It must be admitted that very few attained this sublime height of magnanimity, patience and forgiveness.  It was a great pity that nothing clear and general was expressed as to what constitutes Honor, only a few enlightened minds being aware that it “from no condition rises,” but that it lies in each acting well his part:  for nothing was easier than for youths to forget in the heat of action what they had learned in Mencius in their calmer moments.  Said this sage, “’Tis in every man’s mind to love honor:  but little doth he dream that what is truly honorable lies within himself and not anywhere else.  The honor which men confer is not good honor.  Those whom Chao the Great ennobles, he can make mean again.”

For the most part, an insult was quickly resented and repaid by death, as we shall see later, while Honor—­too often nothing higher than vain glory or worldly approbation—­was prized as the summum bonum of earthly existence.  Fame, and not wealth or knowledge, was the goal toward which youths had to strive.  Many a lad swore within himself as he crossed the threshold of his paternal home, that he would not recross it until he had made a name in the world:  and many an ambitious mother refused to see her sons again unless they could “return home,” as the expression is, “caparisoned in brocade.”  To shun shame or win a name, samurai boys would submit to any privations and undergo severest ordeals of bodily or mental suffering.  They knew that honor won in youth grows with age.  In the memorable siege of Osaka, a young son of Iyeyasu, in spite of his earnest entreaties to be put in the vanguard, was placed at the rear of the army.  When the castle fell, he was so chagrined and wept so bitterly that an old councillor tried to console him with all the resources at his command.  “Take comfort, Sire,” said he, “at thought of the long future before you.  In the many years that you may live, there will come divers occasions to distinguish yourself.”  The boy fixed his indignant gaze upon the man and said—­“How foolishly you talk!  Can ever my fourteenth year come round again?”

Life itself was thought cheap if honor and fame could be attained therewith:  hence, whenever a cause presented itself which was considered dearer than life, with utmost serenity and celerity was life laid down.

Of the causes in comparison with which no life was too dear to sacrifice, was

THE DUTY OF LOYALTY,

which was the key-stone making feudal virtues a symmetrical arch.  Other virtues feudal morality shares in common with other systems of ethics, with other classes of people, but this virtue—­homage and fealty to a superior—­is its distinctive feature.  I am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men,—­a gang of pickpockets owe allegiance to a Fagin; but it is only in the code of chivalrous honor that Loyalty assumes paramount importance.