I have often thought during these past years what an ironical eye Providence must have been turning on National Propaganda――on all the disingenuous breath which has been issued to order, and all those miles of patriotic writings dutifully produced in each country, to prove to other countries that they are its inferiors! A very little wind will blow those ephemeral sheets into the limbo of thin air. Already they are decomposing, soon they will be dust. To my thinking there are but two forms of National Propaganda, two sorts of evidence of a country’s worth, which defy the cross-examination of Time: The first and most important is the rectitude and magnanimity of a Country’s conduct; its determination not to take advantage of the weakness of other countries, nor to tolerate tyranny within its own borders. And the other lasting form of Propaganda is the work of the thinker and the artist, of men whose unbidden, unfettered hearts are set on the expression of Truth and Beauty as best they can perceive them. Such Propaganda the old Greeks left behind them, to the imperishable glory of their Land. By such Propaganda Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch; Dante, St. Francis; Cervantes, Spinoza; Montaigne, Racine; Chaucer, Shakespeare; Goethe, Kant; Turgenev, Tolstoi; Emerson, Lowell――a thousand and one more, have exalted their countries in the sight of all, and advanced the stature of mankind. You may have noticed in life that when we assure others of our virtue and the extreme rectitude of our conduct, we make on them but a sorry impression. If on the other hand we chance to perform some just act or kindness, of which they hear, or to produce a beautiful work which they can see, we become exalted in their estimation though we did not seek to be. And so it is with Countries. They may proclaim their powers from the housetops――they will but convince the wind; but let their acts be just, their temper humane, the speech and writings of their peoples sober, the work of their thinkers and their artists true and beautiful――and those Countries shall be sought after and esteemed. We, who possess in common the English language――“best result of the confusion of tongues” Lowell called it――that most superb instrument for the making of word-music, for the telling of the truth, and the expression of the imagination, may well remember this: That, in the use we make of it, in the breadth, justice, and humanity of our thoughts, the vigour, restraint, clarity, and beauty of the setting we give to them, we have our greatest chance to make our Countries lovely and beloved, to further the happiness of mankind, and to keep immortal the priceless comradeship between us. II AMERICAN AND BRITON