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:
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Oh sure, everyone goes back to the earth at some point, but life itself is a thread that is never broken, never lost. Do you know why? Because each man makes a knot in the thread during his lifetime: it is the work he has done and that’s what gives life to life in the long stretch of time: the usefulness of man on this earth.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)