force which Montesquieu named Honor." Indeed, the sense of shame seems
to me to be the earliest indication of the moral consciousness of our
race. The first and worst punishment which befell humanity in
consequence of tasting "the fruit of that forbidden tree" was, to my
mind, not the sorrow of childbirth, nor the thorns and thistles, but the
awakening of the sense of shame. Few incidents in history excel in
pathos the scene of the first mother plying with heaving breast and
tremulous fingers, her crude needle on the few fig leaves which her
dejected husband plucked for her. This first fruit of disobedience
clings to us with a tenacity that nothing else does. All the sartorial
ingenuity of mankind has not yet succeeded in sewing an apron that will
efficaciously hide our sense of shame. That samurai was right who
refused to compromise his character by a slight humiliation in his
youth; "because," he said, "dishonor is like a scar on a tree, which
time, instead of effacing, only helps to enlarge."

Mencius had taught centuries before, in almost the identical phrase,
what Carlyle has latterly expressed,--namely, that "Shame is the soil of
all Virtue, of good manners and good morals."

The fear of disgrace was so great that if our literature lacks such
eloquence as Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Norfolk, it nevertheless
hung like Damocles' sword over the head of every samurai and often
assumed a morbid character. In the name of Honor, deeds were perpetrated
which can find no justification in the code of Bushido. At the
slightest, nay, imaginary insult, the quick-tempered braggart took
offense, resorted to the use of the sword, and many an unnecessary
strife was raised and many an innocent life lost. The story of a
well-meaning citizen who called the attention of a bushi to a flea
jumping on his back, and who was forthwith cut in two, for the simple