"In this developing crisis the Nation looks with complete and loyal
assurance to him who alone stands high and independent above all
parties, confident that when the time for a final decision has arrived
he will so act, within the recognized limits of the Royal Prerogative,
as to add a fresh luster and a renewed significance to that supreme
symbol and safeguard of the popular will which, under Divine Providence,
still crowns our constitutional edifice."

The King read it three times over. He read it both standing and sitting:
and read in whatever attitude it certainly sounded well. As a peroration
its rhythm and flow were admirable, as a means of keeping up the courage
and confidence of readers who placed their reliance mainly upon literary
style nothing could be better; but what, by all that was constitutional,
did it mean?--or rather, how did it mean that he, the high and
independent one, was to do it? Point by point its sentiments were
unexceptionable; but what it actually pointed to he did not know. "Add
luster?" Why, yes, certainly. But was not that what he was already doing
day by day on the continuous deposit system, even as the oyster within
its shell deposits luster upon the pearls which a sort of hereditary
disease has placed within its keeping? "Renewed significance?" But in
what respect had the significance of the royal office become obscured?
Was anything that he did insignificant? "Symbol and safeguard of the
popular will?" Yes: if his Coronation oath meant anything. But how was
he, symbol and safeguard and all the rest of it, to find out what the
popular will really was? No man in all the Kingdom was so much cut off
from living contact with the popular will as was he!

The King was in his study, the room in which most of the routine work
of his daily life was accomplished--a large square chamber with three