Within his rights, every one is safe;
though there may be some who have no rights. If there were, I did
not see them, and I suppose that, as an alien, I might have
refused to stand up and uncover when the band began playing
_God Save the King_, as it did at the end of every musical
occasion; I might have urged that, being no subject of the King,
I did not feel bound to join in the general prayer. But that
would have been churlish, and, where every one had been so civil
to me, I did not see why I should not be civil to the King, in a
small matter. In the aggregate indeed, it is not a small matter,
and I suppose that the stranger always finds the patriotism of a
country molestive. Patriotism is, at any rate, very disagreeable,
with the sole exception of our own, which we are constantly
wishing to share with other people, especially with English
people. We spare them none of it, even in their own country, and
yet many of us object to theirs; I feel that I am myself being
rather offensive about it, now, at this distance from them.
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