The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-18
Richard Barry, in New York Times.

' OCH was a classic figure. Plutarch
 M should have had him. He be- ! longed with Cato and Brutus with Socrates and Lepurgus. Of all the human beings I have ever known he rises in my memory as the one superb, com plete person. He was at once soldier and poet, statesman and artist. Always he was the gentleman-wondrousl gentle, and man to the bone.
 For nine months it was my rare privi- lege to be the nearest neighbor of Gen the zenith of his life when, on the hard plains of Manchuria, he was completing the destiny for which he had been born in the Japanese province of Chosu.
 Each day I saw him as he rode to and from the divisional headquarters of his command, as he sat in council with his officers or at tiffin with his guests, or. of an evening, in his garden
 That figure of a poised. intent suffering, masterful spirit, tried alternately by des- perate defeat and by tremendous tri- umph, neither deterred by the one nor elated by the other. will always stand be- fore me as an ideal.
 I will never forget the first day he re- ceived us. It was in his garden in the little town of Cho-Ray-Che, 10 miles north Of Port Arthur. He was at small table, under willow, working with magnify ing ass over a man. He wore an undress uniform of blue, with the three stars and three stripes of a general on the sleeve. I'd iI-a chocolate with summers torrid sunsi heamed kindly. His smile and manner were fatherly.
 Look after your body he said. '1 do not want you to be sick. At the first sign of danger consult our surgeons. We have good surgeons"
 Turning to James Ricalton, a photogra- pher who accompanied me, he inquired his age. Ricalton told him 59 Nogi smiled with that wondrous all embracing. illum- mating smile that expanded one's heart and let the sunshine through all the clouds of war.
 Well" he said, then you are my senior, and l must turn over my command to you, for I am but 57.'
 That afternoon huge hamper of fruit
 
 was brought to Ricalton's door, with the generals compliments.
 He never forgot such amenities, even in the midst of his most terrible prob Iems. That day was but one before the first grand assault on the inner defenses of Port Arthur
 have a clear mental picture of him the morning-a cold. brilliant January morning-when Stoessel surrendered to him. His closest aid de camp gave it to rne.
 Stoessel rode up in state, on his Ara bian charger, accompanied by his entire Nogi was inside his hut-one could not call the dingy Chinese house by any nobler name-seated on low stool, with his hands plunged deeply in the pockets of his blue kersey overcoat which he drew loosely about him. Under his ragged white beard his small mouth was drawn into a semicricle of colossal irony. His small. clear eyes were gazing at an ob- feet seated in the bottom of a wicker chair drawn up close beside him.
 The object was photograph of three Japanese OnlceTS anu d lduy' He uii- forms of the officers showed them to be A general, a captain and a lieutenant; himself. his wife and his two sons: The wife was waiting for him in Japan. The two sons were dead
 Is it fanciful to think that he was look ing across the graves of an army corps into the faces of his dead as they spoke to him from the pasteboard? He was an old man and the two sons for whom he had lived. worked and dreamed had been killed out there under his command, while he had ordered a hundred thousand other men into death and worse than death. This was the price he had paid for standing for a moment at the apex of a world.
 Stoessel entered. The business of sur render was quickly settled, the terms having been agreed upon. Then the Russian politely offered his congratuia-