single back to his view. But as a result of all these
crowds, with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential
movement, and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities
of life than the young girl knows of it from a series of dances,
flirtations, and afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling
mask had been drawn between him and the actualities of existence,
presenting itself to view again and again, and concealing its essential
sameness in the pomp and circumstance with which it was attended. At
these functions thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had
bowed their well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had
exchanged with their monarch a few words of studied politeness and
compliment, now and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but
never once had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding
thought, never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had
ever been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to
man's estate--except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated
occasion with his father--had he ever found himself involved so deeply
in argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel
himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed
peremptorily--parental and regal authority combining had cut it short;
and as for his wife--well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her
limits, sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus
there had come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a
kind, but of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He
had merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain
position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circumstances
(mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to
the manner born."

In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal
lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow
and prescribed limits an open mind--one, that is to say, with its
orifice comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings
by the great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not
open in certain required directions, well, after all, it did not much
matter, since in the end it made no practical difference.

Under these circumstances he would have been a mere social and official
automaton had not certain defect