Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/186

 and expansive, would be a reflex of the feeling and intelligence of the people. Gradually elevated in character by the constant operation of the process of comparison which is so powerful in every department of science, by the introduction of the most distinguished men, and by the elimination of the inferior, it would become a national Walhalla, worthy to form a branch of that parliament which, having its origin in the depth of past ages where all records are shadowy and doubtful, has gathered strength and dignity in its course, down to our own days, and become the great model of constitutional government, and the envy or admiration of all civilised nations.

In reviving and calling forth periodically, at short intervals, all proud and generous feelings connected with our country and race,—turning the attention of every thoughtful man on such occasions to the consideration of all that is excellent in the age in which he lives, we nourish that love of country in which a nation's unity and strength are found. Such love is of no sudden growth. It must proceed from the sense that our country contains something deserving of our affection, and gather its force from circumstances round which the feelings cling. "If our love for our country is to be sincere, without ostentation and affectation, it cannot be produced immediately by instruction and directions, like a branch of scientific knowledge. It must rest, like every other kind of love, on something unutterable and incomprehensible. Love may be fostered; it may be influenced by a gentle guidance from afar: but if the youthful mind becomes conscious of this, all the simplicity of the feeling is destroyed; its native gloss is brushed off. Such, too, is the case with the love of our country. Like the love for our parents, it exists in a child from the beginning; but it has no permanency, and cannot expand, if the child is kept, like a stranger, at a distance from his country. No stories about it, no exhortations, will avail as a substitute: we see our country, feel it, breathe it in, as we do