to the essential aspect of Life.

Take, for example, the great enthusiasm that set all England waving
bunting in June, 1902. It was made clear to the most unwilling observer
that the great mass of English people consider themselves aggregated
together in one nation mainly to support, honour, and obey a King, and
that they rejoice in this conception of their national purpose. Great
sums of money were spent to emphasize this purpose, public work of all
sorts was dislocated, and the channels of public discussion clogged and
choked. A discussion of the education of the next generation, a matter
of supreme interest from the New Republican point of view, passed from
public sight amidst the happy tumults and splendours of the time. The
land was filled with poetry in the Monarch's praise, bad beyond any
suspicion of insincerity. All that was certainly great in the land, all
that has any hold upon the motives and confidence of the English,
gathered itself into a respectful proximity, assumed attitudes of
reverent subordination to the Monarch. All that was eminent in science
and literature and art, the galaxy of the episcopate, the crowning
intellectualities of the army, came to these rites, clad in robes and
raiment that no sane person would ever voluntarily assume in public
except under circumstances of extreme necessity. The whole business was
conducted with a zest and gravity that absolutely forbids the theory
that it was a mere formality, a curious survival of mediaevalism
cherished by a country that makes no breaks with its past. The spirit
and idea of the whole thing was intensely real and contemporary; one
could believe only that those who took part in it regarded it as a
matter of primary importance, as one of the cardinal things for which
they existed. The alternative is to imagine that they believe nothing
to be of primary importance in this world; a quite incredible levity of
soul to ascribe to all those great and distinguished people.