Page:Americans (1922).djvu/182

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lative effect is its many-sided development of a single theme, of which I shall give one more of his conversational descriptions: "I am for getting all the walls down—all of them. . . . While I seem to love America, and wish to see America prosperous, I do not seem able to bring myself to love America, to desire American prosperity, at the expense of some other nation." "But must we not take care of home first of all?" asked Dudley. "Perhaps," replied Whitman, "but what is home—to the humanitarian what is home?"

It is easy and natural to disparage this diffusive humanitarian sentiment as it is to ignore that diffcult central precept of Christianity which prescribes one's feeling towards one's neighbor. Every one knows, for example, Roosevelt's scornful comparison of the man who loves his own country no better than another to the man who loves his own wife no better than another. Roosevelt, who had a great talent for bringing forward and glorifying the simple elementary passions, has had his share of applause. When the applause dies away and reflection begins, it occurs to some of us that the simple elementary passions pretty well look after themselves. No very rare talent is required to commend to the average man the simple elementary passions. He takes to them by a primitive urge of his being as the bull moose takes to fighting and mating. Nature has given them a vigor and hardiness which