Temporal Power | Page 4

least?--and in
his early youth he had been grossly flattered for his cleverness as well
as his good looks. Every small attempt at witticism,--every poor joke
he could invent, adapt or repeat, was laughed at approvingly in a chorus
of admiration by smirking human creatures, male and female, who
bowed and bobbed up and down before the lad like strange dolphins
disporting themselves on dry land. Whereat he grew to despise the
dolphins, and no wonder. When he was about seventeen or eighteen he
began to ask odd questions of one of his preceptors, a learned and
ceremonious personage who, considering the extent of his certificated
wisdom, was yet so singularly servile of habit and disposition that he
might have won a success on the stage as Chief Toady in a burlesque of
Court life. He was a pale, thin old man, with a wizened face set well
back amid wisps of white hair, and a scraggy throat which asserted its
working muscles visibly whenever he spoke, laughed or took food. His
way of shaking hands expressed his moral flabbiness in the general
dampness, looseness and limpness of the act,--not that he often shook
hands with his pupil, for though that pupil was only a boy made of
ordinary flesh and blood like other boys, he was nevertheless heir to a

Throne, and in strict etiquette even friendly liberties were not to be too
frequently taken with such an Exalted little bit of humanity. The lad
himself, however, had a certain mischievous delight in making him
perform this courtesy, and being young and vigorous, would often
squeeze the old gentleman's hesitating fingers in his strong clasp so
energetically as to cause him the severest pain. Student of many
philosophies as he was, the worthy pedagogue would have cried out, or
sworn profane oaths in his agony, had it been any other than the 'Heir-
Apparent' who thus made him wince with torture,--but as matters stood,
he merely smiled--and bore it. The young rascal of a prince smiled
too,--taking note of his obsequious hypocrisy, which served an
inquiring mind with quite as good a field for logical speculation as any
problem in Euclid. And he went on with his questions,--questions,
which if not puzzling, were at least irritating enough to have secured
him a rap on the knuckles from his tutor's cane, had he been a grocer's
lad instead of the eldest son of a Royal house.
"Professor," he said on one occasion, "What is man?"
"Man," replied the professor sedately, "is an intelligent and reasoning
being, evolved by natural processes of creation into his present
condition of supremacy."
"What is Supremacy?"
"The state of being above, or superior to, the rest of the animal
creation."
"And is he so superior?"
"He is generally so admitted."
"Is my father a man?"
"Assuredly! The question is superfluous."
"What makes him a King?"

"Royal birth and the hereditary right to his great position."
"Then if man is in a condition of supremacy over the rest of creation, a
king is more than a man if he is allowed to rule men?"
"Sir, pardon me!--a king is not more than a man, but men choose him
as their ruler because he is worthy."
"In what way is he worthy? Simply because he is born as I am, heir to a
throne?"
"Precisely."
"He might be an idiot or a cripple, a fool or a coward,--he would still be
King?"
"Most indubitably."
"So that if he were a madman, he would continue to hold supremacy
over a nation, though his groom might be sane?"
"Your Royal Highness pursues the question with an unwise
flippancy;"-- remonstrated the professor with a pained, forced smile. "If
an idiot or a madman were unfortunately born to a throne, a regency
would be appointed to control state affairs, but the heir would, in spite
of natural incapability, remain the lawful king."
"A strange sovereignty!" said the young prince carelessly. "And a still
stranger patience in the people who would tolerate it! Yet over all
men,--kings, madmen, and idiots alike,--there is another ruling force,
called God?"
"There is a force," admitted the professor dubiously--"But in the
present forward state of things it would not be safe to attempt to
explain the nature of that force, and for the benefit of the illiterate
masses we call it God. A national worship of something superior to
themselves has always been proved politic and necessary for the people.
I have not at any time resolved myself as to why it should be so; but so

it is."
"Then man, despite his 'supremacy' must have something more
supreme than himself to keep him in order, if it be only a fetish
wherewith to tickle his imagination?" suggested the prince with a touch
of satire,-- "Even kings must bow,