Mid Pleasures and Palaces. TO-MORROW.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17786, 10 August 1929, Page 13 (Supplement)

Mid Pleasures and Palaces.

TO-MORROW.

PATRIOTISM FALSE AND TRUE.

(0.5., in Christian Science Monitor.)

THE voice of my travelling companion grew very grave and earnest as we paced the halls of our hotel in Rome. His w r ords, also, were earnest and grave, for he was taking upon himself the always pleasant duty of criticising another for that other’s owm best good. We had been a long time away from home, and our. thoughts had turned back that evening to the great country from which we came —to her noble past, her thrilling present, and her still mysterious and unmanifest but certainly great future. For it is not those w’ho dwell constantly in America who think most fondly, or perhaps even Most Accurately and Justly, of her, but those of her sons and daughters who see and remember her from far away and whose devotion is all the deeper for a temporary separation. I was the more surprised, therefore, to hear myself charged by one whose opinion I felt bound to respect, although certainly not to accept, with an imperfect and declining affection for my native land. “It seems to me,” my companion remarked, “that you regard these foreign countries as superior to your own, and you give one the impression that you think your own America always in the wrong and foreign nations always in the right. I hear you praise this and that in France, Italy, England, and I hear you dispraise much that is American. Sometimes I almost suspect that you feel yourself superior to your countrymen who spend all their days at home.” What a flurry of conflicting thoughts such a charge arouses, leaving one at a loss where to begin one s answ'erl So far as the absurd imputation of egotism was concerned, I might have said, though I did not, that my slight acquaintance with Europe had certainly given me no such triumphant sense of superiority as my companion himself was deriving from the proud consciousness of his Americanism. I made no such rejoinder chiefly because . the assertion that I w'as ceasing to love America awoke a host of vivid memories. Rivers and little streams, towns and villages, friends and acquaintances scattered all the way from. Maine to California, rose before me; names and deeds of American heroes and thinkers and poets who have been my guides and companions since my childhood, passed before me in a flash of thought; I remembered the thousand times duripg recent months that I had longed for home; I recalled as one is certainly entitled to do on such an occasion, that I had expressed by pride in America and my love of her, both in speech and writing, as least as forcibly and as often as my companion himself. How, then, had he gained such an impression of me? His impression arose, ultimately, from the fact that I do find many things in Europe to admire and many things in America that I should like to see changed or improved. I had spoken to him openly of my admiration as to one who I thought would understand, and I had perhaps refrained from praising America as she deserves because there are same things that may be taken for granted by two compatriots. I had not gone through Europe observing every detail in which it differs from America and Finding It Inferior to the extent of that difference. I had assumed that the best thing I could do for America during my sojourn abroad would be to absorb all that I could of w r hat is good in Europe with the intention of carrying it home and setting it to work there. This had seemed to me, in fact, something like. a patriotic duty. And if I found, as I was likely to do, that some few things are better abroad than they are in America, then it was my patriotic duty to see the facts quite clearly, with eyes undimimed

“Is To-day To-morrow, mother?" asked a charming child of three; “And if this is not To-morrow, what day will To-morrow be?” Then —as puzzled and bewildered, grave the mother shook her head—- “ Well, if this is not To-morrow, what day will it be instead?” Little one, whose mystic query wistful peeps from ambered eyes, Dewy still and hazed with slumber, wide with innocent surprise;— Vain thou’lt seek that golden phantom, far upon the radiant way, For Tomorrow flies elusive—while deceived, we grasp To-day.

Glad and free o’er peaks of glory, where hope’s rainbowed splendour gleams, Sandal-shod with gold of marvel, raimented with starry dreams, Still she lures, with songs of conquest, vanishing on some lone height, Trails of gossamer veils soft floating in Today’s pale sober light. Ah! dear little one, thou’rt parting, gay upon a fruitless quest; Thou shait ever, disappointed, clasp To-day unto thy breast; Yet—the wond’rous lights of beauty that round thy To-morrow play Crown thy life with fair illusions—shrine with loveliness To-day. —Mary M. Curchod.

by affection, and even to speak of them on the proper occasions among those whom they concerned. Patriotism, although a simple emotion, is not a simple thing to describe or even to understand. It is of many kinds, some of them admirable and some despicable, some intelligent and others quite the reverse. On the one hand, it is the holy light that has gilded the brows of heroes, and on the other it is, as Dr. Johnson tersely and accurately said, “the last resort of the scoundrel." Patriotism in itself is no more a virtue than any other of the emotions. One of the most searching things ever said of it Is the remark of Edith Cavell: “Patriotism is not enough.” This means, among other things, that it must be Mingled with Intelligence, with broad human charity, with knowledge of other lands Which goes beneath surface appearances, with a determination to see and to speak the faults as well as the virtues of one’s own land. Perhaps the only serious disagreement is that with regard to this last point. There are patriots so exacerbated that any praise of foreign countries is repugnant to them, but more numerous and more intelligent are these to whom any adverse reflection upon their own country seems, when made by a fellow citizen, a sort of infidelity. My companion was of this latter sort. We were talking in the city of Home, where the intense patriotism has been burning for more than two thousand years. The poet Juvenal was a Homan, and he was a lover of Rome, but yet he wrqte that fierce denunciation of the Eternal City which we know as his Third Satire. My companion and I were going in a few days to Florence, which has been as devotedly loved as any place on aerth—and which was almost savagely criticised by Dante, the greatest of her sons and lovers. My companion knew Hebrew literature. Did he forget the fierce attacks launched against their own land and people by the ancient prophets—attacks that were fierce exactly in proportion to the love that actuated them? The fact is, of course, that true patriots do not love their native lands any more than they do their friends, because they think thorn already perfect. What we may say is that they have wished their countries to be perfect, and have striven to make tham so not by idle and superficial praise, but partly by timely criticism. In thinking of these matters one always returns at last to the realisation that patriotism is, as I have said, not a virtue at all, but an emotion, scarcely distinguishable from love of home. Like any other emotion, it must be Controlled, Educated, Disciplined, If it is to serve worthy ends instead of contributing to the embroilment of human society. The important question is not whether this and that person is patriotic, for all normal people are that, but whether he is wisely and intelligently so. When patriotism is intelligent, wise and disciplined, it can do nothing but good, and it will find good in ether countries .with delight, seeing that the people of every nation have their own excellent reasons for patriotic devotion. It will be to all who feel it a source of strength, a devotion that grows stronger with the years and with distance from home. Such a patriotism as this; instead of leading to suspicion and dislike of foreign countries, thereby postponing the federation of the world, tends constantly to draw the nations together. One might even say that one of the best reasons to be given for travel is that it provides an opportunity, at least, for the attainment of this higher patriotism. What better excuse can we give, indeed, for a long sojourn “ ’mid pleasures and palaces” than that it enables us to return home with a devotion to our own land, deepened by knowledge of what is excellent elsewhere and chastened by thoughtful experience?