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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Better," sang Yoshida Shoin, the dying martyr for his principles, "to be a crystal and to be broken, than to be a tile upon the housetop and remain." So, indeed, on a hundred curtained execution grounds, with the dirk of the suicide firmly grasped and about to shed their own life-blood, have sung the martyrs who died willingly for their faith in their idea of Yamato Damashii.
A long letter was prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and corrected by Sakuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of Urinaki-Manji, and by the soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda.
Yoshida Kenko, who became a recluse in 1324, is counted among the "four kings" of Japanese poetry Ton-a, Joben, Keiun, and Kenko. He has been called the "Horace of Japan." These three authors were all pessimistic. They reflected the tendency of the time. The earliest Buddhist sect established in Japan was the Hosso.
A long letter was prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and corrected by Sákuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of Urinaki-Manji, and by the soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda.
Thus the patriotism of Yoshida took a form which may be said to have defeated itself: he had it upon him to keep out these all- powerful foreigners, whom it is now one of his chief merits to have helped to introduce; but a man who follows his own virtuous heart will be always found in the end to have been fighting for the best.
It is an episode most honourable to Yoshida, and yet more honourable still to the soldier, and to the capacity and virtue of the common people of Japan.
Yoshida was the forerunner of Motoori, Hirata, and other comparatively modern philosophers who contended for the revival of "Pure Shinto." Many Japanese annalists allege that Shinto owes its religious character solely to the suggestions of Buddhism, and point to the fact that the Shinto cult has never been able to inspire a great exponent.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary; but Yoshida considered otherwise, and he studied the miseries of his fellow-countrymen with as much attention and research as though he had been going to write a book, instead of merely to propose a remedy.
It is the old story of a power upon its last legs learning to the bastille, and courage to the block; when there are none left but sheep and donkeys, the State will have been saved. But a man must not think to cope with a revolution; nor a minister, however fortified with guards, to hold in check a country that had given birth to such men as Yoshida and his soldier-follower.
It is better to be Yoshida and perish, than to be only Sakuma and yet save the hide. Kusakabe, of Satzuma, has said the word: it is better to be a crystal and be broken. I must add a word; for I hope the reader will not fail to perceive that this is as much the story of a heroic people as that of a heroic man.
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