_ It is in them an inexhaustible stimulus
to action. It is never quiescent, but its operations are regulated by
morality and reason, and it finally induces a serene exaltation of
temper. It was a pardonable foible of Elizabethan writers distinctly
to identify with the English character this healthily energetic sort
of patriotism--the sort of patriotism to which an atmosphere of
knavery or folly proves fatal.
Faulconbridge is an admirable embodiment of the patriotic sentiment in
its most attractive guise. He is a manly soldier, blunt in speech,
contemning subterfuge, chafing against the dictates of political
expediency, and believing that quarrels between nations which cannot
be accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or the
other, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He is
the sworn foe of the bully or the braggart. Cruelty is hateful to him.
The patriotic instinct nurtures in him a warm and generous humanity.
His faith in the future of his nation depends on the confident hope
that she will be true to herself, to her traditions, to her
responsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will be at once
courageous and magnanimous:--
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them.
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