London, they do not obviously attend him, except on occasions of the
very highest state. I make this observation rather hazardously, for the
fact, which I feel bound to share with the reader, is that I never saw
in London any of the royalties who so abound there.

I did, indeed, see the king before I left England, but it was in a place
far from his capital, and the king was the only one of his large family
I saw anywhere. I hope this will not greatly disappoint my readers,
especially such as have scruples against royalties; but it is best to be
honest. I can be quite as honest in adding that I had always a vague,
underlying curiosity concerning royalty, and a hope that it would
somehow come my way, but it never did, to my knowledge, and somehow,
with the best will towards it; I never went its way. This I now think
rather stupid, for every day the morning papers predicted the movements
of royalty, which seemed to be in perpetual movement, so that it must
have been by chance that I never saw it arriving or departing at the
stations where I was often doing the same.

Of course, no private person, not even the greatest nobleman, let alone
the passing stranger, can possibly arrive and depart so much as the king
and queen, and their many children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces,
and cousins of every remove. For the sovereigns themselves this
incessant motion, though mitigated by every device of loyal affection
and devotion on the part of their subjects, must be a great hardship,
and greater as they get into years. The king's formal office is simply
to reign, but one wonders when he finds the time for reigning. He seems
to be always setting out for Germany or Denmark or France, when he is
not coming from Wales or Scotland or Ireland; and, when quietly at home
in England, he is constantly away on visits to the houses of favored
subjects, shooting pheasants or grouse or deer; or he is going from one