"Come, take the mirror and the veil, My mother's parting gifts to me; In barter they must sure avail, To buy a horse to carry thee." To which self-denying love, the husband graciously replies: "And I should purchase me a horse, Must not my wife still sadly walk? No, no, though stony is our course, We'll trudge along and sweetly talk." There have been many able women in this land of the Cherry Blossom, and the Japanese people have not been blind to their claims to recognition as controlling forces. This is shown by the fact that no less than nine empresses have ruled the land. Some of them have been women of marked sagacity and influence. On the dim borderland of the mythical, for example, history shows us the heroic Empress Jingu Kogo, who, tradition says, was the conqueror of Corea, and the embodiment of all that is good and great in Japanese womanhood. Among the women of Japanese legend is the Maiden of Unahi, the story of whose noble life and death has been often sung by the poets. Her tomb is to-day pointed out in the province of Settsu, between Kobe and Osaka. Such heroines of the earlier days have furnished inspiration for the women of Japan for many generations; and the ideals of domestic life are far higher than might be expected in a region of the world where women, as a rule, live out their round of life upon a general plane that is sorrowfully low. The present generation in Japan has been truly blessed by the influence of an empress who is described as not only "charming, intellectual, refined, and lovely," but also "noble and beautiful in character." Haru Ko, born of noble parentage, became empress in the year 1868. Her husband had just come to the throne at the age of seventeen. This was the very year of the downfall of the Shogunate and the restoration of the imperial power. Though reared in seclusion at Kioto, the young empress began at once to measure up to the responsibilities which her position had in store for her. She proceeded to exert her influence in favor of the elevation of the women of her country. Without hesitancy, she mingled personally among the people, administering charity to them. Very early in her life as empress, in the year 1871, she gave a special audience to five little girls of the military class who were about to set out for America in order to study to prepare themselves for the larger life of womanhood in the new Japan. From the beginning of the school established for daughters of the nobility, who are expected to play an important part in the Japan that is to be, she has taken great interest in its progress.