can
we do than laugh at them?"

"So your argument is," I dared put in, "that if one may laugh at one's
own misfortunes, there is all the more title to laugh at those of other
people?"

"That is so," retorted the man of Cho-sen, with an air of
self-conviction.

I at once agreed with him that I did not find much real harm in laughing
at other people's misfortunes, except that if it did not do anybody any
harm, it neither did them any good; but I acknowledge that it took me
some minutes before I could make up my mind as to one's own misfortunes.
In the end, however, I had to agree with him even about this point. He
proved to me that Coreans are at bottom very good-hearted and unselfish,
and always ready to help relations and neighbours, always ready to be
kind even at their own discomfort. This good-nature, however, lacks in
form from our point of view, though the substance is always the same, and
probably more so than with us. They are a much simpler people, and
hypocrisy among them has not yet reached our civilised stage. In the case
of our poor leper friend, we have seen that the people who laughed at him
were the first to help him; whereas, I have no doubt that among us who
are good Christians, and nothing else but charitable, the majority would
not have laughed; indeed, I am not quite sure but that, on the contrary,
many would have run to the nearest church to pray for the man, meantime
leaving him "cashless," if not to die of starvation.

Now let us continue our walk and leave the blind man and leper behind. On
our left-hand side there is a huge gateway with a red wooden door--in
rather a dilapidated condition--though apparently leading to something
very grand. Since we are here we may as well go in. Good gracious! it is
a tumble-down place. In olden days it used to be the king's palace, and
if you follow me you can see how big the grounds are. For some reason or
other this place, with all its accessories, buildings, &c., has been
abandoned by the Court simply because of rumours getting abroad that
ghosts haunted it. Evil spirits were reported to have been seen prowling
about the grounds, and in the royal apartments, and it would never have
done for a king to have been near such company; so the Court went to
great expense to build a fresh abode for the royal personage, and the old
palace was abandoned and left to decay. The grounds that were laid out as
pretty gardens were, many years later, used for a plantatio