The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
waters run deep,' and the man of true courage and strength is the man of
few words and great deeds. So that arrant bragging which has hitherto
been our besetting sin, and which, so long as our real importance in the
affairs of the world was unacknowledged, was somewhat excusable, and
perhaps even necessary to sustain a yet unestablished cause, will be
necessary no longer when we have proved ourselves worthy of the position
we claim, and will, with the newborn consciousness of our power and
strength, pass away forever, and we shall work steadily on in our
appointed course, leaving it to others to recognize and proclaim our
worth, to sound the trumpet which we have so long been industriously
blowing for ourselves, content to let our reputation bide its time and
rest upon sterling deeds rather than upon pompous declamations and empty
oratorical phrases. The deeds of our ancestors were great indeed, and
their patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion to a noble cause beyond a
parallel: but even those will pale beside the present struggle of a
full-grown nation at the very crisis of its fate; and the results which
followed their efforts will be as nothing to those which shall flow from
our battle of to-day. For while it was theirs to initiate, it is ours to
develop and firmly establish; theirs to deliver the nation from the womb
of centuries, ours to educate, to guard from danger through childhood
and youth, to nurse through disease, to tone down the crudities of
national hobble-de-hoy-dom, to fix and strengthen by judicious training
the iron constitution, both mental and physical, which shall resist the
ravages of disease and error for all time to come. How much more
important, then, appears our mission than theirs! how much greater the
responsibility which rests upon us to faithfully fulfil that mission!
And this will be the feeling of every true American. This will be the
knowledge, gained by the bitterest experience, which will give us that
nationality we have so long lacked.
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