Temporal Power | Page 4

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, or pretend to bow, to the King of kings?"
"Sir, you have expressed the fact with felicity;" replied the professor gravely--"His Majesty, your august father, attends public worship with punctilious regularity, and you are accustomed to accompany him. It is a rule which you will find necessary to keep in practice, as an example to your subjects when you are called upon to reign."
The young man raised his eyebrows deprecatingly, with a slight ironical smile, and dropped the subject. But the learned professor as in duty