Volume 37, Number 4 · March 15, 1990
Boys Will Be Boys
By Ian Buruma
The Boy-Man: The Life of Lord Baden-Powell
by Tim Jeal
Morrow, 670 pp., $24.95
In a famous eighteenth-century Japanese document, entitled Hagakure, there is one passage I find particularly arresting. In it the author, an elderly samurai named Yamamoto Jocho, advises his readers, presumably young followers of Bushido, or Way of the Samurai, to always 'carry rouge and powder with one,' for 'after rising in the morning, or after sobering up, we sometimes find that we do not look very good. In such a case we should take out the rouge and put it on.' This, he went on, is especially important when going out to do battle, for one must be beautiful even in death.
Review, 4201 words
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