36 True Americanism 



Twain. They do not write merely for Georgia or 

 Missouri or California any more than for Illinois 

 or Connecticut; they write as Americans and for 

 all people who can read English. St. Gaudens lives 

 in New York; but his work is just as distinctive of 

 Boston or Chicago. It is of very great consequence 

 that we should have a full and ripe literary develop- 

 ment in the United States, but it is not of the least 

 consequence whether New York, or Boston, or Chi- 

 cago, or San Francisco becomes the literary or 

 artistic centre of the United States. 



There is a second side to this question of a broad 

 Americanism, however. The patriotism of the vil- 

 lage or the belfry is bad, but the lack of all patri- 

 otism is even worse. There are philosophers who 

 assure us, that in the future, patriotism will be re- 

 garded not as a virtue at all, but merely as a men- 

 tal stage in the journey toward a state of feeling 

 when our patriotism will include the whole human 

 race and all the world. This may be so; but the 

 age of which these philosophers speak is still several 

 aeons distant. In fact, philosophers of this type are 

 so very advanced that they are of no practical ser- 

 vice to the present generation. It may be, that in 

 ages so remote that we can not now understand 

 any of the feelings of those who will dwell in them, 

 patriotism will no longer be regarded as a virtue, 

 exactly as it may be that in those remote ages peo- 

 ple will look down upon and disregard monogamic 

 marriage; but as things now are and have been for 

 two or three thousand years past, and are likely to 



