The Man Without A Country
by
Edward E. Hale
Author of "In His Name," "Ten Times One," "How to Live," etc.
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863,
By TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868,
BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the your 1888, BY J. STILMAN SMITH & COMPANY in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Copyright, 1891, 1897, 1900, 1904,
BY EDWARD E. HALE.
Copyright, 1898, 1905,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
Introduction
Love of country is a sentiment so universal that it is only on such rare occasions as called this book into being that there is any need of discussing it or justifying it. There is a perfectly absurd statement by Charles Kingsley, in the preface to one of his books, written fifty years ago, in which he says that, while there can be loyalty to a king or a queen, there cannot be loyalty to one's country.
This story of Philip Nolan was written in the darkest period of the Civil War, to show what love of country is. There were persons then who thought that if their advice had been taken there need have been no Civil War. There were persons whose every-day pursuits were greatly deranged by the Civil War. It proved that the lesson was a lesson gladly received. I have had letters from seamen who read it as they were lying in our blockade squadrons off the mouths of Southern harbors. I have had letters from men who read it soon after the Vicksburg campaign. And in other ways I have had many illustrations of its having been of use in what I have a right to call the darkest period of the Republic.
To-day we are not in the darkest period of the Republic.
This nation never wishes to make war. Our whole policy is a policy of peace, and peace is the protection of the Christian civilization to which we are pledged. It is always desirable to teach young men and young women, and old men and old women, and all sorts of people, to understand what the country is. It is a Being. The LORD, God of nations, has called it into existence, and has placed it here with certain duties in defence of the civilization of the world.
It was the intention of this parable, which describes the life of one man who tried to separate himself from his country, to show how terrible was his mistake.
It does not need now that a man should curse the United States, as Philip Nolan did, or that he should say he hopes he may never hear her name again, to make it desirable for him to consider the lessons which are involved in the parable of his life. Any man is "without a country who, by his sneers, or by looking backward, or by revealing his country's secrets to her enemy, checks for one hour the movements which lead to peace among the nations of the world, or weakens the arm of the nation in her determination to secure justice between man and man, and in general to secure the larger life of her people." He has not damned the United States in a spoken oath.
All the same he is a dastard child.
There is a definite, visible Progress in the affairs of this world. Jesus Christ at the end of his life prayed to God that all men might become One, "As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us."
The history of the world for eighteen hundred and seventy years since he spoke has shown the steady fulfilment of the hope expressed in this prayer.
Men are nearer unity—they are nearer to being one—than they were then.
Thus, at that moment each tribe in unknown America was at war with each other tribe. At this moment there is not one hostile weapon used by one American against another, from Cape Bathurst at the north to the southern point of Patagonia.
At that moment Asia, Africa, and Europe were scenes of similar discord. Europe herself knows so little of herself that no man would pretend to say which Longbeards were cutting the throats of other Longbeards, or which Scots were lying in ambush for which Britons, in any year of the first century of our era.
Call it the "Philosophy of History," or call it the "Providence of God," it is certain that the unity of the race of man has asserted itself as the Saviour of mankind said it should.
In this growing unity of mankind it has come about that the Sultan of Turkey cannot permit the massacre of Armenian Christians without answering for such permission before the world.
It has come about that no viceroy, serving a woman, who is the guardian of a boy, can be permitted to starve at his pleasure two hundred thousand of God's children. The world is so closely united—that is to say, unity is so real—that when such a viceroy does undertake to commit such an iniquity, somebody shall hold his hands.
The story of Philip Nolan was published in such a crisis that it met the public eye and interest. It met the taste of the patriotic public at the moment. It was copied everywhere without the slightest deference to copyright. It was, by the way, printed much more extensively in England than it was in America. Immediately there began to appear a series of speculations based on what you would have said was an unimportant error of mine. My hero is a purely imaginary character. The critics are right in saying that not only there never was such a man, but there never could have been such a man. But he had to have a name. And the choice of a name in a novel is a matter of essential importance, as it proved to be here.