I perceived that in the English it
was not less really present because it was mixed, or used to be
mixed, with scandal that the alien can do no more than hint at.
That sort of abuse has long ceased, and if one were now to
censure the King, or any of the Royal Family, it would be felt to
be rather ill bred, and quite unfair, since royalty is in no
position to reply to criticism. Even the Socialists would think
it ill-mannered, though in their hearts, if not in their sleeves,
they must all the while be smiling at the notion of anything
sacred in the Sovereign.
[Illustration: A PRESENTATION AT COURT]
II
Loyalty, like so many other things in England, is a convention to
which the alien will tacitly conform in the measure of his good
taste or his good sense. It is not his affair, and in the mean
time it is a most curious and interesting spectacle; but it is
not more remarkable, perhaps, than the perfect acquiescence in
the aristocratic forms of society which hedge the King with their
divinity. We think that family counts for much with ourselves, in
New England or in Virginia; but it counts for nothing at all in
comparison with the face value at which it is current in England.
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