m death. For five
years Hiros['e] had been a naval attach['e] at St. Petersburg, and had
made many friends in Russian naval and military circles. From boyhood
his life had been devoted to study and duty; and it was commonly said
of him that he had no particle of selfishness in his nature. Unlike
most of his brother officers, he remained unmarried,--holding that
no man who might be called on at any moment to lay down his life for
his country had a moral right to marry. The only amusements in which
he was ever known to indulge were physical exercises; and he was
acknowledged one of the best _j[=u]jutsu_ (wrestlers) in the empire.
The heroism of his death, at the age of thirty-six, had much less to
do with the honors paid to his memory than the self-denying heroism of
his life.

Now his picture is in thousands of homes, and his name is celebrated
in every village. It is celebrated also by the manufacture of
various souvenirs, which are sold by myriads. For example, there
is a new fashion in sleeve-buttons, called _Kinen-botan_, or
"Commemoration-buttons." Each button bears a miniature portrait of
the commander, with the inscription, _Shichi-sh[=o] h[=o]koku_, "Even
in seven successive lives--for love of country." It is recorded that
Hiros['e] often cited, to friends who criticised his ascetic devotion
to duty, the famous utterance of Kusunoki Masashig['e], who declared,
ere laying down his life for the Emperor Go-Daigo, that he desired to
die for his sovereign in seven successive existences.

But the highest honor paid to the memory of Hiros['e] is of a sort now
possible only in the East, though once possible also in the West, when
the Greek or Roman patriot-hero might be raised, by the common love of
his people, to the place of the Immortals.... Wine-cups of porcelain
have been made, decorated with his portrait; and beneath the portrait
appears, in ideographs of gold, the inscription, _Gunshin Hiros['e]
Ch[=u]sa_. The character "gun" signifies war; the character "_shin_"
a god,--either in the sense of _divus_ or _deus_, according to
circumstances; and the Chinese text, read in the Japanese way, is
_Ikusa no Kami_. Whether that stern and valiant spirit is really
invoked by the millions who believe that no brave soul is doomed to
extinction, no well-spent life laid down in vain, no heroism cast
away, I do not know. But, in any event, human affection and gratitude
can go no farther than this; and it must be confessed that