"Chivalry is itself the poetry of life."

--SCHLEGEL,

_Philosophy of History_.



PREFACE


About ten years ago, while spending a few days under the hospitable roof
of the distinguished Belgian jurist, the lamented M. de Laveleye, our
conversation turned, during one of our rambles, to the subject of
religion. "Do you mean to say," asked the venerable professor, "that you
have no religious instruction in your schools?" On my replying in the
negative he suddenly halted in astonishment, and in a voice which I
shall not easily forget, he repeated "No religion! How do you impart
moral education?" The question stunned me at the time. I could give no
ready answer, for the moral precepts I learned in my childhood days,
were not given in schools; and not until I began to analyze the
different elements that formed my notions of right and wrong, did I find
that it was Bushido that breathed them into my nostrils.

The direct inception of this little book is due to the frequent queries
put by my wife as to the reasons why such and such ideas and customs
prevail in Japan.

In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to M. de Laveleye and to my
wife, I found that without understanding Feudalism and Bushido,[1] the