e of these personages who have the keeping
of it. But the potentates and the establishments, civil and military, on
whom this prestige value rests will unavoidably come into invidious
comparison with others of their kind; and, as invariably happens in
matters of invidious comparison, the emulative needs of all the
competitors for prestige are "indefinitely extensible," as the phrase of
the economists has it. Each and several of them incontinently needs a
further increment of prestige, and therefore also a further increment of
the material assets in men and resources that are needful as ways and
means to assert and augment the national honor.

It is true, the notion that their prestige value is in any degree
conditioned by the material circumstances and the popular imagination of
the underlying nation is distasteful to many of these vicars of the
national honour. They will incline rather to the persuasion that this
prestige value is a distinctive attribute, of a unique order, intrinsic
to their own persons. But, plainly, any such detached line of magnates,
notables, kings and mandarins, resting their notability on nothing more
substantial than a slightly sub-normal intelligence and a moderately
scrofulous habit of body could not long continue to command that eager
deference that is accounted their due. Such a picture of majesty would
be sadly out of drawing. There is little conviction and no great dignity
to be drawn from the unaided pronouncement:

"We're here because,
We're here because,
We're here because
We're here,"

even when the doggerel is duly given the rhetorical benefit of a "Tenure
by the Grace of God." The personages that carry this dignity require the
backing of a determined and patriotic populace in support of their
prestige value, and they commonly have no great difficulty in procuring
it. And their prestige value is, in effect, proportioned to the volume
of material resources and patriotic credulity that can be drawn on for
its assertion. It is true, their draught on the requisite sentimental
and pecuniary support is fortified with large claims of serviceability
to the common good, and these claims are somewhat easily, indeed
eagerly, conceded and acted upon; although the alleged benefit to the
common good will scarcely be visible except in the light of glory shed
by the blazing torch of patriotism.

In so far as it is of a material nature the benefit which the
constituted authorities s