The King, who
has no power, can do almost anything in England; and his touch,
which is no longer sovereign for scrofula, can add dignity and
give absolute standing to a man whose achievements merit it, but
who with us would fail of anything like it. The English system is
more logical than ours, but not so reasonable. The English have
seen from the beginning inequality and the rule of the few. We
can hardly prove that we see, in the future, equality and the
rule of the many. Yet our vision is doubtless prophetic, whatever
obliquities our frequent astigmatism may impart to it. Meantime,
in its ampler range there is room for the play of any misgiving
short of denial; but the English cannot doubt the justice of what
they have seen without forming an eccentric relation to the
actual fact. The Englishman who refuses the formal recognition of
his distinction by his prince is the anomaly, not the Englishman
who accepts it. Gladstone who declines a peerage is anomalous,
not Tennyson who takes it. As part of the English system, as a
true believer in the oligarchically administered monarchy,
Gladstone was illogical, and Tennyson was logical.
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