It Is A Rather Risky Matter To

The Images Which The [press] Photographer Has Filtered From Reality, Whether Particular Events Or The Anguish Of Human Reactions To Them, Already Bear A Stamp Of Authenticity Which The Photographer Is Powerless To Alter By One Jot Or Tittle; The Meaning Of The Objects, By A Process Of Purification, Itself Becomes The Theme Of The Work.

We Live In An Age In Which There Is No Heroic Death.

We Tend To Suffer From The Illusion That We Are Capable Of Dying For A Belief Or Theory. What Hagakure Is Insisting Is That Even In Merciless Death, A Futile Death That Knows Neither Flower Nor Fruit Has Dignity As The Death Of A Human Being. If We Value So Highly The Dignity Of Life, How Can We Not Also Value The Dignity Of Death? No Death May Be Called Futile.

Let Us Remember That The Central Reality Must Be Sought In The Writer's Work: It Is What The Writer Chose To Write, Or Was Compelled To Write, That Finally Matters. And Certainly Mishima's Carefully Premeditated Death Is Part Of His Work.

The Purest Evil That Human Efforts Could Attain, In Other Words, Was Probably Achieved By Those Men Who Made Their Wills The Same And Who Made Their Eyes See The World In The Same Way, Men Who Went Against The Pattern Of Life's Diversity, Men Whose Spirits Shattered The Natural Wall Of The Individual Body, Making Nothing Of This Barrier, Set Up To Guard Against Mutual Corrosion, Men Whose Spirit Accomplished What Flesh Could Never Accomplish.