as we are loyal and obedient.
To-day I know yesterday's short-comings, and to-morrow I shall know
to-day's.... In our occupations we learn whether conduct conforms
to right and so advance in the truth by practice."[BB]

"Besides a few works on history, like the Sankyo Ega Monogatari,
which record facts, there are no books worth reading in our
literature. For the most part they are sweet stories of the
Buddhas, of which one soon wearies. But the evil is traditional,
long-continued, and beyond remedy. And other books are full of
lust, not even to be mentioned, like the Genji Monogatari, which
should never be shown to a woman or a young man. Such books lead to
vice. Our nobles call the Genji Monogatari a national treasure,
why, I do not know, unless it is that they are intoxicated with its
style. That is like plucking the spring blossom unmindful of the
autumn's fruit. The book is full of adulteries from beginning to
end. Seeing the right, ourselves should become good, seeing the
wrong, we should reprove ourselves. The Genji Monogatari, Chokonka,
and Seishoki are of a class, vile, mean, comparable to the books of
the sages as charcoal to ice, as the stench of decay to the perfume
of flowers."[BC]

"To the samurai, first of all is righteousness; next life, then
silver and gold. These last are of value, but some put them in the
place of righteousness. But to the samurai even life is as dirt
compared to righteousness. Until the middle part of the middle ages
customs were comparatively pure, though not really righteous.
Corruption has come only during this period of government by the
samurai. A maid servant in China was made ill with astonishment
when she saw her mistress, soroban (abacus) in hand, arguing prices
and values. So was it once with the samurai. They knew nothing of
trade, were economical and content."[BD]

"Even in the days of my youth, young folks never mentioned the
price of anything; and their faces reddened if the talk was of
women. Their joy was in talk of battles and plans for war. And they
studied how parents and lords should be obeyed, and the duty of
samurai. But nowadays the young men talk of loss and gain, of
dancing girls and harlots and gross pleasures. It is a complete
change from fifty or sixty years ago.... Said Aochi t