Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

Righteousness, then, is the true path, and righteousness is the avoidance
of all that is imperfect. If a man avoids that which is imperfect, there
is no need to point out how dearly he will be beloved by all his fellows.
Hence it is that the ancients have defined righteousness as that which
ought to be—that which is fitting. If a man be a retainer, it is good that
he should perform his service to his lord with all his might. If a woman
be married, it is good that she should treat her parents-in-law with filial
piety, and her husband with reverence. For the rest, whatever is good,
that is righteousness and the true path of man.
The duty of man has been compared by the wise men of old to a high
road. If you want to go to Yedo or to Nagasaki, if you want to go out to
the front of the house or to the back of the house, if you wish to go into
the next room or into some closet or other, there is a right road to each of
these places: if you do not follow the right road, scrambling over the
roofs of houses and through ditches, crossing mountains and desert
places, you will be utterly lost and bewildered. In the same way, if a man
does that which is not good, he is going astray from the high road. Filial
piety in children, virtue in wives, truth among friends—but why enumerate
all these things, which are patent?—all these are the right road,
and good; but to grieve parents, to anger husbands, to hate and to breed
hatred in others, these are all bad things, these are all the wrong road. To
follow these is to plunge into rivers, to run on to thorns, to jump into
ditches, and brings thousands upon ten thousands of disasters. It is true
that, if we do not pay great attention, we shall not be able to follow the
right road. Fortunately, we have heard by tradition the words of the
learned Nakazawa Dôni: I will tell you about that, all in good time.
It happened that, once, the learned Nakazawa went to preach at Ikéda,
in the province of Sesshiu, and lodged with a rich family of the lower
class. The master of the house, who was particularly fond of sermons,
entertained the preacher hospitably, and summoned his daughter, a girl
some fourteen or fifteen years old, to wait upon him at dinner. This
young lady was not only extremely pretty, but also had charming manners;
so she arranged bouquets of flowers, and made tea, and played
upon the harp, and laid herself out to please the learned man by singing
songs. The preacher thanked her parents for all this, and said—
"Really, it must be a very difficult thing to educate a young lady up to
such a pitch as this."
The parents, carried away by their feelings, replied—
"Yes; when she is married, she will hardly bring shame upon her
husband's family. Besides what she did just now, she can weave
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