Part 42

"All around it were a few miserable huts, the shelter of some peasants whose business it was to gather the reeds from the borders, weaving them into large baskets to be sold afterward in the neighboring country.

"Little by little twilight descended, slowly enveloping all things in a mist of ashy gray, and vapors arose from afar over the stagnant water.

"The man from the city trembled, believing that he recognized fantoms in this moving vapor; he sought to flee, but, unfamiliar with the locality, he ran along the side of the swamp without finding the end of it.

"Exhausted from fatigue and trembling with fear, he resolved to knock at one of the cabins.

"He was welcomed by a basket-maker, to whom he related his fright, adding that he was unable to understand how this man found the courage to live in a place haunted in such a terrible way.

"The peasant smiled and explained to the man, whose intellectual culture was, however, infinitely superior to his own, by what phenomenon of evaporation these mirages were produced.

"He demonstrated to him that these fantoms were only harmless vapors, and the city man admired the knowledge which common sense had taught the ignorant one."

And Yoritomo concluded:

"This peasant gave there a proof of what self-control allied to common sense can do.

"Instead of allowing himself to be influenced by appearances, he confined himself to reflection, and observation aided by attention led him to a deduction resting on truth.

"The essential factor of control is cool-headedness, which permits of seeing things in their true light, and forbids us to gild them or to darken them, according to our state of mind at the time."

The Shogun adds:

"Fear, hideous fear, is a sentiment unknown to those whose soul communes with self-control and common sense.

"The first of these qualities will produce a fixt resolution tending to calmness, at the same time that it makes a powerful appeal to cool-headedness, which permits of reflection.

"Fear is always the confession of a weakness which disavows struggle and wishes to ignore the name of adversary.

"Cool-headedness is the evanescent examination of forces, either physical or intellectual, with reference to supposed danger.

"Without self-control cool-headedness can not exist; but it only develops completely under the influence of common sense which dictates to it the reasons for its existence.

"Cool-headedness, by leaving us our liberty of thought, enlightens us undoubtedly on the nature of danger, at the same time that it suggests to us the way to avoid it, if it really exists.

"There can not be a question of fear for those who possess the faculties of which we have just spoken, for it is well known that, from the moment when the cause of fear is defined it ceases to exist; it becomes stupid illusion or a real enemy.

"In the one case, as in the other, it ought not to excite anxiety any longer, but contempt or the desire to fight it.

"For those whose mind is not yet strong enough to resolve on one or other of these decisions it will be well to take up again the argument indicated in the preceding pages, and to say:

"Either the object of my fear really exists, and, in this case, I must determine its nature exactly, in order to use the proper means first to combat it and then to conquer it.

"Or it is only an illusion, and I am going to seek actively for that which produces it, in order never again to fall into the error of which my senses have just been the dupes."

Looking over these manuscripts, so rich in valuable advice, we find once more the following lines:

"Self-control and cool-headedness are above all necessary to aid in dissimulating impressions.

"It is very bad to allow one of the speakers in a dialog to read the mind of him who speaks to him like an open book.

"He whose thoughts are imprest vividly on the surface is always placed at a glaring disadvantage.

"The thought of glorifying hypocrisy is far from our minds, for it has nothing to do with the attitude which we recommend.