“Why is our era one of decadence? Why does the world despise vigor and youth and worthy ambitions and single-mindedness?…How long must this age of effete and the contemptible endure? Or is the worst still to come? Men think only of money and women. Men have forgotten everything that should be becoming to a man. that great shining age of gods and heroes passed away with the Meiji Emperor. Will we ever see its like again?”