Temporal Power | Page 7

other with a silly smile, or taken in a linked
arm-in-arm attitude against a palatial canvas background, appeared in
every paper published throughout the world, and every scribbler on the
Press took special pains to inform the easily deluded public that the
Royal union thus consummated was 'a romantic love- match.' For the
People still have heart and conscience,--the People, taken in the rough
lump of humanity, still believe in love, in faith, in the dear sweetness of
home affections. The politicians who make capital out of popular
emotion, know this well enough,--and are careful to play the tune of
their own personal interest upon the gamut of National Sentiment in
every stump oration. For how terrible it would be if the People of any
land learned to judge their preachers and teachers by the lines of fact
alone! Inasmuch as fact would convincingly prove to them that their
leaders prospered and grew rich, while they stayed poor; and they
might take to puzzling out reasons for this inadequacy which would
inevitably cause trouble. For this, and divers other motives politic, the
rosy veil of sentiment is always delicately flung more or less over every
new move on the national debating-ground,--and whether marriageable
princes and princesses love or loathe each other, still, when they come
to wed, the words 'romantic love-match' must be thrown in by an
obliging Press in order to satisfy the tender scruples of a people who
would certainly not abide the thought of a Royal marriage contracted in
mutual aversion. Thus much soundness and right principle there is at
least, in what some superfine persons call the 'common' folk,--the folk
whose innermost sense of truth and straightforwardness, not even the

proudest statesman dare outrage.
But with what unuttered and unutterable scorn the youthful victims of
the Royal pairing accepted the newspaper-assurances of the devoted
tenderness they entertained for each other! With what wearied
impatience both prince and princess received the 'Wedding Odes' and
'Epithalamiums,' written by first-class and no-class versifiers for the
occasion! What shoals of these were cast aside unread, to occupy the
darkest dingiest corner of one of the Royal 'refuse' libraries! The
writers of such things expected great honours, no doubt, each and every
man-jack of them,--but apart from the fact that the greatest literature
has always lived without any official recognition or endowment from
kings,--being in itself the supremest sovereignty,--poets and rhymesters
alike never seem to realize that no one is, or can be, so sickened by an
'Ode' as the man or woman to whom it is written!
The brilliant marriage ceremony concluded, the august bride and
bridegroom took their departure, amid frantically cheering crowds, for
a stately castle standing high among the mountains, a truly magnificent
pile, which had been placed at their disposal for the 'honeymoon' by
one of the wealthiest of the King's subjects,--and there, as soon as
equerries, grooms-in-waiting, flunkeys, and every other sort of indoor
and outdoor retainer would consent to leave them alone together, the
Royal wife came to her Royal husband, and asked to be allowed to
speak a few words on the subject of their marriage, 'for the first and last
time,' said she, with a straight glance from the cold moonlight mystery
of her eyes. Beautiful at all times, her beauty was doubly enhanced by
the regal attitude and expression she unconsciously assumed as she
made the request, and the prince, critically studying her form and
features, could not but regard himself as in some respects rather
particularly favoured by the political and social machinery which had
succeeded in persuading so fair a creature to resign herself to the
doubtful destiny of a throne. She had laid aside her magnificent
bridal-robes of ivory satin and cloth-of-gold,--and appeared before him
in loose draperies of floating white, with her rich hair unbound and
rippling to her knees.

"May I speak?" she murmured, and her voice trembled.
"Most assuredly!"--he replied, half smiling--"You do me too much
honour by requesting the permission!"
As he spoke, he bowed profoundly, but she, raising her eyes, fixed
them full upon him with a strange look of mingled pride and pain.
"Do not," she said, "let us play at formalities! Let us be honest with
each other for to-night at least! All our life together must from
henceforth be more or less of a masquerade, but let us for to-night be as
true man and true woman, and frankly face the position into which we
have been thrust, not by ourselves, but by others."
Profoundly astonished, the prince was silent. He had not thought this
girl of nineteen possessed any force of character or any intellectual
power of reasoning. He had judged her as no doubt glad to become a
great princess and a possible future queen, and he had not given