Temporal Power | Page 2

at a school, we were
set a certain sum to do, and because we blunder foolishly over it and
add it up to a wrong total, it is again and again wiped off the
blackboard, and again and again rewritten for our more careful
consideration. Possibly the secret of our failure to conquer Nature lies
in ourselves, and our own obstinate tendency to work in only one
groove of what we term 'advancement,'--namely our material self-
interest. Possibly we might be victors if we would, even to the very
vanquishment of Death!
So many of us think,--and so thought one man of sovereign influence in
this world's affairs as, seated on the terrace of a Royal palace fronting
seaward, he pondered his own life's problem for perhaps the thousandth
time.
"What is the use of thinking?" asked a wit at the court of Louis XVI. "It
only intensifies the bad opinion you have of others,--or of yourself!"
He found this saying true. Thinking is a pernicious habit in which very
great personages are not supposed to indulge; and in his younger days
he had avoided it. He had allowed the time to take him as it found him,

and had gone with it unresistingly wherever it had led. It was the best
way; the wisest way; the way Solomon found most congenial, despite
its end in 'vanity and vexation of spirit.' But with the passing of the
years a veil had been dropped over that path of roses, hiding it
altogether from his sight; and another veil rose inch by inch before him,
disclosing a new and less joyous prospect on which he was not
too-well-pleased to look.
The sea, stretching out in a broad shining expanse opposite to him,
sparkled dancingly in the warm sunshine, and the snowy sails of many
yachts and pleasure-boats dipped now and again into the glittering
waves like white birds skimming over the tiny flashing foam-crests.
Dazzling and well-nigh blinding to his eyes were the burning glow and
exquisite radiance of colour which seemed melted like gold and
sapphire into that bright half-circle of water and sky,--beautiful, and
full of a dream-like evanescent quality, such as marks all the loveliest
scenes and impressions of our life on earth. There was a subtle scent of
violets in the air,--and a gardener, cutting sheafs of narcissi from the
edges of the velvety green banks which rolled away in smooth
undulations upward from the terrace to the wider extent of the palace
pleasaunce beyond, scattered such perfume with his snipping shears as
might have lured another Proserpine from Hell. Cluster after cluster of
white blooms, carefully selected for the adornment of the Royal
apartments, he laid beside him on the grass, not presuming to look in
the direction where that other Workman in the ways of life sat silent
and absorbed in thought. That other, in his own long-practised manner,
feigned not to be aware of his dependant's proximity,--and in this
fashion they twain--human beings made of the same clay and relegated,
to the same dust--gave sport to the Fates by playing at Sham with
Heaven and themselves. Custom, law, and all the paraphernalia of
civilization, had set the division and marked the boundary between
them,--had forbidden the lesser in world's rank to speak to the greater,
unless the greater began conversation,--had equally forbidden the
greater to speak to the lesser lest such condescension should inflate the
lesser's vanity so much as to make him obnoxious to his fellows.
Thus,--of two men, who, if left to nature would have been merely--men,
and sincere enough at that,--man himself had made two pretenders,--the

one as gardener, the other as--King! The white narcissi lying on the
grass, and preparing to die sweetly, like sacrificed maiden-victims of
the flower-world, could turn true faces to the God who made them,--but
the men at that particular moment of time had no real features ready for
God's inspection,--only masks.
"C'est mon metier d'être Roi!" So said one of the many dead and gone
martyrs on the rack of sovereignty. Alas, poor soul, thou would'st have
been happier in any other 'métier' I warrant! For kingship is a
profession which cannot be abandoned for a change of humour, or cast
aside in light indifference and independence because a man is bored by
it and would have something new. It is a routine and drudgery to which
some few are born, for which they are prepared, to which they must
devote their span of life, and in which they must die. "How shall we
pass the day?" asked a weary Roman emperor, "I am even tired of
killing my enemies!"
'Even' that! And the strangest part of it is, that there are people who
would give all their freedom and peace of mind to occupy for a few