V.
THE HARA-KIRI.
THE Hara-kiri is a universal custom, for there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it masters the fear of death. So said Lord Bacon; and he illustrates his text, as also does Barton, in his “Anatomy,” with many notable examples of revenge triumphing over death, love slighting it, honor aspiring to it, grief flying to it, fear ignoring it, and even pity, the tenderest of affections, provoking to it. When Otho the Emperor committed suicide, many out of sheer compassion that such a sovereign should have renounced life, killed themselves. Indeed it requires no strong passion to take the terrors out of death, for we know how frequently suicides have left behind them, as the only reason for their act, that they were “tired of life,” weary perhaps, of an existence monotonous with poverty or sickness, or even simply borne down by the mere tedious repetition of uneventful days. In spite, however, of the .multitude of examples which past history and the records of our own every-day life afford, that death wears for many of all classes and both sexes a by no means fearful aspect, the human mind recoils from the prospect of digging, as it were, one’s own grave, and shudders at the thought of being the executioner of one’s own body.
Apologists have, however, been found for suicide, not
