Memoir and Letters of Francis W. NewmanSieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Religion
Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
Sieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Newman, Francis William, 1805-1897
One wonders--but that wonder remains unsatisfied--what "that something"
was which he and Anna Swanwick were then "expecting" from Martineau.
Probably it was some statement as regards religion which Newman longed for
from the man who had been permitted to help him now in his old age (when
he distrusted more and more his own old judgments and former convictions)
once more on to the old paths, led by that "kindly Light amid the
encircling gloom," which now was fast closing in upon him.
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF TWO PATRIOTS
England possesses, as a rule, a memory of decidedly insular proportions
and proclivities. On the tablets of our country's memory are chalked up
many names which have figured in the history of her own concerns, or at
any rate in concerns with which she has some connection. Perhaps it will
be said that this is inevitable. Perhaps it will be said that this way
Patriotism lies. Perhaps it will be said that our interests as English
citizens and citizenesses are bound to be local, or we could not impress
the seal of our empire upon other nations' memories.
And if it _is_ said, it is no doubt in great measure true. It is
inevitable that we remember, in sharp unblurred outlines, the names and
deeds of our own great men. It is this way that the soil of Patriotism is
kept well manured for fresh crops of doughty deeds. We _are_ bound to
impress our individuality, as a nation, upon other countries; for if we
did not, we could never exist for any length of time as an empire at all.
But when all this is owned up to, there still remains another great
necessity which can never with safety be disregarded. And this is the
cultivation of our--so to speak--_foreign_ memory. We cannot afford to
pamper our insularity. It is true it must exist, but it is equally true
that English interests can never be--at least, _ought_ never to be--the
sum total of our mental investments. Patriotism is a fine thing. It is an
eminently inspiring thing. But it is also a thing that needs to take walks
abroad to keep itself in good mental health. There is a certain sort of
cosmopolitanism without which no nation's life can be complete--nay,
without which it cannot go on at all.
It is the cosmopolitanism of recognizing greatness outside our own
borders. The cosmopolitanism of owning that there are as good fish in
foreign seas as ever there were in the English Channel. The
cosmopolitanism of a human brotherhood, whether it hails from the Sandwich
Islands, from France, from Finland, or from Hungary; which recognizes as a
salient truth, big with vital issues, that, after all is said and done, it
is not the soil which matters, but the man whose feet are upon it now, at
this present day, though by birth he may own natal allegiance to a far
distant shore.
There are two names to-day which are practically forgotten by modern
England. Yet it is only half a century ago that the men who owned them
were making a gallant stir for patriotism's sake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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