The Regimen of the Voluntary Nobility

of the things that the samurai are obliged to do.

There would be many precise directions regarding his health, and rules that would aim at once at health and that constant exercise of will that makes life good. Save in specified exceptional circumstances, the samurai must bathe in cold water, and the men must shave every day; they have the precisest directions in such matters; the body must be in health, the skin and muscles and nerves in perfect tone, or the samurai must go to the doctors of the order, and give implicit obedience to the regimen prescribed. They must sleep alone at least four nights in five; and they must eat with and talk to anyone in their fellowship who cares for their conversation for an hour, at least, at the nearest club-house of the samurai once on three chosen days in every week. Moreover, they must read aloud from the Book of the Samurai for at least ten minutes every day. Every month they must buy and read faithfully through at least one book that has been published during the past five years, and the only intervention with private choice in that matter is the prescription of a certain minimum of length for the monthly book or books. But the full Rule in these minor compulsory matters is voluminous and detailed, and it abounds with alternatives. Its aim is rather to keep before the samurai by a number of sample duties, as it were, the need of, and some of the chief methods towards health of body and mind, rather than to provide a comprehensive rule, and to ensure the maintenance of a community of feeling and interests among the samurai through habit, intercourse, and a living contemporary literature. These minor obligations do not earmark more than an hour in the day. Yet they serve to break down isolations of sympathy, all sorts of physical and intellectual sluggishness and the development of unsocial preoccupations of many sorts.

Notes:

The samurai must speak with other Samurai to fend off "unsocial preoccupations" and "intellectual sluggishness" among other duties.

Folksonomies: voluntary nobility

Keywords:
samurai (0.912371 (negative:-0.043221)), unsocial preoccupations (0.730001 (negative:-0.516548)), minor compulsory matters (0.669013 (neutral:0.000000)), intellectual sluggishness (0.641416 (negative:-0.492112)), exceptional circumstances (0.569960 (positive:0.204062)), implicit obedience (0.565915 (positive:0.294793)), constant exercise (0.565080 (positive:0.832536)), nearest club-house (0.562420 (negative:-0.265687)), precise directions (0.561612 (positive:0.763952)), perfect tone (0.561487 (positive:0.399608)), cold water (0.559803 (neutral:0.000000)), minor obligations (0.554087 (negative:-0.396380)), precisest directions (0.553707 (neutral:0.000000)), certain minimum (0.550291 (neutral:0.000000)), private choice (0.546019 (neutral:0.000000)), sample duties (0.545074 (neutral:0.000000)), comprehensive rule (0.543324 (positive:0.424343)), monthly book (0.542024 (neutral:0.000000)), chief methods (0.541005 (positive:0.370246)), contemporary literature (0.540688 (positive:0.266242)), health (0.508657 (positive:0.587432)), body (0.453254 (positive:0.376621)), isolations (0.444708 (negative:-0.672900)), regimen (0.441625 (positive:0.294793)), nerves (0.437238 (positive:0.399608)), muscles (0.435061 (positive:0.399608)), intercourse (0.434389 (neutral:0.000000)), sympathy (0.434271 (negative:-0.672900)), things (0.431402 (positive:0.326163)), feeling (0.429557 (positive:0.484332))

Concepts:
Muscle (0.910089): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Reading (0.873744): dbpedia | freebase
Matter (0.846553): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 A Modern Utopia
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Wells, H.G. (2004), A Modern Utopia, Project Gutenberg, New York, NY, Retrieved on 2010-11-01
  • Source Material [www.gutenberg.org]
  • Folksonomies: centrism utopias


    Schemas

    23 MAR 2013

     Mental Discipline

    Memes on mental discipline, from fictional characters to scientific virtues.
     16