Bushido: The Soul of Japan

Inazo Nitobe

Mar 2013 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution. It is a pleasure to me to reflect upon this subject in the language of Burke, who uttered the well-known touching eulogy over the neglected bier of its European prototype.

About the author

Educator, cultural interpreter, and civil servant, Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933) was one of the earliest and most famous of the Japanese Quakers. Hoping to serve as a "bridge" between Japan and the West, he studied in the US and in Germany. Nitobe's numerous writings in English made him the best known Japanese writer in the West during his lifetime.