Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/265

 sight, and wise judgment, she brought up her children admirably, and despite her own fierce ruthlessness towards a female rival, she spared no pains to soften the rude, sanguinary ways of military feudalism in the Kamakura epoch. In later life, when she passed through Kyōtō after worshipping at the shrines of Kumano, the ex-Emperor conferred on her a rank seldom won even by the most prominent statesman, and asked her to visit him, but she ridiculed the idea, declaring that though a rustic like her might go to pray at a shrine, she had no place in courts and among courtiers. If women could attain to such distinction in spite of the taint of irregular sexual connections and often by their aid, virtue might well cease to be esteemed. It goes without saying that incontinence was not counted a disgraceful feature in the life of a good man. The Emperor Ichijo, who lived in the midst of most sensuous surroundings and was himself a slave to an extra-marital affection, nevertheless had sufficient nobility of character to pass a winter's night in an almost nude condition in order that he might be able to sympathise fully with the sufferings of the poor. There was, indeed, a much lower depth of immorality to which men had learned to descend in that epoch, unnatural love. To the everlasting disgrace of the Buddhist priesthood, that vice had the sanction of their practice, and no condemnations of it are found in the literature of the time. All these circumstances prepare the