Yet, with all his tolerance, he did not care to trust the new prime minister too much. He lacked confidence in his ability and remained not at all sanguine as to his motives; still he would not let any man's preferment stand between him and his shogun's government. Loyalty was his watchword, and honour, as measured by feudal standards, his virtue; neither of which, from his way of thinking, could possibly be attained outside of the shogunate. Position he had; for wealth he cared not. His friends he worshipped; to his enemies he gave no quarter. He lived for the love of living, and believed the mode made right the result. So far as he knew his own advancement had come more as a matter of consequence than as a reward for effort. He considered himself amenable to established law, and such a thing as a shogun's wrong-doing had no place in the mind of Tetsutaisho. CHAPTER XXXIII THE RISE OF SHIBUSAWA The untimely death of Ikamon caused little regret, even at Tokyo; no attempt was made to apprehend his murderers, and Daikomitsu settled down, satisfied in the enjoyment of his emoluments. Shibusawa remained without his sphere and Takara soon ceased to supersede the ease and comfort flowing from official complaisance. The new policy encouraged quietude, but lacked stability, and only, perhaps, Shibusawa fathomed the true cause for unrest. Yet, being unprepared, he could take no part in its effective solution. Like his father before him he had held himself aloof as much as possible from the turmoils of state, devoting his energies to internal security and improvement; not because of seeking to shirk his duties, but that he might better prepare himself for the responsibilities. He knew in his own heart that from the day Perry's guns first sounded in the harbour the foreigner had secured a permanent foothold, and that with him he had brought a new life, the introduction of which meant more to them than all the family quarrels and local measures of all the centuries that had gone before. Not only this, but he saw that in adapting themselves to the new relations feudalism must go, and with it there would and should fall some of the evil tendencies of the day; none disapproved by him more than that of class limitation upon marriage. He had come to believe the home the foundation of all organised society, and held that as it harmonised the affinities of life so government should make possible the highest beauties consistent with universality; and as time went on repeated confirmations of his views so strengthened his belief that he began to search for a means of absorbing as much of the new civilisation as might be forced upon them, or as should seem beneficial, without losing in any measure their own autonomy. Finally he had abandoned all hope in the shogunate and, in consequence, begun to look toward the mikadate. It seemed his only natural alternative; possibly the most logical one.