperial prerogatives. As for the presumed resemblance to an
African tribe, that could hardly be considered in point; since Korea
had a Government established for centuries and therefore a national
organization and forms of administration such as no savage tribe
possessed.
The Emperor expressed appreciation of what the Marquis said, but
repeated that he did not care for the substance, and only wished to
retain some external form of control over Korea’s foreign affairs. He
therefore hoped that the Marquis would inform his Emperor and the
Japanese Government of this wish and would induce them to change
the plan proposed; this wish he reiterated a number of times. [There
were undoubtedly two reasons, entirely valid from his point of view,
for the endeavor to secure this change. The first was the very
natural desire to “save his face”; and the second was the—with him
—scarcely less natural desire to leave room for intrigue to contest
the scope of the terms agreed upon while claiming to be faithful to
their substance.]
The Marquis stated that he could not comply with the request of
His Majesty. The draft was the definitive expression of the views of
the Japanese Government after most careful consideration, and
could not be changed as His Majesty desired. He then quoted the
Article in the Portsmouth Treaty wherein Russia recognizes the
paramount political, commercial, and economic interests of Japan in
Korea. There was only one alternative, he added: either to accept or
to refuse. He could not predict what the result would be if His
Majesty refused, but he feared that it might be less acceptable than
what he now proposed. If His Majesty refused, he must clearly
understand this.
The Emperor replied that he did not hesitate because he was
ignorant of this fact, but because he could not himself decide at that
moment. He must consult his Ministers and ascertain also “the
intention of the people at large.”
The Marquis replied that His Majesty was, of course, quite right in
desiring to consult his Ministers, but he could not understand what
was meant by consulting “the intention of the people.” Inasmuch as
Korea did not have a constitutional form of government, and
consequently no Diet, it seemed rather a strange proceeding to
consult “the intention of the people.” If such action should lead to
popular ferment and excitement and possibly public disturbances, he
must respectfully point out that the responsibility would rest with His
Majesty.
 Finally, after some further discussion, the Emperor requested
Marquis Ito to have Minister Hayashi (who held the power to
negotiate the proposed agreement) consult with his own Minister for
Foreign Affairs. The result could be submitted to the Cabinet; and
when that body had reached a decision His Majesty’s approval could
be asked.
Marquis Ito said that prompt action was necessary, and requested
His Majesty to summon the Minister for Foreign Affairs at once, and
to instruct him to negotiate and sign the agreement. The Emperor
replied that he would give instructions to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs to that effect. Marquis Ito stated that he would remain
awaiting the conclusion of that agreement, and would again request
His Majesty to grant him an audience.
Before this first audience ended the Emperor again asked Marquis
Ito to persuade His Majesty of Japan to consent that Korea should
retain some outward form of control over her foreign affairs; but
again Marquis Ito refused. This repeated refusal of Japan’s
Representative to concede anything whatever as an abatement of
his country’s control in the future over Korea’s relations to foreign
countries distinctly reveals the nature of the only treaty that could
then possibly have been concluded between the two Powers. On the
following day, the 16th of November, Marquis Ito had a conference
with all of the Cabinet Ministers, except the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, who on the same day began negotiations with Minister
Hayashi. Marquis Ito explained fully to the Korean Ministers the
object of his mission and the views of his Government.
On the 17th of November, at 11 a. m., all of the Korean Ministers
went to the Japanese Legation, lunched there, and conferred with
Mr. Hayashi until 3 o’clock, when they adjourned to the Palace and
held a meeting in the Emperor’s presence. Their decision was, finally,
to refuse to agree to the Treaty in the form in which it had been
proposed. Marquis Ito was taking dinner with General Hasegawa,
when, at 7.30, he received a message from Mr. Hayashi conveying
this intelligence and a request to come to the Palace.[35]
Accordingly, at 8 o’clock, he went to the Palace in company with
General Hasegawa, the latter’s aide, and the three or four mounted
gendarmes, who accompanied Marquis Ito wherever he went. There
were no other Japanese guards or soldiers in attendance, and none
in the immediate vicinity of the Palace. The gendarmes who
accompanied the Marquis did not enter the Palace precincts, and all
the gates and entrances were guarded as usual by Korean soldiers,
Korean gendarmes and Korean policemen. Precautions had indeed
been taken to preserve order in the city, as some outburst of mob
violence was possible. The necessity of this precaution was shown
later in the night when an attempt was made to set fire to the house
of Mr. Yi Wan-yong, Minister of Education (now Prime Minister). It
was only when the conference was ended that, at the express
request of the Korean Ministers, a small number of gendarmes was
summoned to accompany them to their homes. [This precaution will
not seem excessive, or threatening of violence to others, in the eyes
of one who, like myself, has spent a period of two months in Korea,
characterized by repeated attempts to assassinate the Ministers, who
always went guarded by Korean and Japanese gendarmes. See pp.
66 ff.]
Upon arriving at the Palace, Marquis Ito was informed by Mr.
Hayashi that, although His Majesty had ordered the Cabinet to come
to an agreement which would establish a cordial entente with Japan,
and although the majority of the Cabinet Ministers were ready to
obey His Majesty’s commands, Mr. Han, the Prime Minister,
persistently refused to obey. Marquis Ito thereupon, through the
Minister of the Household, requested a private audience with His
Majesty.
It should be explained here that during all of the proceedings,
which took place in the rooms on the lower floor of the “Library,” the
Emperor was in his rooms in the upper story, and was never
personally approached by any one except, as hereafter stated, by his
own Ministers. It may also be added, in explanation of the time of
the conference, that it had been His Majesty’s invariable practice for
years to transact important public business at night. He turned night
into day in that regard and the Cabinet Ministers had customarily
been obliged to attend in turn at the Palace and remain there all
night long.
To the request for a private audience the Emperor replied that
although he would be pleased to grant an audience at once, he was
very tired and was suffering from sore throat—the plea of
indisposition being one to which he is accustomed to resort for
avoiding audiences. Therefore he preferred that Marquis Ito should
consult with his Ministers whom he would instruct to negotiate and
conclude an agreement establishing a cordial entente between Korea
and Japan. At the same time that the Emperor requested the
Marquis to consult with the Cabinet for that purpose, the Minister of
the Household informed the Cabinet Ministers that His Majesty
commanded them to negotiate with Marquis Ito.
Marquis Ito then turned to the Prime Minister, and, repeating what
Mr. Hayashi had told him, enquired whether the statement correctly
represented his attitude. The Prime Minister replied that it was
correct. His Majesty had often commanded him to come to an
understanding with the Japanese Minister, but he had refused. Then
the other Ministers had accused him of disloyalty in disobeying His
Majesty’s commands. He himself could not but feel that the
accusation was well founded and, on that account, he wished
immediately to resign his office and to await the Imperial
punishment for his disobedience. As he had informed Marquis Ito the
day before, although he was perfectly well aware that Korea could
not maintain her independence by her own unaided efforts, he still
wished to retain the outward semblance of control over the Nation’s
foreign relations.
Thereupon Marquis Ito said that the last thought in his mind
would be to try to force the Prime Minister to do any thing which
would destroy his country. The Minister had said, however, that he
wished to resign because he had been disloyal in disobeying the
Emperor’s commands. It did not seem to him, the Marquis, that this
was either a dignified, or a sensible course for a Minister of State to
adopt. The management of public affairs required decision. If the
Prime Minister could not come to some understanding with Japan’s
representatives, as his own Majesty the Emperor had commanded
him to do, he was seriously jeopardizing his country’s interests. The
Marquis could not believe that this was genuine loyalty. There was
only one alternative before the Prime Minister, either to obey the
Imperial order, or, carefully considering the gravity of the situation,
to do what he could to change the Imperial opinion. He then asked
the Prime Minister to request the other Ministers, in accordance with
the Emperor’s command, conveyed through the Minister of the
Household, to give their views regarding the proposed agreement.
This the Prime Minister proceeded to do.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Pak Chi-sun (afterwards Acting
Prime Minister) stated that, as he had informed the Japanese
Minister, he was opposed to the treaty and did not wish to negotiate
it; but if he was ordered to do so, he would comply. The Marquis
asked what he meant by “ordered”; did he mean an Imperial order?
Mr. Pak assented.
The Minister of Finance, Mr. Min Yong-ki, said that he was opposed
to the treaty. (He remained in office for a year and a half after the
conclusion of the treaty, considering, no doubt, that the Imperial
command absolved him from responsibility.)
The Minister of Education, Mr. Yi Wan-yong (now Prime Minister),
replied that he had already expressed his opinion fully in His
Majesty’s presence. The request of Japan was the logical result of
existing conditions in the East. The diplomacy of Korea, always
changing, had forced Japan into a great war which had entailed on
her heavy sacrifices, and in which, finally, she had been victorious.
Korea must accept the result and aid in maintaining the future peace
of the East by loyally co-operating with Japan.
The Minister of Justice, Mr. Yi Ha-yung (who had been Minister for
Foreign Affairs during the war), stated that, in his opinion, the
Protocols of February 23 and August 22, 1904, already gave Japan
practically all that she now asked. Consequently he did not think that
the new Treaty was necessary.
Marquis Ito then said to him that the opinion he had expressed at
the conference of the previous day was somewhat different, and
that he had appeared at that time to be in favor of the Treaty. The
Minister assented, but added that then, as now, he thought that the
Protocols would have been amply sufficient if Korea herself had
faithfully observed the obligations they imposed upon her.
The Minister of War, Mr. Yi Kun-tak, stated that in His Majesty’s
presence he had supported the Minister of Education in the position
described by the latter. Finally, however, he had cast his vote in favor
of the Prime Minister’s proposal that they should insist upon a Treaty
which retained to Korea the outward form of control over her foreign
relations. He would now agree to the proposed treaty, however.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Yi Chi-yung, said that having
negotiated and signed the Protocol of February 23, 1904, he had
naturally associated himself with the Minister of Education in His
Majesty’s presence, and he now did the same.
The Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Mr. Kwon
Chong-hiun, said that he had seconded the proposal of the Minister
of Education and was of course in favor of the Treaty. He desired,
however, to suggest several amendments.
After some further consultation, Marquis Ito turned to the Prime
Minister, and said that there were but two of the Ministers opposed
to the Treaty. The recognized method of deciding such questions
was by a majority vote, and, as the Prime Minister had seen, the
majority of the Cabinet were in favor of negotiating and concluding
the Treaty. It was the duty of the Prime Minister accordingly, bearing
in mind the Imperial command, to proceed to accomplish this result
in due form. Thereupon the Prime Minister, saying something about
disloyalty, burst into tears and went hastily into the next room. After
a few moments Marquis Ito followed him, and found him still greatly
agitated. The Marquis spoke to him gently, and, repeating his former
arguments, tried to persuade him that it was his duty as a loyal
servant to obey the Imperial command by assisting in the
negotiation and conclusion of the Treaty. Finding, however, that his
efforts were fruitless, Marquis Ito returned to the other room,
leaving Mr. Han alone.[36]
After Mr. Han’s disappearance from the scene, and upon the
Marquis’ return to the room, the latter addressed the Minister of the
Household, stating that, as he had seen, the Cabinet Ministers, with
two exceptions, had expressed their willingness to accept the Treaty
in principle; and of the two dissenting Ministers one, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, had said that he would sign the Treaty if he received
the Imperial command to do so. Turning then to the Ministers, he
enquired whether they were willing to proceed as commanded by
His Majesty, with the consideration of the Treaty, and of the
amendments, which several of their number had expressed a desire
to present. The Ministers replied that they were ready to do so, but
wished the Minister of the Household to be present. Accordingly the
deliberations were conducted in the presence of that official.
The Treaty was then considered in detail. The Minister of
Education proposed an amendment, stipulating that the functions of
control to be exercised by Japan should be confined exclusively to
administration of the foreign relations of Korea. Marquis Ito replied
that he could not accept this amendment, but after some discussion
proposed the insertion of the word “primarily” in the Article.[37]
The Minister of Justice proposed an amendment stipulating that
Japan would guarantee to maintain the peace, security and prestige
of the Imperial Household. This Marquis Ito accepted and wrote the
amendment with his own hand.
After some further deliberation the treaty in its amended form was
agreed to. The Minister of the Household, accompanied by Mr. Yi
Chi-yung, Minister of Home Affairs, then took the document to the
Emperor. After a time they returned, saying that His Majesty was
satisfied with the instrument as amended and gave it his sanction.
He instructed them to say, however, that he desired to add one more
amendment. It was to insert in the preamble a stipulation to the
effect that when Korea became able again to exercise the functions
surrendered to Japan by the Treaty, she would be entitled to resume
the control of her foreign relations. To this proposal Marquis Ito
assented, and again wrote the amendment with his own hand. The
two Ministers took the completed instrument to His Majesty, and in a
short time returned saying His Majesty was “quite satisfied and
approved the Treaty.”
The copyists then began preparing the copies for signature, and
the Minister of Foreign Affairs went to the telephone and ordered the
clerk in charge to bring the seal of the Foreign Office to the Palace.
The Minister of the Household, who had again repaired to the
Imperial presence, returned while this was going on with the
following message from the Emperor to Marquis Ito, which is here
repeated verbatim:—“Now that this new Agreement has been
concluded our countries should mutually congratulate each other. We
feel tired, as we are not well, and shall retire. You, who have
reached an advanced age and have remained awake until this late
hour, must also be greatly fatigued. Please, therefore, return to your
home and sleep well.”
Marquis Ito returned thanks for this gracious message, but
remained until the Treaty had been copied and duly signed by Mr.
Pak, the Korean Minister for Foreign Affairs, and by Mr. Hayashi, the
Japanese Minister. He then returned to his hotel. In a short time the
seal of the Foreign Office was brought to the Palace, and Mr. Pak,
with his own hand, affixed it to the four copies of the instrument
which had been made.[38]
The conclusion of the Treaty was not followed by any noticeably
great public excitement in Seoul. Crowds collected in the streets,
and there were one or two trifling brawls, but nothing of great
consequence. The policing of the streets was entirely in the hands of
the Korean gendarmes and the mixed force of Korean and Japanese
police under the direction of Mr. Maruyama, Police Adviser to the
Korean Government. Nor, in order to preserve the public peace, was
there at any time necessary any exhibition of a large force, either of
police or of gendarmes in any one locality. They went about singly or
in twos or threes, and the crowds were, as a rule, orderly.
The Convention thus concluded on November 17, 1905, with the
object of strengthening the principle of solidarity which unites the
two Empires, provides that the complete control and direction of
Korean affairs shall hereafter rest with the Japanese Government,
and that a Resident-General shall reside in Seoul, “primarily for the
purpose of taking charge of and directing matters relating to
diplomatic affairs.” It also provides for the appointment of Residents,
subordinate to the Resident-General, who shall occupy the open
ports and such other places in Korea as the Japanese Government
may deem necessary. Article IV stipulates that all treaties and
agreements subsisting between Japan and Korea, not inconsistent
with the provisions of the Convention itself, shall continue in force.
Furthermore, Japan engages to maintain the welfare and dignity of
the Imperial House of Korea.
This is the substance of the Convention of 1905. Its effect was to
substitute Japan for Korea in all official relations with foreign Powers,
past as well as future. In other words, foreign nations must
hereafter deal directly and exclusively with Japan in everything
affecting their diplomatic relations with Korea. Japan, on her part, is
equally bound to respect and maintain all treaty rights and all treaty
engagements granted by Korea in the past. The “principle of
solidarity which unites the two Empires” implies, and in fact actually
includes, even more than this. While the functions of Japan’s direct
and exclusive control were primarily confined to matters connected
with the direction of foreign affairs, some measure of control over
Korea’s domestic affairs also is necessarily implied. It is not to be
supposed, for example, that Japan could permit internal disorders,
or the perpetuation of domestic abuses, or, in brief, any of those
disturbing conditions which had hitherto prevented Korean progress
and development. International control, dissociated from an orderly
and progressive domestic policy, is not practicable; it is not even
conceivable. The complications and embarrassments which would
inevitably arise from such a complete dissociation of the two
functions of government would far outweigh the advantages. One of
the most fruitful sources of international difficulties in Korea has
always been found in domestic misgovernment. Having assumed the
responsibility and the obligations incident to the direction of foreign
affairs, Japan has the right to ask, and, if need be, to insist, that her
task shall not be made heavier by Korea herself. This did not,
indeed, imply, that Japan should assume charge of the
administrative machinery of the Korean Government, but that she
should enjoy the right to have recourse to those measures of
guidance which naturally and properly fall within the sphere of the
duties she had assumed. Fortunately, however, any discussion
relating to this question must of necessity be purely academic; since
not only the Convention of November 17th, but also the Protocols
and other Agreements concluded before that time give ample
warrant for everything Japan has attempted or accomplished in this
regard.
If corroborative evidence is needed for the account just given of
the negotiations which ended in the Convention of November, 1905,
and upon the basis of which Marquis Ito, as the Representative of
the Japanese Government, had been conducting his administration
in Korea up to the time of the new Convention of July, 1907, it is
afforded in fullest measure in the following manner. A notable
“Memorial” regarding the circumstances under which the earlier
agreement was formed was presented to the Korean Emperor on the
fifteenth of December of the same year; this document lends the
authority of all the other chief actors in this event to every important
detail of the account as already given.[39]
The memorialists were Pak Chi-sun, former Minister for Foreign
Affairs; Yi Wan-yong, Minister of Education; Kwan Chung-hiun,
Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry; Yi Chi-yung,
Minister of Home Affairs; and Yi Kun-tak, Minister of War. The
occasion of the memorial was the agitation against the Treaty which
was then at its height, and on account of which these five Ministers
were being denounced in petitions to the Throne, and in the public
press, as traitors to their country. The purpose of the memorial was
to show that the actual responsibility for the conclusion of the Treaty
rested with the Emperor himself. By relating all the circumstances in
detail (in particular the occurrences at the conference on the
evening of November 17th) the memorialists brought this fact out
into the boldest prominence. Their memorial was, in effect, both a
charge which fixed the responsibility for the Treaty on the Emperor,
and a challenge to the Emperor to deny that the Treaty was
concluded in accordance with his own orders. It was a challenge
which His Majesty did not accept; on the contrary, by approving the
memorial, as he did formally, he acknowledged the truth of the
statements it contained. It was, indeed, officially published at the
time, as approved by the Emperor.[40] Moreover, this memorial was
prepared by its authors and presented to the Throne without the
previous knowledge of the Japanese authorities. In fact, it contained
certain interesting and important details of which they then learned
for the first time.
The memorialists began with the statement that, by reason of His
Majesty’s generosity, they are entrusted with the responsibilities of
Ministers of State, although they do not merit such distinction. They
have seen the petitions denouncing them to the Emperor as traitors.
Those petitions affirm that the state has been destroyed; that the
people have become slaves; and that Korean territory is now the
property of another state. These opinions are indeed almost too
absurd to be noticed; but since they affect the independence and
dignity of the nation, the memorialists cannot permit them to pass
without protest. The new Treaty with Japan does not change the
title of the Empire or affect its real independence. The prestige of
the Imperial House remains as before; the social fabric of the Empire
is unaffected; and the country is in a peaceful condition. The only
change is that the management of the foreign affairs of the country
has been placed under the control of a neighboring state. Besides,
the Treaty which brings about this result is by no means a new
arrangement. It is the direct result of the Protocols concluded in
1904, and does not differ from them in object or in principle. If these
persons who now so loudly proclaim their patriotism are really
sincere and courageous men, why did they not denounce those
Protocols when they were made and maintain their opposition with
their lives? None of them did that then; yet now they clamor for the
abolition of all these arrangements and for the restoration of the old
order of things. It is impossible to agree with them.
We desire, the memorialists go on to say, now to state the actual
facts of the conclusion of the new Treaty:

When the Japanese Envoy arrived in Korea all the people,

even the children, knew that a grave crisis had arisen. And on
the 15th of November when Your Majesty received the Envoy
he presented a most important document. On the following
day the Prime Minister, with the other members of the
Cabinet, except the Minister for Foreign Affairs, conferred
with the Envoy; while the Minister for Foreign Affairs did the
same with the Japanese Minister. At the former conference
Sim San-kiun, Imperial Treasurer (former Prime Minister and
one of the Emperor’s favorites), was also present. We
discussed the matter fully with the Envoy, but did not agree
to the proposals he made. In the evening we were received in
audience by your Majesty and reported all that had occurred.
We stated to your Majesty that if we went to the Japanese
Legation the next day, as had been proposed, we should
continue to refuse to accede to the Japanese proposals. On
the next day, we went in a body to the Legation and there
conferred at length with the Minister upon the subject. Finally,
as we still refused to concur in what the Minister proposed,
he stated that further conference would be a waste of time;
that your Majesty alone had authority to decide, and that he
had asked for an audience through the Minister of the
Imperial Household. Thereupon the whole party repaired to
the Palace. Your Majesty received the members of the Cabinet
in audience, and we reported what had happened at the
Legation, and assured Your Majesty that we were still
prepared to continue to refuse to accede to the Japanese
demands. Your Majesty expressed anxiety regarding the
course to be adopted, and said that, as we could not refuse
positively, it would be better to postpone negotiations.
Then Yi Wan-yong addressed Your Majesty. He said that the
matter was one which vitally affected the state; and that all
of the vassals and servants of Your Majesty must refuse to
accept terms injurious to the state. But the relationship of the
monarch to his vassals is like that of a father to his sons, and
therefore the members of the Cabinet were bound by every
tie of duty to speak frankly to their Master. He must,
therefore, call His Majesty’s attention to the fact that the visit
of the Envoy to Korea, and the coming of the Japanese
Minister to the Palace that evening, had one object—and one
only—namely, the conclusion of the Treaty. Therefore it was
necessary to decide at once upon what was to be done; the
matter did not admit of procrastination. It is easy for us eight
Ministers to say “No”; but our refusal alone does not decide
the matter. We are vassals merely, and only the word of the
monarch is final. The Envoy will undoubtedly ask for an
audience. When that occurs, if Your Majesty continues firmly
to refuse to the end, it is all right. But if Your Majesty’s
generosity should at last induce you to yield, what shall be
done then? This is a question which we must consider and
settle beforehand. When Your Majesty received us in
audience last evening you expressed no opinion.
As the other Ministers said nothing, Yi Wan-yong went on
to explain that what he meant by studying the subject
beforehand was to examine the provisions of the Convention,
several of which he was of opinion should be changed.
Concerning such matters it was necessary to consult and to
come to some decision beforehand.
 Then Your Majesty said that Marquis Ito had informed you
that if we wished to modify the wording of the Convention
there was a way to do so. Your Majesty thought that if we
rejected the Convention categorically, the good relations of
Korea and Japan could not be maintained, and, in Your
Majesty’s opinion, it was possible to have some of the Articles
changed. Therefore, what Yi Wan-yong had proposed was
proper.
Upon that Kwan Chung-hiun said that the Minister of
Education had not advised His Majesty to accept the
Convention, but to consider the matter upon the supposition
that some amendment was possible. Your Majesty replied that
you understood that, but that the difference was not of
practical consequence. The other Ministers expressed the
same opinion. Your Majesty then called for a draft of the
Convention and asked for opinions regarding the
amendments which should be made.

The memorial then goes on to consider the amendments[41] which

it was thought would be desirable, and which were those
subsequently proposed at the conference with Marquis Ito. The
Emperor approved these amendments and himself suggested an
amendment to the effect that in Article I of the convention the word
“sole” in the sentence “shall have sole control” should be omitted.
[This word, it may be remarked in passing, appeared in the original
draft, but was not included in the Article as finally agreed to.]
Finally, when these deliberations terminated, the Ministers
collectively addressed the Emperor, and stated that although they
had conferred upon the adoption of possible amendments, they
were still prepared, if His Majesty so ordered them, to refuse
altogether to accept the Japanese proposals. In reply the Emperor
commanded them not to reject the Treaty finally and conclusively.
On leaving, Mr. Han, speaking as Prime Minister, and Mr. Pak, as
Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated that they would not disobey His
Majesty’s commands.
Then follows the account of the Conference with Mr. Hayashi, in
which it is stated that the Prime Minister, while acknowledging that
the Emperor had ordered him and his colleagues to come to some
arrangement with the Japanese Minister, refused to consider any of
the various proposals made by the latter. After that Marquis Ito
arrived and the account of what happened subsequently, as given in
the memorial, is the same in all essential details as that related in
the first part of this chapter.[42]
With regard to this Treaty as a whole no advocate of Japan will, of
course, claim that it was entered into by Korea with a willing heart—
much less, in a jubilant spirit. It is seldom, indeed, that treaties of
any sort are concluded between two countries with apparently
conflicting interests, where both are equally well satisfied with their
terms. In all cases in which one party is compelled on grounds of
expediency, or of fear that greater evils will follow the rejection of
the terms proposed by the other party, there is a sense in which it
may be said that the will is not free, but that the deed is done
“under a sort of compulsion.” But if all treaties made under such
conditions may be repudiated when conditions are changed, or if
either of the parties to a treaty may act with treachery, and without
punishment, when called upon to carry out faithfully the contracts
thus entered into, the peace of the world cannot be secured or even
promoted by any number of treaties. A feeling of regret and chagrin,
especially on the part of the official classes and, indeed, of the
educated men of Korea in general, was to be expected. So far as it
was sincere and unselfish, the feeling was honorable; and for it the
Resident-General and all those agreeing with his policy have never
shown any lack of respect. But, as has already been made clear, the
important thing with the millions of Korea is not, who are Cabinet
Ministers, or who manages the foreign affairs of the country, or even
who is Emperor; for them the important thing is the character of the
local magistrates and the amount of their “squeezes.”
 Protests and petitions followed the enactment of the Treaty of
November, 1905. The Emperor refused to receive the petitions or to
give audience to the petitioners. And when two men, among the
most sincere and blameless of his subjects—General Min Yung-
whong and Mr. Choi Ik-hiun—persisted in petitioning to be punished
(as would have been in accordance with Korean custom under
similar circumstances) for their disobedience to the Emperor’s
commands in refusing to accept the Treaty, the Emperor declined to
punish them. The petitioners then transferred their efforts from the
Palace to the Supreme Court, and were disappointed there also. One
of them, perhaps both, undertook to punish themselves by suicide.
General Min thus became the typical martyr of the period. He is
described by one who knew him well as “a man of amiable character,
of dignified manners, and pleasing address. He was known at one
time as the ‘good Min,’ to distinguish him from the other members of
the family to which the late Queen belonged.” But it has already
been shown that, during the entire course of Korea’s history, such
men have almost always been without sufficient influence, or
strength of character, to serve their country well and escape death—
usually, at the hands of the Emperor or their rivals, sometimes,
however, by their own hands. For a time the air was full of rumors of
suicide and uprisings; but in fact there was little of anything of the
kind, even in Seoul; the stories of wholesale suicides are false.
Beyond Seoul, and outside of a few of the larger towns in which
greater numbers of the Yang-bans resided, there was scarcely any
excitement of any kind. The Treaty then went into effect, on the
whole quietly, under Marquis Ito who had negotiated it as the
Representative of Japan.
In this way the Japanese Government in Korea was substituted for
the Korean Government in all matters affecting the relations of
foreign countries, and their nationals, to the peninsula. The
retirement of the Foreign Legations followed logically and as a
matter of course. It is needless to say that this change of
responsibility for the conduct of these relations was accepted
without dissent or formal protest from the Governments of the
civilized world. Indeed, with the exception of Russia, all the nations
supremely interested had acknowledged already that, under the
Protocols of 1904, Korea had lost its claim to be recognized as an
independent state in respect of its foreign affairs.
 CHAPTER XII
RULERS AND PEOPLE

A just appreciation of the mental and moral characteristics of alien

races is a delicate and difficult task to achieve, even for the
experienced student of such subjects. From others it is scarcely fair,
no matter how favorable the opportunities for observation may have
been, to expect any large measure of real success in the
accomplishment of this task. The more important reasons for the
failure of most attempts in race psychology may be resolved into the
following two: a limitation of the observer’s own experiences, which
prevents sympathy and, therefore, breadth of interpretation; and the
inability to rise above the more strictly personal point of view. In
both these respects, women are on the whole decidedly inferior to
men; accordingly, their account of the ethnic peculiarities—of the
ideas, motives, and morals—of foreign peoples is customarily less
trustworthy. The inquirer after a judicial estimate of the native
character will find this fact amply illustrated in Korea. But what is
more weighty in its influence as bearing upon such a problem as
that now under discussion is this: all the inherent difficulties are
enhanced when it is required to understand and appreciate an
Oriental race by a member of a distinctively Western civilization. It is
without doubt true that all men, of whatever race or degree of
civilization, are essentially alike; they constitute what certain
authorities in anthropology have fitly called “a spiritual unity.” But for
the individual who cannot expect to find within himself whatever is
necessary to understand and interpret this unity, and especially for
the observer who does not care even to detect and recognize the
existence of such a unity, the difference between Orient and
Occident is a puzzle—perpetually baffling and seemingly insoluble.
Now in some not wholly unimportant aspects of Korean character
and Korean civilization, these difficulties exist in an exaggerated
form. Korea is old in its enforced ignorance, sloth, and corruption;
but Korea is new to rawness, in its response to the stimulus of
foreign and Western ideas, and in its exposure to the observation,
either careless and casual or patient and studious, of visitors and
residents from abroad. Korea has not yet been awakened to any
definite form of intelligent, national self-consciousness. At the same
time, neither its material resources, nor its physical characteristics,
nor its history and antiquities, nor its educational possibilities, nor
the distinctive spirit of its people, have ever been at all thoroughly
investigated by others. No wonder, then, that the views expressed
by the “oldest residents” in Korea regarding the characteristics of its
rulers and its people—Emperor, late Queen, Yang-bans, pedlers, and
peasants (for there is almost no middle class)—are strangely
conflicting. Diverse and even contradictory traits of character are,
with equal confidence and on the basis of an equally long and
intimate acquaintance, ascribed by different persons to all these
classes.
The true and satisfactory account of these differences of opinion is
not, however, to be found by wholly denying the justness of either of
the opposite points of view. Contradictions are inherent in that very
type of character of which the Koreans afford so many striking
examples. Indeed, all peoples, when at ascertain stage of race-
culture, and the multitudes in all civilizations, are just that—bundles
of confused and conflicting ideas, impulses, and practices, which
have never been unified into a consistent “character.” The average
Korean is not only liable to be called, he is liable actually to be,
kindly and yet cruel, generous and yet intensely avaricious, with a
certain sense of honor and yet hopelessly corrupt in his official
relations. Accordingly, as one puts emphasis on this virtue to the
exclusion or suppression of that vice, or turns the eye upon the dark
and disgusting side of the picture and shuts out the side that might
afford pleasure and hope, will one’s estimate be made of the actual
condition and future prospects of the nation.
But let us begin our brief description with the man who has been
for more than a generation the chief ruler of Korea, the now ex-
Emperor. He is a typical Korean—especially in respect of his
characteristic weakness of character, his taste for and adeptness at
intrigue, his readiness to deceive and corrupt others, and himself to
be deceived and corrupted. For all this no specially occult reasons
need to be assigned. With a weak nature, his youth spent under the
pernicious influence of eunuchs and court concubines and hangers-
on, his manhood dominated by an unceasing and bloody feud
between his wife and his father, his brief period of “independence”
one orgy of misrule, and his latest years controlled by sorceresses,
soothsayers, low-born and high-born intriguers, and selfish and
unwise foreign advisers: what but incurably unsound character,
uncontrollable instability of conduct, and a destiny fated to be full of
disaster, could be expected from such a man so placed?
The father of the ex-Emperor was Yi Ha-eung, Prince of Heung
Song, who was long the so-called “Regent” or “Prince-Parent,” and is
best known in history as the “Tai Won Kun.” It has been said of him
that “he was the grandson of a great and unfortunate crown prince,
the great-grandson of a famous king, the nephew of another king,
and the father of still another king.” The lineal ancestor of the Tai
Won Kun was Yong-jong, who reigned from 1724 to 1776. This
sovereign quarrelled with his own son and had him put to death as
insane; but other issue failing, the crown descended through the
murdered crown prince, and from him through three lines of
monarchs. Until his son was chosen to occupy the throne, the Tai
Won Kun, although he had married into the powerful Min family,
does not seem to have exercised much influence in politics. But in
1864, on the death of the king, without male issue the Dowager
Queen Cho, by what is reported to have been a not altogether
legitimate procedure, proclaimed the second son of the Tai Won Kun,
then a boy of only twelve years, as the successor to the throne.
Little is exactly known as to the care or education of the boyish
king during his earliest years. It is commonly reported that he was
fond of outdoor sports, especially of archery, and disinclined to
study. Yet he is reputed to be a fine Chinese penman and to be well
acquainted with the Chinese classics. His father was a strict
disciplinarian and, although he was never legally in control of affairs
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