Chapter 16

On entering the old palmer's apartment, they found him looking over
some ancient papers, yellow and crabbedly written, and on one of them a
large old seal, all of which he did up in a bundle and enclosed in a
parchment cover, so that, before they were well in the room, the
documents were removed from view.

"Those papers and parchments have a fine old yellow tint, Colcord,"
said the Warden, "very satisfactory to an antiquary."

"There is nothing in them," said the old man, "of general interest.
Some old papers they are, which came into my possession by inheritance,
and some of them relating to the affairs of a friend of my youth;--a
long past time, and a long past friend," added he, sighing.

"Here is a new friend, at all events," said the kindly Warden, wishing
to cheer the old man, "who feels himself greatly indebted to you for
your care." [Endnote: 1.]

There now ensued a conversation between the three, in the course of
which reference was made to America, and the Warden's visit there.

"You are so mobile," he said, "you change so speedily, that I suppose
there are few external things now that I should recognize. The face of
your country changes like one of your own sheets of water, under the
influence of sun, cloud, and wind; but I suppose there is a depth below
that is seldom effectually stirred. It is a great fault of the country
that its sons find it impossible to feel any patriotism for it."

"I do not by any means acknowledge that impossibility," responded
Redclyffe, with a smile. "I certainly feel that sentiment very strongly
in my own breast, more especially since I have left America three
thousand miles behind me."

"Yes, it is only the feeling of self-assertion that rises against the
self-complacency of the English," said the Warden. "Nothing else; for
what else have you become the subject of this noble weakness of
patriotism? You cannot love anything beyond the soil of your own
estate; or in your case, if your heart is very large, you may possibly
take in, in a quiet sort of way, the whole of New England. What more is
possible? How can you feel a heart's love for a mere political
arrangement, like your Union? How can you be loyal, where personal
attachment--the lofty and noble and unselfish attachment of a subject
to his prince--is out of the question? where your sovereign is felt to
be a mere man like yourselves, whose petty struggles, whose ambition--
mean before it grew to be audacious--you have watched, and know him to
be just the same now as yesterday, and that to-morrow he will be
walking unhonored amongst you again? Your system is too bare and meagre