That is, it does so with the
upper classes; with the lower, loyalty finds expression in an
unparalleled patriotism. An Englishman of the humble or the
humbler life may know very well that he is not much in himself;
but he believes that England stands for him, and that royalty and
nobility stand for England. Both of these, there, are surrounded
by an atmosphere of reverence wholly inconceivable to the natives
of a country where there are only millionaires to revere.
IV
The most curious thing is that the persons in the faery dream
seem to believe it as devoutly as the simplest and humblest of
the dreamers. The persons in the dream apparently take themselves
as seriously as if there were or could be in reality kings and
lords. They could not, of course, do so if they were recently
dreamed, as they were, say, in the France of the Third Empire.
There, one fancies, these figments must have always been smiling
in each other's faces when they were by themselves. But the faery
dream holds solidly in England because it is such a very old
dream.
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