legal claim only to his title
in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of Lords;
and a Lady has legal claim to her title only so far as she communicates
that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once,
ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that
Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in
breaking of bread.

89. And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus,
or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and
venerable, not in the number of those through whom it has lineally
descended, but in the number of those whom it grasps within its sway;
it is always regarded with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is
founded on its duty, and its ambition co-relative with its beneficence.
Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with a
train of vassals. Be it so: you cannot be too noble, and your train
cannot be too great; but see to it that your train is of vassals whom
you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed _you_; and
that the multitude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted,
not oppressed,--whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity.

90. And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is
equally true of the queenly dominion;--that highest dignity is opened
to you, if you will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina--Roi
et Reine--"_Right_-doers"; they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in
that their power is supreme over the mind as over the person--that they
not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether
consciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is
no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your
lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery
to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before
the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter, of womanhood. But, alas!
you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the
least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving
misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the
power, which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace,
the wicked among you betray, and the good forget.

91. "Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings rule in that name,
and nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow
pl