PATRIOTISM.--Patriotism, or love of country, is a sentiment which pervades
almost every human breast, and induces each individual to prefer the land
of his birth, not because it is better than another country, but merely
because it is his country. This sentiment may be illustrated by a variety
of anecdotes. Many of the Swiss, on account of the poverty of their
country, are induced to seek military service in foreign lands. Yet, in
their voluntary exile, so strong is their affection for their native
hills, that whole regiments have been said to be on the point of
desertion, in consequence of the vivid recollections excited by one of
their national songs. A French writer informs us that a native of one of
the Asiatic isles, amid the splendours of Paris, beholding a banana-tree
in the Garden of Plants, bathed it with tears, and seemed for a moment to
be transported to his own land. The Ethiopian imagines that God made his
sands and deserts, while angels only were employed in forming the rest of
the world. The Maltese, insulated on a rock, distinguished their island by
the appellation of “The Flower of the World.” The Javanese have such an
affection for the place of their nativity, that no advantages can induce
them, particularly the agricultural tribes, to quit the tombs of their
fathers. The Norwegians, proud of their barren summits, inscribe upon
their rix-dollars, “Spirit, loyalty, valour, and whatever is honourable,
let the world learn among the rocks of Norway.” The Esquimaux are no less
attached to their frigid zone, esteeming the luxuries of blubber-oil for
food, and an ice cabin for a habitation, above all the refinements of
other countries.--_Fireside Education, by S. G. Goodrich._
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If a man be gracious and civil to a stranger, it shows he is a citizen of
the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a
continent that joins them.