stinctions of nationality that impede the
unity of mankind, while a host of German pedants and poets would pour
out libraries in praise of the Anglo-Teutonic races united at last in
irresistible brotherhood and standing ready to take up the Teuton's
burden imposed upon the Blood by the special ordinance of the Lord.

The parallel is false, some may say; the conditions are not the same; in
spite of all material and educational advantages, we in England would
never endure such subjection; we should live in a state of perpetual
rebellion; our troops would mutiny; much as we all detest assassination,
the lives of our foreign Governors would hardly be secure. I agree. I
hope there is implanted in all of us such a hatred of subjection that we
should conspire to die rather than endure it. I only wish to suggest the
mood of a subject race, under the best actual conditions of
subjection--to suggest that other peoples may possibly feel an equal
hatred toward foreign domination--and to supply in ourselves something
of that imaginative sympathy which Madame Malmberg tells us the Finns
only learned after their own freedom had been overthrown.

We feel at once that something far more valuable than all the material,
or even moral, advantages which a dominant Power might give us would be
involved in the overthrow of our independent nationality. That something
is nationality itself. But what is nationality? Like the camel in the
familiar saying, it is difficult to define, but we know it when we see
it. Or, as St. Augustine said of Time, "I know what it is when you don't
ask me." Nationality implies a stock or race, an inborn temperament,
with certain instincts and capacities. It is the slow production of
forgotten movements and obscure endeavours that cannot be repeated or
restored. It is sanctified by the long struggles of growth, and by the
affection that has gathered round its history. If nationality has
kindled and maintained the light of freedom, it is illuminated by a
glory that transforms mountain poverty into splendour. If it has endured
tyranny, its people are welded together by a common suffering and a
common indignation. At the lowest, the people of the same nationality
have their customs, their religion, generally their language--that most
intimate bond--and always the familiar outward scenes of earth and
water, hill and plain and sky, breathing with memories. Nationality
enters into the soul of each man or woman who possess