Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises

[165] Hale's literary fame now rests on an anonymous study in the “Atlantic Monthly,” called “The man without a country,” a sketch of such absolutely lifelike vigor that I, reading it in camp during the Civil War, accepted it as an absolutely true narrative, until I suddenly came across, in the very midst of it, a phrase so wholly characteristic of its author that I sprang from my seat, exclaiming “Aut Caesar Aut nullus”; “Edward Hale or nobody.” This is the story on which the late eminent critic, Wendell P. Garrison, of the “Nation,” once wrote (April 17, 1902), “There are some who look upon it as the primer of Jingoism,” and he wrote to me ten years earlier, February 19, 1892, “What will last of Hale, I apprehend, will be the phrase ‘A man without a country,’ and perhaps the immoral doctrine taught in it which leads to Mexican and Chilean wars--‘ My country, right or wrong.’ ”

Be this as it may, there is no doubt that on this field Hale's permanent literary fame was won. It hangs to that as securely as does the memory of Dr. Holmes to his “Chambered Nautilus.” It is the exiled hero of this story who gives that striking bit of advice to boys: “And if you are ever tempted to say a word or do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home and your country, pray ”