The hydraulic press., 1859-11-26
The Blindness of National Pride.

We never had much sympathy with that
inferior sort of patriotism which makes men
proud of the superiority, in any particular,
of their country to some other, merely for
the empty triumph of superiority without
reference to its intrinsic worth. 1t is ex-
the longest rivers, the most liberal govern
ment, the greatest facilities for popular in
struction because these confer immense
blessings upon the fortunate people that
possess them, and afford the fullest scope
for the development of the individual. 1t
is excellent, also, if we can have superior
poets, painters, orators, musicians, mechan-
les, inventors and philosophers for these
are the very flower of national growth, whose
fruit is for all the world and for all time.
We may rejoice in them without vanity, and
mankind will rejoice with US. But when we
either ignore these noble advantages, or
make them occupy secondary place, while
we applaud the skillful chess player, the fast
race horse, the most determined bruiser in
an international prize fight, we publish the
blindness as well as the ignobility of our
national pride, and forfeit our claim to thar
higher superiority which we assert some
times with more arrogance than truth.
A Morphy visits Europe-very quietly and
modestly beats all the best chess players
there, has his unimportant conquests elec-
trically despatched and avidly read about
all over North America, returns to his ma
tive land and is crazily feted and applauded
wherever he goes; the finest brains of New
England-they who joined so well in the
ovation to Burns-crowding to do him hon
or. Church-an American painter, who
gives his soul up to a profession the consci-
entious pursuit of which is true religion
executes picture of the "Heart of the Ar
ides"-a magnificent work, which 'unites
harmoniously the minute and the vast, the
delicate ahd the forcible, the defined and
the mysterious" and excites the unqualified
admiration of the world of art, wins for its
author, at home and abroad, the title of the
greatest living landscape painter, and ranks
him with the foremost masters of any age,
if it does not place him beyond them: yet the
fame of the last pugilistic hero is greater
than his. He has inaugurated new era in
art; has boldly wooed the spirit of beauty
in her sublimest mood, and won her to the
gaze of unin.pired, but not unappreciative
wonder for ever. He has literally led his
timid brethren of the pencil to higher
plane, where, leaving the trivialities of ex-
hausted lowland scenery and the prettlnesses
of fcomposition, they willeventually bless the
world with O succession of the grandeSt
views ever transferred to canvas. More than
this he has elevated his countrymen in the
esteem of the best men abroad, excited a
more tender interest for them, and strength
ened the motives for the preservation of
peace between two kindred peoples. The
purblindness of our national pride, which
can discern only the most palpable evidences
of superiority, appreciates not the achieve
ment of the modest painter, bu. leaves him
to seek his highest need of praise in another
land, while public attention in his own is
absorbed by pugilists and performers on the
tight rope.