King John of Jingalo | Page 3

less majestic and more troublesome, and
had to be circumvented in other ways; and a good deal of this history
will be taken up with the circumventions practised by an astute Cabinet
upon a monarch who was brought by accident to imagine that he really
did understand the position of ignominy combined with responsibility
in which the Constitution had placed him.
II
John of Jingalo had been in harness all his life: he had never known
freedom, never been left to find his own feet, never been taught to think
for himself except upon conventional lines; and these had kept him
from ever putting into practice the rudimental self-promptings which
sometimes troubled him. He had been elaborately instructed, but not
educated; his own individual character, that is to say, had not been
allowed to open out; but a sort of traditional character had been slowly
squeezed into him in order to fit him for that conventional acceptance
of a variety of ancient institutions (some moldering, some still vigorous)
which, by a certain official and ruling class of monetarily interested
persons, was considered to be the correct constitutional attitude.
Monarchy, that is to say, had been interpreted to him by those who
sucked the greatest amount of social prestige and material benefit from
its present conditions as a "going concern"; and in that imposed
interpretation deportment came first, initiative last, and originality
nowhere at all.
In many respects, indeed, his training had been like that of a young girl

whose parents have determined, without leaving her any choice in the
matter, that matrimony is to be her single aim and the sphere of the
home her outward circumference. Like a young girl whose future is
thus controlled he had acquired a pleasant smattering of several social
accomplishments; he had learned to speak three languages with fluency,
to draw, to dance, to ride, to behave under all likely circumstances with
perfect correctness, and to walk down the center of a large room with
apparent ease. He had been trained, for review purposes and for the
final privilege of carrying a cocked hat as well as a crown upon his
coffin, in a profession which he would never be allowed to practise;
and, having been "brought out" with much show and parade at an early
age, had been introduced to a vast number of very important people,
and dragged through a long series of social functions, which, however
crowded, gave always a free floor for his feet to walk on and never
presented a single back to his view. But as a result of all these crowds,
with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential movement,
and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities of life than
the young girl knows of it from a series of dances, flirtations, and
afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling mask had been
drawn between him and the actualities of existence, presenting itself to
view again and again, and concealing its essential sameness in the
pomp and circumstance with which it was attended. At these functions
thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had bowed their
well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had exchanged with
their monarch a few words of studied politeness and compliment, now
and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but never once
had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding thought,
never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had ever
been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to man's
estate--except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated occasion
with his father--had he ever found himself involved so deeply in
argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel
himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed
peremptorily--parental and regal authority combining had cut it short;
and as for his wife--well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her limits,
sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus there had
come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a kind, but

of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He had
merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain
position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circumstances
(mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to the
manner born."
In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal
lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow and
prescribed limits an open mind--one, that is to say, with its orifice
comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings by the
great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not open in
certain required