Preeminence

“ When centuries Have rolled away shall Providence again Raise to the throne a princely youth like him, And animate again a favorite son Whose breast shall burn with like enthusiasm. Tell him, in manhood, he must still revere The dreams of early youth, nor ope the heart Of heaven's all-tender flower to canker-worms Of boasted reason,—nor be led astray When, by the wisdom of the dust, he hears Enthusiasm, heavenly-born, blasphemed. ”

“ Why, you foolish youngster, ceremony is everything in life. To understand Precedence aright is to know the secrets of nature. The order of Precedence is the order of Creation. It is, in fact, a very cosmogony. Oh, a noble science! a noble science!
1st Court. Right, good Megacles, to magnify your office. Bravery is nothing; goodness is nothing; beauty is a foolish dream. Give us Ceremony, Ceremony, more Ceremony; it is the salt of life.
Meg. A very intelligent youth. But here comes the King.
22
Enter the King, Asander, and Lysimachus. ”

“ And besides, it being of Necessity that many of the Nobility fall in time to be weake in Fortune, it maketh a kinde of Disproportion betweene Honour and Meanes.
As for Nobility in particular Persons; It is a Reverend Thing to see an Ancient Castle or Building not in decay, Or to see a faire Timber Tree, sound and perfect: How much more, to behold an Ancient Noble Family, which hath stood against the Waves and weathers of Time. For new Nobility is but the Act of Power, But Ancient Nobility is the Act of Time. ”

“ And am set down with My Father in His Throne.—“The thousand years of the Millennial Reign will constitute but a beginning of the exercise of the glory, honor and immortality of these New Creatures. At its close when the Kingdom shall be delivered up to ‘God, even the Father,’ and to mankind as the glorified agents of the Father to rule the earth, a still larger sphere for the exercise of their glory, honor and immortality will open before the New Creation.”—F. 69 ”

“ EMPRESS
Yes, I am ready——Only one instant, one last minute! [She conducts the little EMPEROR to the throne, on which she seats him.] Permit me to render to the Son of Heaven the homage which is his due. [She kneels.] May your life be happy and long, your reign peaceful and prosperous! [She bows three times.] May your dynasty endure eternally. ”

“ To feed a Monarch, and begem a crown,
They build before high heaven a narrowing wall
And the great purpose of Creation spoil.
Not on, and upward, is the trend, but down;
The Race can rise but with the rise of all. ”

“ The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, [141] and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, [142] and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 [143] Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: [144] for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
CHAP.⁠V.
1 The book sealed with seven seals, which no man is worthy to open. ”

“ Gladly would I change my father's crown for a shepherd's bonnet, and this lofty place for the sphere of those happy peasants who, in their narrow world, seem to pass through life without meeting an obstacle, simply because they are without ambition, and have few enemies. ”

“ It is perhaps the last instance of a Pretender's adventure for a Crown that History will have to record with the usual grave moral disapproval tinged by a shamefaced regret for the departing romance. Historians are very much like other people. ”

“ Who, of all the men who flourished in his time, was either more prudent or more eloquent? Or in his age? What king or emperor ever lived to more prosperous old age than he? Moreover, he, even while he was still a young man, was called the old man as a mark of respect because of his exceeding wisdom. ”

“ There was a true and fine air of nobility in his lofty form and well-marked features—a character of matured thought and intellectual power in the expansive brow, and in the firm gaze of his large dark eyes, as yet undimmed by age—with evidence of decision and self-respect, and habitual composure in the finely formed mouth and chin. ”

“ But he had arrived at an age when it was necessary to think of an heir; at an age, too, when the uneasy consciousness began to grow within him that if he desired an heir, there was no time to be lost. ”

“ The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. ”

“ In descending a little, I shall not only rise in the eyes of my contemporaries, but in the opinion of posterity. Every step I am advancing undermines your throne. In retreating a little, if I do not strengthen, I can never injure it. ”

“ With such foolish folk I desire not to even myself, though 'tis not untrue that I have often fancied I must have drawn my birth from some great lord or knight at least, as being by nature disposed to follow the nobleman's trade had I but the means and the tools for it. 'Tis true, moreover, without jesting, that my birth and upbringing can be well compared to that of a prince if we overlook the one great difference in degree. ”

“ On that day Mine Elect One shall sit on the throne of glory
And shall try their works,
And their places of rest shall be innumerable.
And their souls shall grow strong within them when they see Mine elect ones,
And those who have called upon My glorious name:
4. Then will I cause Mine Elect One to dwell among them. ”

“ It is possible that we can hear the cries of an infant in its cradle who is now the ruler of an empire; or the voice of a darling daughter singing "Meet me by moonlight alone," who has long since departed from our sight. ”

“ If, at every instant of duration, the stars vary their figures, then in these thousand changes, many times a day, there ought to be reproduced the configuration of royal births. Why then does not every day see the birth of a king? ”

“ As he spoke the frail and gaunt form shook like gossamer.
“We can but fulfil our destiny, beloved one,” said the boy’s father. “And it is written that when a bearer of our name ceases to write in the Book of the Ages our dynasty is at an end.” ”

“ Noble I may be--you have told me so--but--"
"As noble as herself," replied the priest. "Nay, if blood be all, higher in station. True, fortune has not befriended you, but that same goddess was ever a fickle and capricious dame, and those she raises high one day she sinks low the next, to lift up others in their stead. How many a mighty lord has been pulled from his chair of state, to end his days in dungeons. We have heard of emperors confined to a poor cell, and of princes and heroes begging their bread. ”

“ He is the spirit of youth renewed; thy son and thine heir.
See, he sleeps, dreaming of mighty deeds. He will grow, as thou didst grow; he will become strong and beautiful and brave. He will bear thy name, as those after him will bear it, and will revere thee. The sons of his sons will revere thee through long ages. ”

“ Generations may pass in long succession; ages may roll away and others still succeed; empires may rise and flourish, and pass away and be forgotten; but still thy deafening, thy solemn and awful voice is heard in one eternal roar. ”

“ And it is no wonder that a prince of more learning than wisdom, who could deduce an hereditary title for more than eight hundred years, should easily be taught by the flatterers of the times to believe there was something divine in this right, and that the finger of providence was visible in it’s preservation. ”

“ And when in the aged warrior who stands before us, we recognise that youthful chieftain, with what rapidity does memory retrace the incidents of his eventful life? With what pleasure do we see his manhood realize the promise of his youth? In senates or in camps, in the palaces of kings, or in their dungeons, we behold the same erect and manly spirit. ”

“ Where will be thy life with its varied glories and thy wealth with all its splendour, if sages, strong in the strength of the spirit, are incensed against thee ?
898. Behold the princes who look as if they are established on an everlasting foundation : even they will perish with all their kin if men who are mighty as the mountain but will their doom. ”

“ While they were eating, the bald-headed king asked the prince how he had happened to wander so far, and the young man told him all about it, and how he was seeking the Land of Immortality. “You have found it already,” answered the king, “for, as I said, neither I nor my family can die till I have levelled this great mountain; and that will take full eight hundred years longer. Stay here with us and marry my daughter. Eight hundred years is surely long enough to live.” ”

“ The preceding generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of the brave, the accomplished, the unfortunate Emperor Frederic the Second,—a poet in an age of schoolmen,—a philosopher in an age of monks,—a statesman in an age of crusaders. ”

“ Yes, in these years I have often thought of what somebody said to me once, in times gone by. A very clever man. ‘Your sympathies are with the nobility,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you why? Because you yourself belong to the nobility. Your father is a great gentleman, and you are a princess. ”

“ I am an old man. I have hoped and prayed too long. I must go down to my grave without an heir,—even an adopted heir,—for there is no disciple worthy to succeed!"
"Dear friend, believe that I would not willingly add to a grief like this. ”

“ I am possessed of many abilities and arts, which fit me to serve spiritual beings. Your great descendant, on the other hand, has not so many abilities and arts as I, and is not so capable of serving spiritual beings. And moreover he was appointed in the hall of God to extend his aid all over the kingdom, so that he might establish your descendants in this lower earth. The people of the four quarters all stand in reverent awe of him. ”

“ A century from this hour, and the names of king and emperor, of lord and sovereign, will only be remembered as titles once applied to certain men whom the fortune of birth gave an imaginary superiority over their fellow men in general, and endowed with a privilege of ruling the temporal destinies of the toiling millions. ”

“ I made acquaintance with the men who summed up a reign, with the men who summed up a century, with those, also, who represented a period. I saw appear, like meteors lost to the vulgar gaze in the night of time, those rare chosen spirits of Providence which pass with fire on their brows, bearing the thoughts of God, unconscious themselves of what they carry and not realising their mission until they go to render up their account to Him who bestowed it upon them. ”

“ Accordingly, the exploits of a divinely-descended noble were regarded as the sequel and continuation of those of his superhuman ancestor. The god is invoked to rejoice in his descendant's prowess, and the highest compliment which the poet can pay to the descendant is to recall the legendary achievements of the ancestor, and compare them with those of the descendant. Again, the misfortunes of ancient gods and heroes, and their ultimate triumph over them, are employed to console their supposed descendants for baffled projects, and to encourage them to new aspirations in the future. ”

“ Not that the prospect of exclusion from the throne, his lawful inheritance, weighed so much upon his spirits, though that to a young and high-minded prince was a bitter wound and a sore indignity; but what so galled him, and took away all his cheerful spirits, was, that his mother had shown herself so forgetful to his father's memory; and such a father! ”

“ Yet succession is an undeniable fact, even in the material world. Though our reasoning on isolated systems may imply that their history, past, present, and future, might be instantaneously unfurled like a fan, this history, in point of fact, unfolds itself gradually, as if it occupied a duration like our own. ”

“ Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth, are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish; strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue: if they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort. ”

“ As he sees his field widening faster than he can advance he is impressed with the littleness of all that can be done in one short life. He feels the same want of successors to pursue his work that the founder of a dynasty may feel for heirs to occupy his throne. ”

“ The dying king gladly accepts his son’s explanation, and blessing him passes away; while the new king, in an agony of grief, swears to throw off the waywardness and wildness of his ways. And so, amidst the loud acclaim of his subjects, the crown is placed for the second time on his head, and he begins to reign. ”

“ My ancestors, with their fingers upon the pulse of time, have ever kept an alert and intelligent lookout upon the promises and threats of the future, and thus have throughout been able to maintain themselves at the head of whatever movement they resolved to embrace and direct. ”

“ To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play; to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown. ”

“ But the people who are more under the influence of their feelings, and yield less to expediency, may not, till urged by distress and anarchy, be brought to take the same interest in the absent claimant of the throne, that they did in their infant Prince. ”