be as lofty as the firmament of heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself. CHARLES SUMNER. LVIII. PATRIOTISM 1. Right and wrong, justice and crime, exist independently of our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and do the right, and the nation is but an aggregation of citizens. If a man should shout, "My country, by whatever means extended and bounded; my country, right or wrong!" he merely repeats the words of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who swears falsely at the custom house, both of them chuckling, "My fortune, however acquired." 2. Thus, we see that a man's country is not a certain area of land-of mountains, rivers, and woods- but it is principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. 3. In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm, this feeling becomes closely associated with the soil and 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 symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture the glove of his mistress and wears a lock of her hair upon his heart. 4. 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 country. So Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that his country demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than God and the satisfied sense of duty. So George Washington, at once compre hending the scope of the destiny to which his country was devoted, with one hand puts aside the crown, and with the other sets his slaves free. 5. 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 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 of humanity, strong only in their confidence in their cause. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. LIX. THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY 1. Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was in the "Legion of the West," as the western division of our army was then called. When Aaron Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New Orleans, he met this gay, bright young fellow. Burr marked him, talked to him, walked with him, took him a day or two's voyage in his flatboat, and, in short, fascinated him. Under this baneful influence poor Nolan became sick of the service, and in time turned traitor to his country. He was tried before a court martial for treason, and found guilty enough; yet you and I would never have heard of him, reader, but that when the president of the court asked him if he wished to say anything to show that he had always been faithful to the United States, he cried out in a fit of frenzy: 2. "Curse the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" 3. I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his madness. 4. Old Morgan was, indeed, terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, "God save King George," Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the court into his private room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like a sheet, to say: 5. "Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court! The Court decides, subject to the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the United States again." 6. Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. 7. Then Morgan added: "Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and deliver him to the naval commander there." The marshal gave his orders, and the prisoner was taken out of court. 8. "Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, "see that no one mentions the United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one shall mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board ship. The Court is adjourned without day." 9. President Jefferson approved the sentence of the court, and Philip Nolan was a man without a country. The secretary of the navy was requested to put him on board a government vessel, and to direct that under no circumstances was the prisoner ever to hear of his country or to see any information regarding it. Otherwise he had the freedom of the ship on which he was confined. No mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home, or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. 10. As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, even though the vessel lay in port for months, his time at the best hung heavy; and everybody was permitted to lend him books, if they were not published in America and made no allusion to it. He had almost all the foreign papers that came into the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that alluded to America. Among these books was the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. Nobody thought there could be any risk of anything national in that, so Nolan was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when a lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. II. Well, it so happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to the others; and he read very well. No one in the circle knew a line of the poem, only it was all magic and Border chivalry, and was ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto, stopped a minute and drank something, and then began, without a thought of what was coming "Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said". 12. It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this for the first time; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on "This is my own, my native land!" 13. Then they all saw that something was to pay; but he expected to get through, I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on 14. By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was any way to make him turn over two pages; but he had not quite presence of mind for that; he colored crimson, and staggered on "For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, slung the book into the sea, vanished into his stateroom, and we did not see him again for two months. 15. He never read aloud again unless it was the Bible or Shakespeare, or something else he was sure of. But it was not that merely. He never entered in with the other young men exactly as a companion again. He was always shy afterward, very seldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except to a very few friends. 16. A happier story than this one I have told is of the war which came along soon after. In one of the great frigate duels with the English, it happened that a round shot from the enemy entered one of our ports square, and took right down the officer of the gun himself, and almost every man of the gun's crew. Now you may say what you choose about courage, but that is not a nice thing to see. But, as the men who were not killed picked themselves up, and as they and the surgeon's people were carrying off the bodies, there appeared Nolan, in his shirt sleeves, with the rammer in his hand; and, just as if he |