3
It is the same with loyal sons, or good fathers. A young man who has the right stuff in him will honour no man above his father; nor will a father set his affections on some other young man to the neglect of his son. On the contrary, fathers are so convinced of their children’s being better than they really are, that they reckon them the handsomest, the tallest, the most accomplished of their generation. Any one who does not judge his offspring thus I cannot allow to have the father’s eye.
4
The fatherland! it is the first and the nearest of all names. It is true there is nothing nearer than a father; but a man who duly honours his father, according to the dictates of law and nature, will yet be right to honour his fatherland in still higher degree; for that father himself belongs to the fatherland; so does his father’s father, and all his house back and back, till the line ends with the Gods our fathers.
5
The Gods too love the lands of their nativity; though they may be supposed to concern themselves with human affairs in general, claiming the whole of earth and sea as theirs, yet each of them honours above all other lands the one that gave him birth. That State is more majestic which a God calls his country, that isle has an added sanctity in which poesy affirms that one was born. Those are acceptable offerings, which a man has come to their respective homes to make. And if Gods are patriotic, shall not men be more so?
