Congratulate ourselves

This network of common traditions, ideas, sentiments, beliefs, and modes of thinking that form the soul of a people. We have seen that the vigour of the soul of a people is in proportion to the strength of this network. It is this network in reality, and it alone, that keeps nations alive, and it is impossible that it should break up without the nations crumbling away. It constitutes at once their true force and their true master, and the most whimsical despot would never run counter to two sovereigns he knows are infinitely more powerful than he is: tradition and opinion.