We admire and enjoy the heroic incident in Koerner’s short life, when, as he lay wounded on the battle-field, he scribbled his famous “Farewell to Life.”  Incidents of a similar kind were not at all unusual in our warfare.  Our pithy, epigrammatic poems were particularly well suited to the improvisation of a single sentiment.  Everybody of any education was either a poet or a poetaster.  Not infrequently a marching soldier might be seen to halt, take his writing utensils from his belt, and compose an ode,—­and such papers were found afterward in the helmets or the breast-plates, when these were removed from their lifeless wearers.

What Christianity has done in Europe toward rousing compassion in the midst of belligerent horrors, love of music and letters has done in Japan.  The cultivation of tender feelings breeds considerate regard for the sufferings of others.  Modesty and complaisance, actuated by respect for others’ feelings, are at the root of

POLITENESS,

that courtesy and urbanity of manners which has been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait.  Politeness is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others.  It also implies a due regard for the fitness of things, therefore due respect to social positions; for these latter express no plutocratic distinctions, but were originally distinctions for actual merit.

In its highest form, politeness almost approaches love.  We may reverently say, politeness “suffereth long, and is kind; envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, taketh not account of evil.”  Is it any wonder that Professor Dean, in speaking of the six elements of Humanity, accords to Politeness an exalted position, inasmuch as it is the ripest fruit of social intercourse?

While thus extolling Politeness, far be it from me to put it in the front rank of virtues.  If we analyze it, we shall find it correlated with other virtues of a higher order; for what virtue stands alone?  While—­or rather because—­it was exalted as peculiar to the profession of arms, and as such esteemed in a degree higher than its deserts, there came into existence its counterfeits.  Confucius himself has repeatedly taught that external appurtenances are as little a part of propriety as sounds are of music.

When propriety was elevated to the sine qua non of social intercourse, it was only to be expected that an elaborate system of etiquette should come into vogue to train youth in correct social behavior.  How one must bow in accosting others, how he must walk and sit, were taught and learned with utmost care.  Table manners grew to be a science.  Tea serving and drinking were raised to a ceremony.  A man of education is, of course, expected to be master of all these.  Very fitly does Mr. Veblen, in his interesting book,[11] call decorum “a product and an exponent of the leisure-class life.”