The Curse of Koshiu: A Chronicle of Old Japan

It was towards the end of the fourteenth century that the grandeur of the Hojo family rose to its acme, then fell with awful crash. The feudal story of the Land of the Rising Su...

Being a cunning and artful reader, you have long since guessed that the pattern maid whose benign influence was destined to reform the brutish No-Kami, was no other than O'Tei,...

The meek obedience of O'Tei to her father's wishes was but ill requited. The gulf between past and present was so wide that for a while she was dazed and stunned. It seemed to h...

With a great sob O'Tei sprang up, and, clinging closely to Sampei, burst into tears, while he, embarrassed and somewhat shy, stood waiting. Why this display of trouble so deep t...

The journey from Tsu to Ki[^y]oto may be made by one in haste, mounted on a strong horse, in two days, but in a land where trade is carried on in perfunctory fashion, time is an...

Tomoyé, the brawny but practical, proved herself more clear-sighted than the statesman-warrior her husband. Hojo, the elder, certainly made the most serious blunder of his life...

Perhaps the Daimio of Nara was right in his prognostications of the probable. Although the lives of a few peasants are to Japanese patricians of but small account, there had bee...

When the slow procession of armed men with a guarded litter in its midst was discerned approaching Tsu, great was the curiosity excited, for though none spoke of him, the absent...

The Daimio was well served by his subordinates. Nothing was omitted which could add impressiveness to the coming rite. The two crosses stood facing the west, gaunt and forbiddin...

It was with feelings strangely mingled that the concourse prepared to depart. For their good, the farmer had suffered martyrdom; himself and his family were swept like insects f...

And Sampei, what of him, under the new _régime_, inaugurated so unexpectedly? Could his mother have delved into his storm-riven soul, she would have won no comfort by her prayer...

What a pity it is that in our odd world the wicked should be so much more clever than the good,--that the combinations of sinners should so easily outwit the simply virtuous. Bu...

The little cavalcade sped swiftly on, for the frost-bound roads were pleasant travelling, and towards evening a dim mass appeared on the horizon, which presaged a fall of snow....

Since the return of Nara from his mysterious excursion, the interior of the sad prison-house of the Mikado was quite lively. The kneeling kugés chirruped like birds; their tall...

Meanwhile affairs at Tsu were not prospering. Sampei, tossed like a shuttlecock, formed, as usual, a dozen resolutions daily, and broke them all. At one moment he was for the fl...

Now it came to pass that after the mental torture she had endured, the soul-racking perplexities, the days of prayer and nights of vigil, the strong frame of the Abbess gave way...

The road by way of the stream was a longer one than that by the street, for the river wound with many a turn and twist, as if loth to reach the sea. It was no more than a path,...

When the panic-stricken servants rushed into the castle with their appalling tale, there was general consternation. They had been attacked, they swore, by a band of at least fif...

Typhoon was the best charger in the Daimio's stable, and worthy of his name; but this was his last journey. He was so hard pressed by his frantic master, that at the castle gate...