When you sing "My country, 'tis of thee," you do not mean, "My
post-office, 'tis of thee," nor yet, "My fellow citizens, 'tis of you,
just as the creatures who crowd the street and who overfill the railway
cars," that I sing. If the poet continues in his own song to celebrate
the land, the "rocks and rills," the "woods and templed hills," he is
still speaking only of symbols. What he means is the country as an
invisible but, in his opinion, perfectly real spiritual unity. General
Nogi, in a recent Japanese publication about Bushido, expressed his own
national ideal beautifully in the words: "Here the sovereign and the
people are of one family and have together endured the joys and sorrows
of thousands of years." It is that sort of being whereof one speaks when
one expresses true loyalty to the country. The country is the spiritual
entity that is none of us and all of us--none of us because it is our
unity; all of us because in it we all find our patriotic unity.
Such, then, is the idea that the loyal have of the real nature of the
causes which they serve.
Pages:
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666