TO be vested with enormous authority
is a fine thing; but to have
the on-looking world consent
to it is a finer. The tower episode
solidified my power, and made
it impregnable. If any were perchance
disposed to be jealous and critical
before that, they experienced
a change of heart, now. There
was not any one in the kingdom
who would have considered it
good judgment to meddle with
my matters.
I was fast
getting adjusted to my situation
and circumstances.
For a time, I used to wake up,
mornings, and smile at my "dream," and
listen for the Colt's factory
whistle; but that sort of thing
played itself out, gradually,
and at last I was fully able
to realize that I was actually
living in the sixth century,
and in Arthur's court, not a
lunatic asylum. After that, I
was just as much at home in that
century as I could have been
in any other; and as for preference,
I wouldn't have traded it for
the twentieth. Look at the opportunities
here for a man of knowledge,
brains, pluck, and enterprise
to sail in and grow up with the
country. The grandest field that
ever was; and all my own; not
a competitor; not a man who wasn't
a baby to me in acquirements
and capacities; whereas, what
would I amount to in the twentieth
century? I should be foreman
of a factory, that is about all;
and could drag a seine down street
any day and catch a hundred better
men than myself.
What a jump I had made! I couldn't
keep from thinking about it,
and contemplating it, just as
one does who has struck oil.
There was nothing back of me
that could approach it, unless
it might be Joseph's case; and
Joseph's only approached it,
it didn't equal it, quite. For
it stands to reason that as Joseph's
splendid financial ingenuities
advantaged nobody but the king,
the general public must have
regarded him with a good deal
of disfavor, whereas I had done
my entire public a kindness in
sparing the sun, and was popular
by reason of it.
I was no shadow of a king;
I was the substance; the king
himself was the shadow. My power
was colossal; and it was not
a mere name, as such things have
generally been, it was the genuine
article. I stood here, at the
very spring and source of the
second great period of the world's
history; and could see the trickling
stream of that history gather
and deepen and broaden, and roll
its mighty tides down the far
centuries; and I could note the
upspringing of adventurers like
myself in the shelter of its
long array of thrones: De Montforts,
Gavestons, Mortimers, Villierses;
the war-making, campaign-directing
wantons of France, and Charles
the Second's scepter-wielding
drabs; but nowhere in the procession
was my fullsized fellow visible.
I was a Unique; and glad to know
that that fact could not be dislodged
or challenged for thirteen centuries
and a half, for sure. Yes, in
power I was equal to the king.
At the same time there was another
power that was a trifle stronger
than both of us put together.
That was the Church. I do not
wish to disguise that fact. I
couldn't, if I wanted to. But
never mind about that, now; it
will show up, in its proper place,
later on. It didn't cause me
any trouble in the beginning
-- at least any of consequence.
Well, it was a curious country,
and full of interest. And the
people! They were the quaintest
and simplest and trustingest
race; why, they were nothing
but rabbits. It was pitiful for
a person born in a wholesome
free atmosphere to listen to
their humble and hearty outpourings
of loyalty toward their king
and Church and nobility; as if
they had any more occasion to
love and honor king and Church
and noble than a slave has to
love and honor the lash, or a
dog has to love and honor the
stranger that kicks him! Why,
dear me,ANY kind of royalty,
howsoever modified, ANY kind
of aristocracy, howsoever pruned,
is rightly an insult; but if
you are born and brought up under
that sort of arrangement you
probably never find it out for
yourself, and don't believe it
when somebody else tells you.
It is enough to make a body ashamed
of his race to think of the sort
of froth that has always occupied
its thrones without shadow of
right or reason, and the seventh-rate
people that have always figured
as its aristocracies -- a company
of monarchs and nobles who, as
a rule, would have achieved only
poverty and obscurity if left,
like their betters, to their
own exertions.
The most of King Arthur's British
nation were slaves, pure and
simple, and bore that name, and
wore the iron collar on their
necks; and the rest were slaves
in fact, but without the name;
they imagined themselves men
and freemen, and called themselves
so. The truth was, the nation
as a body was in the world for
one object, and one only: to
grovel before king and Church
and noble; to slave for them,
sweat blood for them, starve
that they might be fed, work
that they might play, drink misery
to the dregs that they might
be happy, go naked that they
might wear silks and jewels,
pay taxes that they might be
spared from paying them, be familiar
all their lives with the degrading
language and postures of adulation
that they might walk in pride
and think themselves the gods
of this world. And for all this,
the thanks they got were cuffs
and contempt; and so poor-spirited
were they that they took even
this sort of attention as an
honor.
Inherited ideas
are a curious thing, and interesting
to observe
and examine. I had mine, the
king and his people had theirs.
In both cases they flowed in
ruts worn deep by time and habit,
and the man who should have proposed
to divert them by reason and
argument would have had a long
contract on his hands. For instance,
those people had inherited the
idea that all men without title
and a long pedigree, whether
they had great natural gifts
and acquirements or hadn't, were
creatures of no more consideration
than so many animals, bugs, insects;
whereas I had inherited the idea
that human daws who can consent
to masquerade in the peacock-shams
of inherited dignities and unearned
titles, are of no good but to
be laughed at. The way I was
looked upon was odd, but it was
natural. You know how the keeper
and the public regard the elephant
in the menagerie: well, that
is the idea. They are full of
admiration of his vast bulk and
his prodigious strength; they
speak with pride of the fact
that he can do a hundred marvels
which are far and away beyond
their own powers; and they speak
with the same pride of the fact
that in his wrath he is able
to drive a thousand men before
him. But does that make him one
of THEM? No; the raggedest tramp
in the pit would smile at the
idea. He couldn't comprehend
it; couldn't take it in; couldn't
in any remote way conceive of
it. Well, to the king, the nobles,
and all the nation, down to the
very slaves and tramps, I was
just that kind of an elephant,
and nothing more. I was admired,
also feared; but it was as an
animal is admired and feared.
The animal is not reverenced,
neither was I; I was not even
respected. I had no pedigree,
no inherited title; so in the
king's and nobles' eyes I was
mere dirt; the people regarded
me with wonder and awe, but there
was no reverence mixed with it;
through the force of inherited
ideas they were not able to conceive
of anything being entitled to
that except pedigree and lordship.
There you see the hand of that
awful power, the Roman Catholic
Church. In two or three little
centuries it had converted a
nation of men to a nation of
worms. Before the day of the
Church's supremacy in the world,
men were men, and held their
heads up, and had a man's pride
and spirit and independence;
and what of greatness and position
a person got, he got mainly by
achievement, not by birth. But
then the Church came to the front,
with an axe to grind; and she
was wise, subtle, and knew more
than one way to skin a cat --
or a nation; she invented "divine
right of kings," and propped
it all around, brick by brick,
with the Beatitudes -- wrenching
them from their good purpose
to make them fortify an evil
one; she preached (to the commoner)
humility, obedience to superiors,
the beauty of self-sacrifice;
she preached (to the commoner)
meekness under insult; preached
(still to the commoner, always
to the commoner) patience, meanness
of spirit, non-resistance under
oppression; and she introduced
heritable ranks and aristocracies,
and taught all the Christian
populations of the earth to bow
down to them and worship them.
Even down to my birth-century
that poison was still in the
blood of Christendom, and the
best of English commoners was
still content to see his inferiors
impudently continuing to hold
a number of positions, such as
lordships and the throne, to
which the grotesque laws of his
country did not allow him to
aspire; in fact, he was not merely
contented with this strange condition
of things, he was even able to
persuade himself that he was
proud of it. It seems to show
that there isn't anything you
can't stand, if you are only
born and bred to it. Of course
that taint, that reverence for
rank and title, had been in our
American blood, too -- I know
that; but when I left America
it had disappeared -- at least
to all intents and purposes.
The remnant of it was restricted
to the dudes and dudesses. When
a disease has worked its way
down to that level, it may fairly
be said to be out of the system.
But to return to my anomalous
position in King Arthur's kingdom.
Here I was, a giant among pigmies,
a man among children, a master
intelligence among intellectual
moles: by all rational measurement
the one and only actually great
man in that whole British world;
and yet there and then, just
as in the remote England of my
birth-time, the sheep-witted
earl who could claim long descent
from a king's leman, acquired
at second-hand from the slums
of London, was a better man than
I was. Such a personage was fawned
upon in Arthur's realm and reverently
looked up to by everybody, even
though his dispositions were
as mean as his intelligence,
and his morals as base as his
lineage. There were times when
HE could sit down in the king's
presence, but I couldn't. I could
have got a title easily enough,
and that would have raised me
a large step in everybody's eyes;
even in the king's, the giver
of it. But I didn't ask for it;
and I declined it when it was
offered. I couldn't have enjoyed
such a thing with my notions;
and it wouldn't have been fair,
anyway, because as far back as
I could go, our tribe had always
been short of the bar sinister.
I couldn't have felt really and
satisfactorily fine and proud
and set-up over any title except
one that should come from the
nation itself, the only legitimate
source; and such an one I hoped
to win; and in the course of
years of honest and honorable
endeavor, I did win it and did
wear it with a high and clean
pride. This title fell casually
from the lips of a blacksmith,
one day, in a village, was caught
up as a happy thought and tossed
from mouth to mouth with a laugh
and an affirmative vote; in ten
days it had swept the kingdom,
and was become as familiar as
the king's name. I was never
known by any other designation
afterward, whether in the nation's
talk or in grave debate upon
matters of state at the council-board
of the sovereign. This title,
translated into modern speech,
would be THE BOSS. Elected by
the nation. That suited me. And
it was a pretty high title. There
were very few THE'S, and I was
one of them. If you spoke of
the duke, or the earl, or the
bishop, how could anybody tell
which one you meant? But if you
spoke of The King or The Queen
or The Boss, it was different.
Well, I liked the king, and
as king I respected him -- respected
the office; at least respected
it as much as I was capable of
respecting any unearned supremacy;
but as MEN I looked down upon
him and his nobles -- privately.
And he and they liked me, and
respected my office; but as an
animal, without birth or sham
title, they looked down upon
me -- and were not particularly
private about it, either. I didn't
charge for my opinion about them,
and they didn't charge for their
opinion about me: the account
was square, the books balanced,
everybody was satisfied. |