Patriotism (1-2)

It is a truism with no pretensions to novelty that there is nothing sweeter than one’s country. Does that imply that, though there is nothing pleasanter, there may be something grander or more divine? Why, of all that men reckon grand and divine their country is the source and teacher, originating, developing, inculcating. For great and brilliant and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their own all men have love. No man—not the most enthusiastic sightseer that ever was—is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.

He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty or markets; but when it is a matter of choosing a country, no one would exchange his own for one more glorious; he may wish that his own resembled those more highly blest, but he will choose it, defects and all.