to the same dust--gave sport to the Fates by playing at Sham with
Heaven and themselves. Custom, law, and all the paraphernalia of
civilization, had set the division and marked the boundary between
them,--had forbidden the lesser in world's rank to speak to the
greater, unless the greater began conversation,--had equally forbidden
the greater to speak to the lesser lest such condescension should
inflate the lesser's vanity so much as to make him obnoxious to his
fellows. Thus,--of two men, who, if left to nature would have been
merely--men, and sincere enough at that,--man himself had made two
pretenders,--the one as gardener, the other as--King! The white
narcissi lying on the grass, and preparing to die sweetly, like
sacrificed maiden-victims of the flower-world, could turn true faces
to the God who made them,--but the men at that particular moment of
time had no real features ready for God's inspection,--only masks.

"C'est mon metier d'etre Roi!" So said one of the many dead and gone
martyrs on the rack of sovereignty. Alas, poor soul, thou would'st have
been happier in any other 'metier' I warrant! For kingship is a
profession which cannot be abandoned for a change of humour, or cast
aside in light indifference and independence because a man is bored by
it and would have something new. It is a routine and drudgery to which
some few are born, for which they are prepared, to which they must
devote their span of life, and in which they must die. "How shall we
pass the day?" asked a weary Roman emperor, "I am even tired of killing
my enemies!"

'Even' that! And the strangest part of it is, that there are people who
would give all their freedom and peace of mind to occupy for a few
years an uneasy throne, and who actually live under the delusion that a
monarch is happy!