The love of country is more
invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity
that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole
of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power
which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A
portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have
been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with
river and shore. You become the country, and the country becomes a part
of God. Those who love their country, love the vast abstraction, can
almost afford not to love God. She is a beneficence, she is a shield,
something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand;
and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed,
affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the
foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his
land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms
him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal,
sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and
deceit, the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and
pure as the priests who bore the ark, that dare to call themselves
patriots.
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