The Texan cultivates an exuberant Americanism, but he does not think of his country as the “land of the Pilgrims’ pride.” Texas is not proud of the Pilgrims, and perhaps the Pilgrims would not have appreciated Texas.
When the American has come to feel, not provincially, but nationally, the words “my country” bring to his mind not merely some familiar scenes of his childhood, but a series of vast pictures. They are broad and simple in outline. “My country” is no tight little island shut out from “the envy of less happier lands.” It is continental in its sweep. It lies open and free to all. It is large and easy of access. There is a vision of busy cities serving as its gateways. Behind them is a pleasant home-like land with “a sweet interchange of hill and valley.” Beyond the mountains another scene opens. We see the sources of the strength of America and feel the promise of its future. To see the Mississippi valley is to believe in “manifest destiny,” and to take a cheerful view of it. To the ancient world the valley of the Nile was the symbol of fertility. It is a narrow ribbon of green in the midst of the desert. Here Plenty and Famine were in plain sight of one another. There was always the suggestion of Pharaoh’s ugly dream of the lean kine devouring the fat and well-favored. But in the valley of the Mississippi the fear of the lean kine is dispelled. One may travel at railroad speed day after day, and still the fields of wheat and corn smile upon him. Here the ample land gives happy confidence to men’s prayer for daily bread. And beyond the fertile prairies “my country” stretches in high plains and lofty mountain ranges. Here are new treasures waiting bold spirits who claim them. The land has a challenge and an invitation.
What a weary dearth
Of the homes of men! What a wild delight
Of space, of room! What a sense of seas
Where seas are not! What salt-like breeze!
What dust and taste of quick alkali!
And beyond the mountains lies the American Avilion, where never—
wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns