I 



I 



COTTAGE GARDENS 



and the appearance of which you have no power 

 to modify? Or do you love the land only and 

 not the people, the nation, the government? 

 Or, loving these, have you no love for the near- 

 est public fraction of it, your own town and 

 neighbors? Why, then, your love of the Stars 

 and Stripes is the flattest, silliest idolatry; so 

 flat and silly it is hardly worth chiding. Your 

 patriotism is a patriotism for war only, and a 

 country with only that kind is never long with- 

 out war. 



You see the difference? Patriotism for war 

 generalizes. A patriotism for peace particu- 

 larizes, localizes. Ah, you do love, despite all 

 their faults, your nation, your government, your 

 town and townspeople, else you would not so 

 often scold them! Otherwise, why do you let 

 us call them yours? Because they belong to 

 you? No, because you belong to them. Be- 

 yond cavil you are your own, but beyond cavil, 

 too, you are theirs; their purchased possession, 

 paid for long, long in advance and sight-unseen. 



You cannot use a sidewalk, a street-lamp, or 

 a post-box, or slip away into the woods and find 



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