manner if it be produced in
the circle of their acquaintances.

It is needless to add that, if it touches them directly, it becomes an
unparalleled calamity; it seems that the rest of the world must be
troubled by it.

This propensity toward pitying oneself unreasonably about little things
which relate to one directly and this exaggerated development of a
sterile sentimentality are almost always artificial, and the instinct of
self-preservation very often aids in their extermination.

"Among my old disciples," pursues the Shogun, "I had a friend whose son
was afflicted by this kind of sentimentality, the sight of blood made him
faint and he was incapable of aiding any one whomsoever; that which he
called his good heart, and which was only a form of egotistical
sentimentality, prevented him from looking at the suffering of others.

"One day, a terrible earthquake destroyed his palace; he escaped, making
his way through the ruins and roughly pushing aside the wounded who told
about it afterward.

"I saw him some days after; instead of reproaching him severely for his
conduct, I endeavored to make him see how false was his conception of
pity, since, not only had he not fainted at the sight of those who,
half-dead, were groaning, but he had found in the egotistical sentiment
of self-preservation the strength to struggle against those who clung to
him, beseeching him for help.

"I demonstrated to him the evident contradiction of his instinctive
cruelty to the sentimentality that it pleased him to make public.

"I made an appeal to common sense, in order to prove to him the attitude
which he had, until then, assumed, and I had the joy of seeing myself
understood.

"My arguments appealed to his mentality, and always afterward, when he
had the opportunity to bring puerile sentimentality and common sense face
to face, he forced himself to appeal to that quality, which in revealing
to him the artifice of the sentiment which animated him, cured him of
false sensibility, which he had displayed up to that time."

Sentimentality is in reality only a conception of egotism, under the
different forms which it adopts.

Yoritomo proves it to us again, in speaking of the weakness of certain
teachers, who, under the pretext of avoiding trouble, allow their
children to follow their defective inclinations.

"It is by an instinctive hatred of effort that parents forbid themselves
to make their children cry when reprimanding them,"