III
England is in fact, to the American, always a realm of faery, in
its political and social constitution. It must be owned,
concerning the government by family, that it certainly seems to
work well. That justifies it, so far as the exclusion of the
immense majority from the administration of their own affairs can
be justified by anything; though I hold that the worst form of
graft in office is hardly less justifiable: that is, at least,
one of the people picking their pockets. But it is the universal
make-believe behind all the practical virtue of the state that
constitutes the English monarchy a realm of faery. The whole
population, both the great and the small, by a common effort of
the will, agree that there is a man or a woman of a certain line
who can rightfully inherit the primacy amongst them, and can be
dedicated through this right to live the life of a god, to be so
worshipped and flattered, so cockered about with every form of
moral and material flummery, that he or she may well be more than
human not to be made a fool of.
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