'"There is all the difference," he said, "between wanton suicide and voluntarily sacrificing one's life for the honour of the nation. Our ideal is to die for one's country rather than bring upon her the disgrace of being taken by the enemy. What can be nobler than that? It is the same as being killed by the enemy. And the missionaries are trying to teach our soldiers that it is wrong. It is a great pity."' --'But that only covers one phase, the method of your education,' said one. --'True, but it covers a good deal!' I said. 'Do you think I can write a big book on Japan at a moment's notice?' --'Well, I will leave you alone then,' said he. --'Every one of the Russian soldiers who returned wounded from the battlefield, when asked the cause of their defeat, said that the Russians were defeated because the Japanese soldiers were great scholars compared to themselves. I have it on good authority,' interposed another. --'Perhaps it looked like that to them,' I answered. VII Some talk on superstition--A remark on earrings--Japanese troops after the war; no fear of Chauvinism--Generals and officers--How the system of the hereditary military service was abolished and the new system was introduced--Its history--Japan after the war--Views given to the American press--Mr. Seppings-Wright and his views on the Japanese character--The Japanese navy and its history--Origin of the shipbuilding yards--The difficulty of a thorough reform in China and Russia--How Japan managed to bring about the consummation of the great reform--The feudal system was a great help--Explanation of the Japanese feudal system and the clans--The re-shuffling of the feudatories under the Tokugawa régime--Difference of grandeur of the feudatories--Exceptional formation of the Satsuma clan--Financial system of the Shogunate --Finance of the Imperial Government at the beginning of the Great Change--How the affairs of the governments of the feudatories were wound up--The old system of taxation--Thorough reform--The old notion of land tenure I found myself once more in a very incongruous group of people whom I had met on various occasions. I noticed a number of them engaged in a lively conversation. --'Ah! Monsieur A.,' said a lady, 'you are acquainted with many Japanese, and have been in contact with them for many years, so that you will be able to explain to me. Some say the Japanese are superstitious, others again say they are not. Which do you think true?' --'I have known,' said Monsieur A., 'some hundreds of the Japanese, mostly young men, of course. They are extremely free from any sort of bias or superstition. I have never known people so unbiassed and so little superstitious.'