United States or Uganda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


In China, the pen and the sword have been kept apart; the civilian and the soldier, the man of letters and the man of arms, have been distinct and separate. In Japan, however, the pen and the sword, letters and arms, the civilian and the soldier, have intermingled. The unique product of this union is seen in the Samurai, or servant of the Mikado.

But, regarding Miss West, I do entertain one fervent hope, namely, that she is not a suffragette. That would be too much. Captain West may be a Samurai, but he is also human. He was really a bit fluttery this morning, in his reserved, controlled way, when he regretted the plague of vermin I had encountered in my rooms.

These men saw that their country was falling behind not only the nations of the West, but, as it seemed to them, even the nations of the East. They felt that radical changes were necessary in order to reform the awful poverty, disease, licentiousness, national weakness, decay of bodily powers, and the creeping paralysis of the Samurai intellect and spirit.

White is extraordinarily frequent; white woollen tunics and robes into which are woven bands of brilliant colour, abound. Often these ape the cut and purple edge that distinguishes the samurai.

The words which a great thinker used in speaking of Theresa and Antigone may aptly be repeated of the samurai, that "the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone." Alas for knightly virtues! alas for samurai pride! Morality ushered into the world with the sound of bugles and drums, is destined to fade away as "the captains and the kings depart."

A distinction which is made in the West between moral and physical courage has long been recognized among us. What samurai youth has not heard of "Great Valor" and the "Valor of a Villein?"

For over two hundred years this discipline in the Chinese ethics, literature and history constituted the education of the boys and men of Japan. Almost every member of the Samurai classes was thoroughly drilled in this curriculum. All Japanese social, official, intellectual and literary life was permeated with the new spirit.

Theriere and Divine erected a rude shelter for Barbara Harding close under the foot of the cliff, as far from the water as possible, while above them Oda Yorimoto watched their proceedings with beady, glittering eyes. This time a half-dozen of his fierce samurai crouched at his side. Besides their two swords these latter bore the primitive spears of their mothers' savage tribe.

The great mass of the gentry was orthodox, according to the standards of the Séido College, while the common people remained faithful to Buddhism. In the conduct of daily life they followed the precepts which had for centuries been taught them by their fathers. Philosophical Confucianism the Religion of the Samurai.

They were an embodiment of what was considered as an end of all learning, and were thus a living example of that discipline of disciplines, which was universally required of samurai.