Europe has shown
what European ideas can accomplish; and whatever fresh thought or impulse
comes to birth in it can be nothing else than an American thought and
impulse, and must sooner or later find its way here, and become
naturalized with its brethren. Buds and blossoms of America are sprouting
forth all over the Old World, and we gather in the fruit. They do not find
themselves at home there, but they know where their home is. The old
country feels them like thorns in her old flesh, and is gladly rid of
them; but such prickings are the only wholesome and hopeful symptoms she
presents; if they ceased to trouble her, she would be dead indeed. She has
an uneasy experience before her, for a time; but the time will come when
she, too, will understand that her ease is her disease, and then Castle
Garden may close its doors, for America will be everywhere.
If, then, America is something vastly more than has hitherto been
understood by the word nation, it is proper that we attach to that other
word, patriotism, a significance broader and loftier than has been
conceived till now. By so much as the idea that we represent is great, by
so much are we, in comparison with it, inevitably chargeable with
littleness and short-comings.
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