Griffis William E. The Mikado: Institution and Person

London, Princeton: Princeton University Press - Oxford University Press, 1915. — 346 p.At forty-three minutes past twelve on the morning of July 30, 1912, Japan's greatest Emperor breathed his last. With him ended the era of Enlightened Government (Meiji, 1868-1912) the most brilliant in the long history of the Empire. Mutsuhito, Man of Peace, was born in Kyoto,
November 3, 1852, when Japan was a hermit nation, inhospitable to the rest of mankind, her people numbering but 30,000,000 and living in
an area of 150,000 square miles. The archipelago of Riu Kiu then paid tribute to China, and except in the southern part of Yezo the knowledge, interests and claims of the Japanese nation as to the northern isles, a hundred or more, were exceedingly hazy. Nor had the people at large any dream, which later so dazzled the nation, of Japan's glory ever "shining beyond the seas."