In an ongoing electronic-mail dialogue with my No.1 son, today I learned about Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai. It is one of his favorite books. Strangely, it has escaped me so far. As I often do when I stumble upon something new, I searched the World Wide Web. The book is famous, indeed. And so is its author. Yamamoto was born in 1659, when Japan was already long in peace. He had little to do as a retainer. It is not certain when he died, but he is believed to have reached early sixties. He went to a Buddhist monastery in his early forties after the death of his master, Nabeshima Mitsushige. This is where his book was written before he passed away in complete obscurity. Now, I also learned that a couple of years before starting Hagakure Yamamoto wrote Gukensho, loosely translated as “A Collection of Humble Opinions.” A lovely title, this. I found next to nothing about that book, though. It has never become a commercial success. Not surprisingly, this is the book of Yamamoto’s I would like to find.