The Pleasure of Patriotism
In the way of rulers there is nothing quite so nice as a king. A king focuses one's patriotism, and being above everybody in his kingdom is probably the only person in it who arouses no envy. The fact is he inspires in us a sense of proud proprietorship. We rejoice that he has the loveliest of queens, and the lovelier she looks the more we are gratified, just as if she were one of the family. So when the king's diplomacy wins a bloodless victory we are as proud as if most of the credit belonged to us.
Indeed, one realises the intimate pleasures of patriotism most on coming from an impersonal republic to a kingdom where the royal family is a vital part of the national life. We republicans are nothing if not patriotic, but while we are loyal to the broader aspects of patriotism we miss perhaps its little intimate pleasures.
It is, for example, rather difficult to feel a deep sense of personal loyalty towards the man whom the freak of fortune places for four years at the head of the nation, and of whom one knows very little. The personal interest one takes in him and his family is quite artificial. Opposed to him in politics, one doubts his fitness for his great position; and if one is of his party one favours him with that frank criticism which one naturally feels for the man who yesterday was no better than oneself, and who in four years will come down from his exalted height with the rapidity of a sky-rocket, only to join the army of the "forgotten" so delightfully characteristic of republics.
A republic is a worthy and useful institution, but there is a monotony in a country that consists entirely of kings and queens. It is very nice for all to be born free and equal, but it is not interesting, and there is some comfort in knowing it is not true, for Nature hurls us into the world a living contradiction to that rash statement of the Declaration of Independence.
It is only since I have lived in England that I have recognised the value of the lesser patriotism. Without being in any way disloyal to my own country, I must confess that I am conscious of quite new emotions in this at least partial possession of a king. One feels a critical sense of ownership. The Houses of Parliament belong to me, and Westminster Abbey, and the Horse Guards. A whole troop of these clattered past me in Oxford Street to-day, and, though they didn't know it, I reviewed them from the top of a 'bus. I own the sentries before Buckingham Palace, and I take a personal interest in the new gilding of the great railings, for so much gilding must impress visiting royalities, and visiting royalities ought to be impressed!
Now our American Government not only declines to impress foreigners, but takes unnecessary pains to remind us that Benjamin Franklin appeared in homespun and wollen stockings at the Court of France. Times have changed since then, and though we have discarded wollen stockings in our intercourse with foreign Courts, our republic, in her consistent encouragement of an out-of-date Spartan simplicity, leaves her ambassadors to pay her legitimate little bills themselves, with the result that she limits her choice of representatives to men who are not only distinguished, but also rich enough to pay the heavy and necessary expenses of their great position, which should by right be covered by an adequate salary.
It is not that our Government is impecunious; it is only pennywise. Now for the first time in our history America has an embassy in London worthy of her greatness, thanks not to our Government, but to the princely munificence of her new Ambassador. Perhaps he will never know the impetus he has given to the lesser patriotism, nor with what innocent pride we have contemplated his residence from every point of view, and with what patriotic rapture we watched the erection of that splendid marquee destined for the welcome of his fellow-countrymen.
For the first time I realised that this was our embassy and our marquee, and I was proud of my country. These were the outward and visible sign of our great prosperity. Perhaps our Ambassador thinks he is the temporary owner of this stately splendour. It is a pardonable mistake, but the fact is we are the owners, we Americans who have strayed into this crowded and lonely London by way of Cook's tours, and floating palaces, and who are, many of us, homesick for the sight of something "real American."
Last Saturday we celebrated that famous Fourth of July which England is so courteous as to forgive. For the first time we penetrated into our embassy. We were aliens no more, we were, so to speak, on our native heath, we could not be crushed even by those magnificent footmen in powder and plush—our footmen—who, as beseems the footmen of a free and independent people, were quite affable.