Monarch

“ Pleasures have succeeded [290] to difficulties, and I have met a monarch whom no words can describe—a King to whom all the creation is a slave, and to whom fortune is a vassal, whose hand distributes bounties, so that I know not whether it is the sea or a cloud. The sun has invested him with a crown, so that the world need not fear darkness. ”

“ Within the Hall of Columns now the two minstrels stand,
Upon his throne the monarch, his queen at his right hand;
The king all dread and stately—a blood red Northern Light,
The queen all sweet and gentle—a full moon shining bright. ”

“ To whom the prince: “This night with joy I stay O monarch great in virtue as in sway! If thou the circling year my stay control, To raise a bounty noble as thy soul; The circling year I wait, with ampler stores And fitter pomp to hail my native shores: Then by my realms due homage would be paid; For wealthy kings are loyally obeyed!” ”

“ Great and mighty monarch! You are our lord and master, and the sceptre you sway is in good hands. On every occasion you have shown great penetration and power of mind, and you have deserved a crown, even had it not been yours by inheritance. ”

“ Proclaiming through the living and the dead,—
'The Monarch saith that his great empire's worth
Is set on Laon and Laone's head;
He who but one yet living here can lead,
Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,
Shall be the kingdom's heir—a glorious meed! ”

“ A monarch from his throne expelled
No better than the dead is held.
So he who cares for power and might
Must guard his realm and royal right.
Such care a meed in heaven will bring
Better than rites and offering.
Such care a king his country owes
As man upon himself bestows,
When for his body he provides
Raiment and every need besides. ”

“ Such a sovereign without a crown, or the title of king, with his favorites and his instigators about him, may not be a less dangerous animal, than the monarch whose brow is decorated by the splendor of a diadem. ”

“ The great and the rich are assembled to see a king crowned—a monarch whose raiment is the work of men's hands, but who, in all his glory, is arrayed in purple less exquisite than that of a humble flower. ”

“ The haughty monarch is the citizen king; the wily and secret politician, the most free-spoken and candid of men: the most cautious in an intrigue, the very rashest in action. How is it possible to divine the meaning, or guess the wishes, of one whose nature seems so Protean? ”

“ Who crieth, See, the monarch is grown old, His sceptre falls? Oh, carpers rude and bold, You who have fed upon the gracious benison Scattered unstinted by him, do you now Dispraise the sweet-strung harp, grown tremulous ‘Neath fingers overworn for all of us? You cannot tear the laurels from his brow. He lives above your idle vaunts and fears, Enthroned where all master souls stand up In their high place, and fill the golden cup, God-blest for kings, with wine of endless years, And greet him one with them. ”

“ I told him, I once thought myself a kind of a monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account, but that I thought he was not a monarch only, but a great conqueror; for that he that has got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and has the absolute dominion over himself, and whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city. ”

“ In the monarch, indeed, that one momentary glimpse of reason when the word “king” like an electric shock falls on his ear, and, for an instant, lights up his intellect, which as suddenly darkness again overshadows, beautifully shows forth by contrast this madness of one idea. ”

“ For there is a chain of government that runs down from God, the Supreme Monarch, whose bright and piercing eyes look through all that he has made, to the lowest degree of the creation; and there are presidential angels of empires and kingdoms, and such as under them have the tutelage of private families; and, lastly, every man's particular guardian genius. ”

“ Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm chair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlour, of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. ”

“ The sovereign and absolute monarch of a populous and powerful empire, stooping from his imperial throne, flinging wide open the gates of his capital, and condescending to go out, and receive with an apparent welcome an invading foe, whom he had in vain attempted to keep out, but whom he had now the power to crush under his feet in a moment. ”

“ The matchless monarch, from his flaming throne, 1619
Lavish of lustre, throws his beams about him,
Farther, and faster, than a thought can fly,
And feeds his planets with eternal fires!
This Heliopolis, [70] by greater far,
Than the proud tyrant of the Nile, was built;
And He alone, who built it, can destroy.
Beyond this city, why strays human thought?
One wonderful, enough for man to know!
One infinite! enough for man to range!
One firmament, enough for man to read!
O what voluminous instruction here! 1630
What page of wisdom is denied him? None;
If learning his chief lesson makes him wise. ”

“ “You see,” said my Teacher, “how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understand them at all, he accepts them as his own—for he cannot conceive of any other except himself—and plumes himself upon the variety of ‘Its Thought’ as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction.” ”

“ He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his Majesty the King.”
“A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy's clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace. ”

“ That a kind monarch has his strength employ’d,
To cater for the royal appetite,
And kept his sacred person from the fight.
Ask of the Beaver, Slave! what wholesome rules
Binds his community,—unknown to schools:
Inquire the rights he claims,—the law he gives,
In that society in which he lives?
He will instruct thee, ’tis for mutual good,
To share defence, and fellowship and food:—
That gen’ral benefit cements the tie,
Which binds his species in society. ”

“ The Monarch drank, that happy hour, The sweetest, holiest draught of Power,— When it can say with godlike voice, Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice! ”

“ A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure: 80
For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part. ”

“ To-morrow morning, peradventure, ye shall learn the pleasure of the king in regard to your future course; and I trust ye will find that our noble monarch is not wholly unmindful of your former rank and station in your own land. ”

“ I watched the brave monarch read it through from beginning to end without one manifestation of dismay or even of indignation.
‘My poor subjects!’ was his sole remark as he raised his eyes at the end. ‘They little know the fate they are preparing for their children.’
I asked if his Majesty had any further instructions for me. To my surprise he answered, ‘Yes.’
“I watched the brave monarch read it through from beginning to end without one manifestation of dismay.” ”

“ Far more lofty than any title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent of nobility straight from the hand of the "King of kings," that seems to give to the mortal something of the authority of the immortal, and to crown the head of the priest with the diadem that belongs to those who are "kings and priests unto God." ”

“ THE GREAT KING From time to time, in the course of the world’s history, the title of Great has been given to some monarch who has distinguished himself, either by the splendour of his victories, or by the value of his services to his fellowmen. ”

“ At the right side of the monarch and a little behind him rode a youth some twenty years of age, tall, slim and dark, with noble aquiline features and keen penetrating eyes which sparkled with vivacity and affection as he answered the remarks of the King. ”

“ But if he fails to execute this my royal command, then, as a just but mild monarch, I shall give orders that you and he are taken, and first dipped in tar and then in feathers, and you shall be executed in the market-place for the entertainment of my courtiers.’
And a smile played round the King’s lips as he finished speaking, and his courtiers and counsellors shook with laughter when they thought of the old woman’s folly, and praised the King’s wise device, and said to each other, ‘What a joke it will be when we see the pair of them tarred and feathered! ”

“ A great and potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice ”

“ The monarch in whose hands are the lives of fifty millions of subjects, lies himself, to all appearance, deprived of existence. But see! he revives—his lips move—what are the words which fall faintly upon the ears of the bewildered attendants who have been called into the apartment by the cries of the prime minister? ”

“ Even on every coin of the realm at the present day,—on every sovereign that changes hands at race meetings, on every penny that the street arabs play pitch and toss with, we are reminded that the reigning monarch is the Defender of our “Faith.” ”

“ That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done. ”

“ While you view the sable spirit of the last monarch of France gliding along, at a distance, with an air of sorrow and indignation; while you observe a long line of legitimate princes, exiled from their native country, and dependant upon the contributions of other powers ”

“ I know that a great emphasis is put upon the mind, in our day, and as a university man I should perhaps not challenge the supremacy of the intellect, but I have never been convinced that mind was really monarch in our day, or in any day that I have yet read of, or, if it is monarch, it is one of the modern monarchs that rules and reigns but does not govern. ”

“ The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;
The twigs of the birch-trees, in token
Of warning, nodded,—and I exclaim’d:
“Dear monarch, forgive what I’ve spoken! ”

“ And this cannot be unless there is one prince over all, whose will shall be the mistress and regulating influence of all the others. But if all these conclusions be true, as they are, it is necessary for the highest welfare of the human race that there should be a Monarch in the world; and therefore Monarchy is necessary for the good of the world. ”

“ It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! ”

“ The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees;
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays, 1060
Supreme in state, and in three more decays:
So wears the paving pebble in the street,
And towns and towers their fatal periods meet:
So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie,
Forsaken of their springs; ”

“ Another legend says that now and again in the world's history a monarch appears who conquers and rules every nation under the sun. This monarch is known by certain signs, and by the possession of certain objects. ”

“ Who are those, of all mankind, a monarch of perfect wisdom
Should open to, when they knock at spheteron do — that's his dome?"
The King makes tart reply: "Whom else but the wise his equals
Should he welcome with heart and voice? ”

“ One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, God, that creed, His word alone. ”

“ When she is not only not deceived, but proceeds also to interpret many of the King's innermost thoughts, the surprise of the monarch, passing into hushed reverence, calls for a studied piece of careful acting. ”

“ The laudable affection of the young princes for their country and their family, and their profound respect for the great monarch from whom they were descended, would inevitably determine their policy. ”

“ A form of government in which the supreme power is in the hands of one person, is called a monarchy. The word monarch is from two Greek words, monos sole or only, and arkos, a chief; and is a general name for a single ruler, whether he is called king, emperor, or prince. A government in which all power resides in or proceeds from one person, is an absolute monarchy. If the power of the monarch is restrained by laws or by some other power, it is called a limited monarchy. ”