ir own habits.
Many of these ideas have come down from one generation to another,
within the narrow limits of the court, so that the life there is a
curious world in itself, and very unlike that in ordinary Japanese
homes.

But among all the ladies of Japan to-day,--charming, intellectual,
refined, and lovely as many of them are,--there is no one nobler, more
accomplished, more beautiful in life and character, than the Empress
herself. The Emperor of Japan, though he may have many concubines, may
have but one wife, and she must be chosen out of one of the five highest
noble families.[29] Haru Ko, of the noble family of Ichij[=o], became
Empress in the year 1868, one year after her husband, then a boy of
seventeen, had ascended the throne, and the very year of the overthrow
of the Sh[=o]gunate,[30] and the restoration of the Emperor to actual
power and the leading part in the government. Reared amid the deep and
scholarly seclusion of the old court at Ky[=o]to, the young Empress
found herself occupying a position very different from that for which
she had been educated,--a position the duties and responsibilities of
which grow more multifarious as the years go by. Instead of a life of
rigid seclusion, unseeing and unseen, the Empress has had to go forth
into the world, finding there the pleasures as well as the duties of
actual leadership. With the removal of the court to T[=o]ky[=o], and the
reappearance of the Emperor, in bodily form, before his people, there
came new opportunities for the Empress, and nobly has she used them.
From the time when, in 1871, she gave audience to the five little girls
of the samurai class who were just setting forth on a journey to
America, there to study and fit themselves to play a part in the Japan
of the future, on through twenty years of change and progress, the
Empress Haru Ko has done all that lay within her power to advance the
women of her country.[*157] Many stories are afloat which show the
lovable character of the woman, and which have given her an abiding
place in the affections of the people.

[29] The Empresses of Japan are not chosen from any branch of the
imperial family, but from among the daughters of the five of the great
_kuge_, or court nobles, who are next in rank to the imperial princes.
The choice usually rests with the Emperor or his advisers, and would be
naturally given to the most worthy, whether in beauty or accomplishments.
No doubt one reason why the Empre