In his palace, which, he had rebuilt after the model of an English nobleman's residence, he led the life of a healthy, practical, and systematic student. His library, more judiciously selected than that of his brother, abounded in works of science, embracing the latest discoveries. Here he passed many hours, cultivating a sound acquaintance with the results of investigation and experiment in the Western world. His partiality for English literature in all its branches was extreme. The freshest publications of London found their way to his tables, and he heartily enjoyed the creations of Dickens.
For robust and exhilarating enjoyment, however, he had recourse to hunting expeditions, and martial exercises in the drilling of his private troops. Punctually at daybreak every morning he appeared on the parade-ground, and proceeded to review his little army with scrupulous precision, according to European tactics; after which he led his well-trained files to their barracks within the palace walls, where the soldiers exchanged their uniform for a working-dress. Then he marched them to the armory, where muskets, bayonets, and sabres were brought out and severely scoured. That done, the men were dismissed till the morrow.
Among his courtiers were several gentlemen of Siam and Laos, who had acquired such a smattering of English as qualified them to assist the prince in his scientific diversions. Opposite the armory stood a pretty little cottage, quite English-looking, lighted with glass windows, and equipped with European furniture. Over the entrance to this quaint tenement hung a painted sign, in triumphant English, "WATCHES AND CLOCKS MADE AND REPAIRED HERE"; and hither came frequently the Second King and his favorites, to pursue assiduously their harmless occupation of horlogerie. Sometimes this eccentric entertainment was diversified with music, in which his Majesty took a leading part, playing with taste and skill on the flute, and several instruments of the Laos people.
Such a prince should have been happy, in the innocence of his pastimes and the dignity of his pursuits. But the same accident of birth and station to which he owed his privileges and his opportunities imposed its peculiar disabilities and hindrances. His troubles were the troubles of a second king, who chanced to be also an ardent and aspiring man. Weary with disappointment, disheartened in his honorable longing for just appreciation, vexed with the caprice and suspicions of his elder brother; oppressed by the ever-present tyranny of the thought—so hard for such a man to bear—that the woman he loved best in the land he was inexorably forbidden to marry, because, being a princess of the first rank, she might be offered and accepted to grace the harem of his brother; a mere prisoner of state, watched by the baleful eye of jealousy, and traduced by the venal tongues of courtiers; dwelling in a torment of uncertainty as to the fate to which his brother's explosive temper and irresponsible power might devote him, hoping for no repose or safety but in his funeral-urn,—he began to grow hard and defiant, and that which, in the native freedom of his soul, should have been his noble steadfastness degenerated into ignoble obstinacy.
Among the innumerable mean torments with which his pride was persecuted was the continual presence of a certain doctor, who, by the king's command, attended him at all times and places, compelling him to use remedies that were most distasteful to him.
He was gallantly kind and courteous toward women; no act of cruelty to any woman was ever attributed to him. His children he ruled wisely, though somewhat sternly, rendering his occasional tenderness and indulgence so much the more precious and delightful to them.
Never had Siam a more popular prince. He was the embodiment of the most hopeful qualities, moral and intellectual, of his nation; especially was he the exponent and promise of its most progressive tendencies; and his people regarded him with love and reverence, as their trusty stay and support. His talents as a statesman commanded the unqualified admiration of foreigners; and it was simply the jealous and tyrannical temper of Maha Mongkut that forced him to retire from all participation in the affairs of government.
At last the mutual reserve and distrust of the royal brothers broke out in open quarrel, provoked by the refusal of the First King to permit the Second to borrow from the royal treasury a considerable sum of money. On the day after his order was dishonored, the prince set out with his congenial and confidential courtiers on a hunting expedition to the Laos province of Chiengmai, scornfully threatening to entrap one of the royal white elephants, and sell it to his Supreme Majesty for the sum he would not loan.
At Chiengmai he was regally entertained by the tributary prince of that province; and no sooner was his grievance known, than the money he required was laid at his feet. Too manly to accept the entire sum, he borrowed but a portion of it; and instead of taking it out of the country, decided to sojourn there for a time, that he might spend it to the advantage of the people. To this end he selected a lovely spot in the vicinity of Chiengmai, called Saraburee, itself a city of some consideration, where bamboo houses line the banks of a beautiful river, that traverses teak forests alive with large game. On an elevation near at hand the Second King erected a palace substantially fortified, which he named Ban Sitha (the Home of the Goddess Sitha), and caused a canal to be cut to the eastern slope.
Here he indulged freely, and on an imposing scale, in his favorite pastime of hunting, and privately took to wife the daughter of the king of Chiengmai, the Princess Sunartha Vismita. And here he was happy, only returning to Bangkok when called thither by affairs of state, or to take the semi-annual oath of allegiance.