Credo, and raise stateliest Temples for it, and reverend Hierarchies,
and give it the tithe of their substance; it was worth living for and
dying for.

Neither was that an inconsiderable moment when wild armed men first
raised their Strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging
armour and hearts, said solemnly: Be thou our Acknowledged Strongest! In
such Acknowledged Strongest (well named King, Kon-ning, Can-ning, or Man
that was Able) what a Symbol shone now for them,--significant with the
destinies of the world! A Symbol of true Guidance in return for loving
Obedience; properly, if he knew it, the prime want of man. A Symbol
which might be called sacred; for is there not, in reverence for what is
better than we, an indestructible sacredness? On which ground, too, it
was well said there lay in the Acknowledged Strongest a divine right;
as surely there might in the Strongest, whether Acknowledged or
not,--considering who made him strong. And so, in the midst of
confusions and unutterable incongruities (as all growth is confused),
did this of Royalty, with Loyalty environing it, spring up; and grow
mysteriously, subduing and assimilating (for a principle of Life was in
it); till it also had grown world-great, and was among the main Facts of
our modern existence. Such a Fact, that Louis XIV., for example, could
answer the expostulatory Magistrate with his "L'Etat c'est moi (The
State? I am the State);" and be replied to by silence and abashed looks.
So far had accident and forethought; had your Louis Elevenths, with
the leaden Virgin in their hatband, and torture-wheels and conical
oubliettes (man-eating!) under their feet; your Henri Fourths, with
their prophesied social millennium, 'when every peasant should have his
fowl in the pot;' and on the whole, the fertility of this most fertile
Existence (named of Good and Evil),--brought it, in the matter of the
Kingship. Wondrous! Concerning which may we not again say, that in