He is gone from us! Yet shall we march on victorious, With face to the stars, and all heaven in the soul! The sword of life sheath'd in the peace of the grave: Than live like the coward, and die like the slave! GLOSSARY. Cranmer. STUDY. It does not matter whether the poet had some definite individual in mind or not. There are many persons who desert a good cause the moment there is danger or inconvenience. Why is it better that the deserter is gone? How do lines 5 to 8 suggest the unfitness of the deserter for a place with those who stand for principle? Will the desertion weaken the cause? How shall "we march on victorious" if ". we fall fighting"? What is the attitude of mind stirred by the last four lines? Are you in sympathy with the last two lines? Compare this conclusion with that in Arnold's "The Last Word." There are some fine figurative passages in this poem; point them out. 10 15 PATRIOTISM GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS Patriotism, or the peculiar relation of an individual to his country, is like the family instinct. In the child it is blind devotion; in the man an intelligent love. The patriot perceives the claim made upon his country by the circumstances and time of her growth and power, and how God is to be served by using those opportunities of helping mankind. Therefore his country's honor is dear to him as his own, and he would as soon lie and steal himself as assist or excuse his country in a crime. Right and Wrong, Justice and Crime, exist independently of our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any 10 citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and to do the right, and the nation is but an aggregation of citizens. If a man shout, "My country, by whatever means extended and bounded; my country, right or wrong," he merely utters words such as those 15 might be of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who swears falsely at the customhouse, both of them chuckling, "My fortune, however acquired." Thus, gentlemen, we see that a man's country is not an area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle: 20 and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm this feeling becomes closely associated with the soil and the symbols of the country. But the secret sanctification of the soil and the symbol is the idea which they represent, and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the 25 symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture the glove of his mistress and wears a lock of her hair upon his heart. So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to his 30 country; so Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that his country demands, perishes untimely, with the sense of duty done and of God as his friend. So, through all history from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So through all history to the 35 end, as long as men believe in God, that army must still march and fight and fall; recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope for humanity, strong only in their confidence in their cause. Yet through the ages of the combat the mistress, beloved as 40 with human affection, of whom poets sing, for whom heroes die, is still unseen and her voice unheard. But in some happy hour of bivouac the musing soldier hears the hum of cities and inland mills, sees golden harvests waving out of sight, sees men and women walking and working, parents and children of freemen, 45 and bending over all the benediction of the summer sky; and the musing soldier of that great army knows that he sees and hears, as they can only be seen and heard, the face and the voice of the mistress he loves and worships. . Remember that the greatness of our country is not in the greatness of its achievement, but in its promise-a promise that 50 cannot be fulfilled without that sovereign moral sense, without a sensitive national conscience. If it were a question of the mere daily pleasure of living, the gratification of taste, opportunity of access to the great intellectual and æsthetic results of human genius and whatever embellishes human life, no man could hesitate 55 a moment between the fullness of foreign lands in these respects and the conspicuous poverty of our own. What have we done? We have subdued and settled a vast domain. We have made every inland river turn a mill, and wherever on the dim rim of the globe there is a harbor, we have lighted it with an American 60 sail. We have bound the Atlantic to the Mississippi, so that we drift from the prairies upon a cloud of vapor; and we are stretching one hand across the continent to fulfill the hope of Columbus in a shorter way to Cathay, and with the other we are groping under the sea to clasp there the hand of the old continent, that 65 so the throbbing of the ocean may not toss us farther apart, but be as the beating of one common pulse of the world. Yet these are results common to all national enterprise, and different with us only in degree, not in kind. These are but the tools with which to shape a destiny. Commercial prosperity is 70 only a curse if it be not subservient to moral and intellectual progress, and our prosperity will conquer us if we do not conquer our prosperity. . . The whole of patriotism for us seems to consist at the present moment in the maintenance of this public moral tone. No voice 75 of self-glorification, no complacent congratulation that we are the greatest, wisest, and best of nations, will help our greatness or our goodness in the smallest degree. History and mankind do not take men or nations at their own valuation, and a man no longer secures instant respect by announcing himself an American. 80 Are we satisfied that America should have no other excuse for independent national existence than a superior facility of money making? Shall it have no national justification to the intellect and the heart? Does the production of twelve hundred million 85 pounds of cotton fulfill the destiny of this continent in the order of providence? Why, if we are unfaithful as a nation, though our population were to double in a year, and the roar and rush of our vast machinery were to silence the music of the spheres, and our wealth were enough to buy all the world, our population 90 could not bully history, nor all our riches bribe the eternal Justice not to write upon us, as with fiery finger the autumn is beginning even now to write upon the woods and fields, "Ichabod! the glory is departed!" Ichabod! Surrounded by unequaled opportunities, let us use them as 95 God inspires. Be faithful, be brave, be bold; neither deluded by the hope of easy success nor disheartened by the long delay. We shall die, and our children's children, and yet the end not be. But be cheered by the great aim and by the great spirit in which you serve it. Live to justify your own hope and the vision of all 100 noble minds. From "Orations and Addresses." GLOSSARY. Aggregation; sanctification; Arnold von Winkelried; Nathan Hale; bivouac; Cathay; Ichabod. STUDY. Answer the following points by reading passages. What is the meaning of patriotism as set forth in this speech? In what way is it broader and deeper than what many have in mind by that term? In what way does this high notion of patriotism become synonymous with our common definition as "loyalty to country"? What typical patriots and patriotic acts are given as illustrations? Were they all patriots in the larger or smaller sense? Explain. Is the point made here in any sense like the ideal suggested in "The Deserter from the Cause"? In what does the speaker say the greatness of our country consists? What danger is there in our commercial prosperity? Explain what he means by “public moral tone.” To what are we exhorted in the last paragraph? (This selection is a splendid protest against that spurious patriotism for which the word "jingoism" is a proper term.) Our country is the world—our countrymen are all mankind. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS Born, at Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824. His hair and beard were a beautiful silver-gray, his face was pale, his manner studied, his voice cultivated. It was as enjoyable to hear him as to listen to an opera, and was a lesson in grand manners and elocution. His voice, like his manners and appearance on the platform, was ideal-clear, bell-like, silvery. 5 He could be heard in the largest of halls without apparently any special effort. It was a delight to listen; every syllable was distinct, yet there was no strain. The enunciation was perfect. The matter of his speeches was like the sound, perfect in sense, clear in meaning, as graceful as the speaking, and always carrying 10 the sense of conviction to the hearers. JAMES B. POND. That which always struck me as his strongest characteristic was his common sense. His judgment was almost unerring, and his tact was marvelous. His mind seemed never closed to a new suggestion. If it had force, he recognized it immediately; if 15 not, he put it aside with such gentle but conclusive refutation that its author was almost glad not to have it accepted. High as was the standard of his own thinking and living, he was of all men the least censorious. Easily superior in mental gifts and accomplishments, in that personal attractiveness which is the 20 genius of character, he never showed that he was conscious of it. His associates in the League (Civil Service Reform) felt that he was the natural leader; but among them, while most effectively leading, he seemed to be only the most hearty and generous of comrades. SHERMAN S. ROGERS. When we review such a career as that which in all that was earthly has just closed, the considerate ask: "What has he left?” It is a question not difficult to answer; the readiest reply is that 25 |