Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers every portion of
the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should be
our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at least,
destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not merely the
overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and noble
courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion.
What have we to do with national prejudices? They are the
inveterate diseases of old countries, contracted in rude and
ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and
looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hostility.
We, on the contrary, have sprung into national existence in an
enlightened and philosophic age, when the different parts of the
habitable world, and the various branches of the human family,
have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other; and
we forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the
national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the
old world.
But above all let us not be influenced by any angry feelings, so
far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really
excellent and amiable in the English character. We are a young
people, necessarily an imitative one, and must take our examples
and models, in a great degree, from the existing nations of
Europe.
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