He is reputed on
all hands to be a man of great good sense; if he is ever fooled
it is not by himself, but by the system which he is no more a
part of than the least of his subjects. If he will let a weary
old man or a delicate woman stand indefinitely before him, he is
no more to blame for that than for speaking English with a trace
of German in his _th_ sounds; he did not invent his origins
or his traditions. Personally, having had it out with life, he is
as amiable and as unceremonious as a king may be. He shares, as
far as he can, the great and little interests of his people. He
has not, so far as noted, the gifts of some of his sisters, but
he has much of his mother's steadfast wisdom, and his father's
instinct for the right side in considerable questions; and he has
his father's prescience of the psychological moment for not
bothering. Of course, he is a fetish; no Englishman can deny that
the kingship is an idolatry; but he is a fetish with an uncommon
share of the common man's divinity. The system which provides him
for the people provides them the best administration in the
world, always naturally in the hands of their superiors, social
and political; but we could be several times rottener than we
administratively are, and still be incalculably reasonabler, as
republicans, than those well-governed monarchists.
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