A.H.M.
THE ROYAL RECITER.
PREFATORY.
True Patriotism is the outcome of National home-feeling and
self-respect.
Home-feeling is born of the loving associations and happy memories
which belong to individual and National experience; self-respect is
the result of a wise and modest contemplation of personal or National
virtues.
The man who does not respect himself is not likely to command the
respect of others. And the Nation which takes no pride in its history
is not likely to make a history of which it can be proud.
But self-respect involves self-restraint, and no man who wishes to
retain his own respect and to merit the respect of others would think
of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor
would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the
eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or
shout itself hoarse in the exuberance of vainglory.
Patriotism is not to be measured by ostentation any more than truth
is to be estimated by volubility.
The history of England is full of incidents in which her children may
well take an honest pride, and no one need be debarred from taking a
pride in them because there are other incidents which fill them with
a sense of shame.
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