of the subtilest curves of sound. Soon she had finished, and finished
the fresh thought as well.

"Do you know, my own," she said, "the men who begin as hierophants of
an idea are apt to lose sight of the pure purpose, and to become the
dogged, bigoted, inflexible, unreasoning adherents of a party? All
leaders of liberal movements should beware how far they commit
themselves to party-organizations. Only that man is free. It is easier
to be a partisan than a patriot."

I laughed.

"Lady, you are like all women who talk politics, however capable they
may be of acting them. You immediately beg the question. We are
speaking of patriotism, not of partisanship."

"You it was who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you
confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me
even what patriotism is."

"Stay!" I replied. "All love is instinct in the germ. Can you define the
yearnings that the mother feels toward her child, the tie that binds son
to father? Then you can define the sentiment that attaches me to the
land from whose breast I have drawn life. The love of country is more
invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity
that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole
of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power
which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A
portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have
been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with