Various

“ Notwithstanding the war carried on against the jay, its varied cries and active gesticulations show it to be a sprightly bird, and at a distance that renders its beauty-spots invisible, it is yet rendered conspicuous by its cinnamon-coloured body and pure white tail-coverts, which contrast with the deep black and rich chestnut that otherwise mark its plumage, and even the young at once assume a dress closely resembling that of the adult. ”

“ That was the meaning of the oath taken by the emperor at the Restoration, when the youthful sovereign was made to say that wise counsels should be widely sought, and all things determined by public discussion. But the framers of the oath had the samurai alone in view. Into their consideration the common people—farmers, mechanics, tradesmen—did not enter at all, nor had the common people themselves any idea of advancing a claim to be considered. A voice in the administration would have been to them an embarrassing rather than a pleasing privilege. ”

“ By some historians his motive has been described as a desire to find employment for the immense mob of armed men whom four centuries of almost continuous fighting had called into existence in Japan: he felt that domestic peace could not be permanently restored unless these restless spirits were occupied abroad. But although that object may have reinforced his purpose, his ambition aimed at nothing less than the conquest of China, and he regarded Korea merely as a stepping-stone to that aim. Had Korea consented to be put to such a use, she need not have fought or suffered. ”

“ The so-called Siberian jay is one of the most entertaining birds in the world. Its versatile cries and actions, as seen and heard by those who penetrate the solitude of the northern forests it inhabits, can never be forgotten by one who has had experience of them, any more than the pleasing sight of its rust-coloured tail, which an occasional gleam of sunshine will light up into a brilliancy quite unexpected by those who have only surveyed the bird’s otherwise gloomy appearance in the glass-case of a museum. ”

“ Not a rough prophet in the desert like John, not a leader striking for political freedom, not a pretender aiming at the petty throne of the Herods, not even a great rabbi, building on the patriotic foundation of the Pharisees who had secured the national life by a new devotion to the ancient law. ”

“ They could understand the motives influencing Russia and France, for it was evidently natural that the former should desire to exclude warlike and progressive people like the Japanese from territories contiguous to her borders, and it was also natural that France should remain true to her alliance with Russia. But Germany, wholly uninterested in the ownership of Manchuria, and by profession a warm friend of Japan, seemed to have joined in robbing the latter of the fruits of her victory simply for the sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia’s goodwill. ”

“ Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted?... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ”

“ But it must not be thought that in practice the rule of the Society and the high degree of obedience demanded result in mere mechanism. By a system of check and counter check devised in the constitutions the power of local superiors is modified, so that in practice the working is smooth. Ignatius knew that while a high ideal was necessary for every society, his followers were flesh and blood, not machines. He made it clear from the first that the Society was everything and the individual nothing, except so far as he might prove a useful instrument for carrying out the Society’s objects. ”

“ They were told that they might lay aside their swords, and many of them did so, though from time immemorial they had cherished the sword as the mark of a gentleman, the most precious possession of a warrior, and the one outward evidence that distinguished men of their order from common toilers after gain. They saw themselves deprived of their military employment, were invited to surrender more than one-half of the income it brought, and knew that they were unprepared alike by education and by tradition to earn bread in any calling save that of arms. ”

“ The only alternatives for Japan were war or total and permanent effacement in Asia. She chose war, and in fighting it she fought the battle of free and equal opportunities for all without undue encroachment upon the sovereign rights or territorial integrity of China or Korea, against a military dictatorship, a programme of ruthless territorial aggrandizement and a policy of selfish restrictions. ”

“ The chief sufferer from these anomalous conditions was Japan. In all her dealings with Korea, in all complications that arose out of her comparatively large trade with the peninsula, in all questions connected with her numerous settlers there, she found herself negotiating with a dependency of China, and with officials who took their orders from the Chinese representative. China had long entertained a rooted apprehension of Japanese aggression in Korea—an apprehension not unwarranted by history—and that distrust tinged all the influence exerted by her agents there. ”

“ It is true perhaps that Japanese can and do understand the Chinese better than Europeans; but that is due not only to centuries of mutual intercourse, but to the wonderful and peculiar fact that they have adopted the old classical Chinese literature as their own, somewhat in the way, but in a much greater degree, in which the European nations have adopted the old Greek and Latin literatures. What is here contended for is that the mutual understanding of two peoples is not so much a matter of race, but of the knowledge of each other’s history, traditions, literature, &c. ”

“ For thirty years China had treated Japan as a contemptible deserter from the Oriental standard, and had regarded her progressive efforts with openly disdainful aversion; while Japan, on her side, had chafed more and more to furnish some striking evidence of the wisdom of her preference for Western civilization. Even more serious were the consequences of Chinese interference from the point of view of Korean administration. The rulers of the country lost all sense of national responsibility, and gave unrestrained sway to selfish ambition. ”

“ Thus the Confucian maxim, endorsed explicitly in the Testament of Iyeyasu, that a man must not live under the same sky with his father’s murderer or his brother’s slayer, received most literal obedience, and many instances occurred of vendettas pursued in the face of apparently insuperable difficulties and consummated after years of effort. By the standard of modern morality the Japanese samurai would be counted cruel. Holding that death was the natural sequel of defeat and the only certain way of avoiding disgrace, he did not seek quarter himself or think of extending it to an enemy. ”

“ The army sent to quell the insurrection consisted of recruits drawn indiscriminately from every class of the people. Viewed in the light of history, it was an army of commoners, deficient in the fighting instinct, and traditionally 269 demoralized for all purposes of resistance to the military class. The Satsuma insurgents, on the contrary, represented the flower of the samurai, long trained for this very struggle, and led by men whom the nation regarded as its bravest captains. The result dispelled all doubts about the fighting quality of the people at large. ”

“ The most perplexing questions treated by Jefferson as secretary of state arose out of the policy of neutrality adopted by the United States toward France, to whom she was bound by treaties and by a heavy debt of gratitude. Separation from European politics—the doctrine of “America for Americans” that was embodied later in the Monroe declaration—was a tenet cherished by Jefferson as by other leaders (not, however, Hamilton) and by none cherished more firmly, for by nature he was peculiarly opposed to war, and peace was a fundamental part of his politics. ”

“ During the Nara epoch the many-hued hats of China had been abandoned for a sober head-gear of silk gauze covered with black lacquer, but in the Heian era this was replaced by an imposing structure glistening with jewels: the sleeves of the tunic grew so long that they hung to the knees when a man’s arms were crossed, and the trowsers were made so full and baggy that they resembled a divided skirt. From this era may be said to have commenced the manufacture of the tasteful and gorgeous textile fabrics for which Japan afterwards became famous. ”

“ Hideyoshi was a peasant’s son, equally lacking in patrons and in personal attractions. No chance seemed more remote than that such men, above all Hideyoshi, could possibly rise to supreme power. On the other hand, one outcome of the commotion with which the country had seethed for more than four centuries was to give special effect to the principle of natural selection. The fittest alone surviving, the qualities that made for fitness came to take precedence of rank or station, and those qualities were prowess in the battlefield and wisdom in the statesman’s closet. ”

“ It proclaims the downfall of institutions, and compares the present blind security to the days of Noah and of Lot: a few only shall escape the coming overthrow. Yet even in this sterner setting the figure portrayed is unmistakably the same. There is the same strength, the same tender sympathy, the same freedom from convention: there is the same promise to fulfil the highest hopes, the same surrender of life, and the same imperious demand on the lives of others. ”

“ Old people cannot fit their feet to new roads without some clumsiness. The Japanese had grown very old in their special paths, and their novel departure was occasionally disfigured by solecisms. The refined taste that guided them unerringly in all the affairs of life as they had been accustomed to live it, seemed to fail them signally when they emerged into an alien atmosphere. ”

“ Gentile faith puts Israel to shame. The sons of the kingdom will be left outside, while strangers feast with Abraham. Capernaum shall go to perdition; Jerusalem shall be a desolate ruin. The doom of the nation is pronounced; its fate is imminent; there is no ray of hope for the existing constitution of religion and society. As to individuals within the nation, the despised publicans and sinners will find God’s favour before the self-satisfied representatives of the national religion. ”

“ The war of 1894 was really a contest between Japanese progress and Chinese stagnation. To secure Korean immunity from foreign—especially Russian—aggression was of capital importance to both empires. Japan believed that such security could be attained by introducing into Korea the civilization which had contributed so signally to the development of her own strength and resources. China thought that she could guarantee it without any departure from old-fashioned methods, and by the same process of capricious protection which had failed so signally in the cases of Annam, Tongking, Burma and Siam. ”

“ At any moment they were prepared cheerfully to sacrifice their lives on the altar of loyalty. Their word, once given, must never be violated. The slightest insult to their honour might not be condoned. Stoicism was a quality which they esteemed next to courage: all outward display of emotion must be suppressed. The sword might never be drawn for a petty cause, but, if once drawn, must never be returned to its scabbard until it had done its duty. ”

“ But many still retained their swords and drew their pensions as of old, obstructing, in the former respect, the government’s projects for the reorganization of society, and imposing, in the latter, an intolerable burden on the resources of the treasury. The government thought that the time had come, and that its own strength sufficed, to substitute compulsion for persuasion. The financial measure—which was contrived so as to affect the smallest pension-holders least injuriously—evoked no complaint. The samurai remained faithful to the creed which forbade them to be concerned about money. ”

“ The prosperity of thy dynasty shall be coeval with heaven and earth.” Thus they call their country the land of kami (ancient gods of tradition) . With this spirit, in the old days when China held the hegemony of the East, and all neighbouring peoples were regarded as its tributaries, Japan alone, largely no doubt on account of its insular position, held itself quite aloof; it set at defiance the power of Kublai and routed utterly the combined Chinese and Korean fleets with vast forces sent by him to conquer Japan, this being the only occasion that Japan was threatened with a foreign invasion. ”

“ But He turned to the other disciples and openly rebuked Peter. And then, addressing a yet wider circle, He demanded of those who should follow Him a self-sacrifice like His own. He even used the metaphor of the cross which was carried by the sufferer to the place of execution. Life, he declared, could only be saved by voluntary death. He went on to demand an unswerving loyalty to Himself and His teaching in the face of a threatening world; and then He promised that some of those who were present should not die before they had seen the coming of the kingdom of God. ”

“ The lofty hedges which bound the small enclosures into which Jersey is divided, the trees and shrubberies which line the roads and cluster round the uplands and in almost every nook of the valleys unutilized for pasturage or tillage, give the island a luxuriant appearance, neutralizing the bare effect of the few sandy plains and sand-covered hills. Fruits and flowers indigenous to warm climates grow freely in the open air. The land, under careful cultivation, is rich and productive, the soil being generally a deep loam, especially in the valleys, but in the west shallow, light and sandy. ”

“ Chinese music and dancing were introduced; cross bows and catapults were added to the weapons of war; domestic architecture made signal strides in obedience to the examples of Buddhist sacred edifices, which, from the first, showed magnificence of dimension and decoration hitherto unconceived in Japan; the arts of metal-casting and sculpture underwent great improvement; Prince Shōtoku compiled a code, commonly spoken of as the first written laws of Japan, but in reality a collection of maxims evincing a moral spirit of the highest type. ”

“ Thus in the interval between 1873 and 1877 there were two centres of disturbance in Japan: one in Satsuma, where Saigō figured as leader; the other in Tosa, under Itagaki’s guidance. When the Satsuma men appealed to arms in 1877, a widespread apprehension prevailed lest the Tosa politicians should throw in their lot with the insurgents. Such a fear had its origin in failure to understand the object of the one side or to appreciate the sincerity of the other. Saigō and his adherents fought to substitute a Satsuma clique for the oligarchy already in power. ”

“ It shows the disturbing forces of these characteristics, which aroused the envy and apprehension of the leaders of religion. The first bright days of welcome and popularity are soon clouded: the storm begins to lower. More and more the Master devotes Himself to the little circle of His disciples, who are taught that they, as well as He, can only triumph through defeat, succeed by failure, and find their life in giving it away. At length, in fear of religious innovations and pretending that He is a political usurper, the Jews deliver Him up to die on a Roman cross. ”

“ The Japanese, far from being a bellicose people, deliberately cut off all intercourse with the outside world in order to avoid international troubles, and remained absolutely secluded from the world and at profound peace within their own territory for two centuries and a half. Besides, the Japanese have always regarded the Americans with a special goodwill, due no doubt to the steady liberal attitude of the American government and 275 people towards Japan and Japanese, and they look upon the idea of war between Japan and the United States as ridiculous. ”

“ For there existed in Korea nearly all the worst abuses of medieval systems. The administration of justice depended solely on favour or interest. The police contributed by corruption and incompetence to the insecurity of life and property. The troops were a body of useless mercenaries. Offices being allotted by sale, thousands of incapables thronged the ranks of the executive. The emperor’s court was crowded by diviners and plotters of all kinds, male and female. The finances of the throne and those of the state were hopelessly confused. ”

“ Young men without experience of public affairs, or special education to fit them for responsible posts, found the duty suddenly imposed on them not only of devising administrative and fiscal systems universally applicable to a nation hitherto divided into a congeries of semi-independent principalities, but also of shaping the country’s demeanour towards novel problems of foreign intercourse and alien civilization. So long as the heat of their assault upon the shōgunate fused them into a homogeneous party they worked together successfully. ”

“ Pascal, at his best, has mistaken the part for the whole; he charges to the Society what, at the most, are the doings of individuals; and from these he asserts the degeneration of the body from its original standard; whereas the stronger the life and the more extensive the natural development, side by side will exist marks of degeneration; and a society like the Jesuits has no difficulty in asserting its life independently of such excrescences or, in time, in freeing itself from them.
A charge persistently made against the Society is that it teaches that the end justifies the means. ”

“ In moral matters a probable opinion, that is one held on no trivial grounds but by unprejudiced and solid thinkers, has no place where the voice of conscience is clear, distinct and formed.
Two causes have been at work to produce the universal failure of the great Society in all its plans and efforts. First stands its lack of really great intellects. ”