And all the more, if, while retaining the ancient manners, it cherish the family sentiment against the straggling habits which separate members so widely in our times that intercourse is had seldomer than of old; names of kindred hardly surviving save in the fresh recollections of childhood by the dwellers apart; far more of life than we know being planted fast in ancestral homes, the best of it associated with these, as if there were a geography of the affections that nothing could uproot.
A people can hardly have attained to nationality till it knows its ancestor and is not ashamed of its antecedents. If such studies were once deemed beneath the dignity of an American, they are no longer. We are not the less national for honoring our forefathers. Blood is a history. Blood is a destiny. How persistent it is, let the institutions of England, Old and New, bear testimony, since on this prerogative—call it race, rank, family, nature, culture, nationality, what you will—both peoples stand and pride themselves, lion and eagle, an impregnable Saxondom, a common speech, blazoning their descent.
"Ours is the tongue the bards sang in of old,
And Druids their dark knowledge did unfold;
Merlin in this his prophesies did vent,
Which through the world of fame bear such extent.
Thus spake the son of Mars, and Britain bold,
Who first 'mongst Christian worthies is enrolled;
And many thousand more, whom but to name
Were but to syllable great Shakespeare's fame."