But the highest honor paid to the memory of Hiros[’e] is of a sort now possible only in the East, though once possible also in the West, when the Greek or Roman patriot-hero might be raised, by the common love of his people, to the place of the Immortals....  Wine-cups of porcelain have been made, decorated with his portrait; and beneath the portrait appears, in ideographs of gold, the inscription, Gunshin Hiros[’e] Ch[=u]sa.  The character “gun” signifies war; the character “shin” a god,—­either in the sense of divus or deus, according to circumstances; and the Chinese text, read in the Japanese way, is Ikusa no Kami.  Whether that stern and valiant spirit is really invoked by the millions who believe that no brave soul is doomed to extinction, no well-spent life laid down in vain, no heroism cast away, I do not know.  But, in any event, human affection and gratitude can go no farther than this; and it must be confessed that Old Japan is still able to confer honors worth dying for.

* * * * *

Boys and girls in all the children’s schools are now singing the Song of Hiros[’e] Ch[=u]sa, which is a marching song.  The words and the music are published in a little booklet, with a portrait of the late commander upon the cover.  Everywhere, and at all hours of the day, one hears this song being sung:—­

    He whose every word and deed gave to men an example of what
    the war-folk of the Empire of Nippon should be,—­Commander
    Hiros[’e]:  is he really dead?

Though the body die, the spirit dies not.  He who wished to be reborn seven times into this world, for the sake of serving his country, for the sake of requiting the Imperial favor,—­Commander Hiros[’e]:  has he really died?

    "Since I am a son of the Country of the Gods, the fire of the
    evil-hearted Russians cannot touch me!”—­The sturdy Takeo who
    spoke thus:  can he really be dead?...

    Nay! that glorious war-death meant undying fame;—­beyond a
    thousand years the valiant heart shall live;—­as to a god of
    war shall reverence be paid to him....

* * * * *

Observing the playful confidence of this wonderful people in their struggle for existence against the mightiest power of the West,—­their perfect trust in the wisdom of their leaders and the valor of their armies,—­the good humor of their irony when mocking the enemy’s blunders,—­their strange capacity to find, in the world-stirring events of the hour, the same amusement that they would find in watching a melodrama,—­one is tempted to ask:  “What would be the moral consequence of a national defeat?"...  It would depend, I think, upon circumstances.  Were Kuropatkin able to fulfill his rash threat of invading Japan, the nation would probably rise as one man.  But otherwise the knowledge