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.

In spite of Hegel's criticism that the fidelity of feudal vassals,
being an obligation to an individual and not to a Commonwealth, is a
bond established on totally unjust principles,[16] a great compatriot of
his made it his boast that personal loyalty was a German virtue.
Bismarck had good reason to do so, not because the _Treue_ he boasts of
was the monopoly of his Fatherland or of any single nation or race, but
because this favored fruit of chivalry lingers latest among the people
where feudalism has lasted longest. In America where "everybody is as
good as anybody else," and, as the Irishman added, "better too," such
exalted ideas of loyalty as we feel for our s