Later Life
After his time in the army, Yamakawa went into education, becoming school president of the Tokyo Women's Normal School, replacing fellow Aizu native Takamine Hideo. He was also made a member of the House of Peers. In his later years he devoted himself to writing, and put together the text Kyoto Shugoshoku Shimatsu, which was one of the first texts that gave a view of the Aizu domain's actions that was not part of the Meiji oligarchs' triumphalist narrative.
Yamakawa was elevated to the peerage with the title of danshaku under the kazoku system. He died in Tokyo in 1898, and was buried there.
Read more about this topic: Yamakawa Hiroshi
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“[The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)