Max smiled. "That is so like you, father," he said; "yes, that is you all over. You don't like to give trouble even to the housemaid. Now when you see things going wrong you ought to give trouble—serious trouble, I mean. You ought, in vulgar phrase, to 'do a bust.'
"When I was a small boy," he went on, "I used to read fairy stories and look at pictures. And there was one that I have always remembered of a swan with a crown round its neck floating along a stream with its beak wide open, singing its last song. To me that picture has ever since represented the institution of monarchy going to its death. The crown, too large and heavy to remain in place, has slipped down from its head and settled like a collar or yoke about its neck. Its head, in consequence, is free, and it begins to sing its 'Nunc dimittis.' The question to me is—what 'Nunc dimittis' are we going to sing? I do not know whether you ever read English poetry; but some lines of Tennyson run in my head; let me, if I can remember, repeat them now—
"'The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full, and clear;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold!'
"That, my dear father, is the song I wish to hear you singing—that I want to take up, I in my turn after you. I want your voice now to be awful and jubilant, and your carol to be 'free and bold' like the carol of that dying bird; and the sound of it to be like the rejoicing of a mighty people on a day of festival."
The King shook his head. "My dear boy," he said, "I don't understand poetry; I never did."
"Well," said the son, "let me interpret it then into prose. Monarchy as an institution is dying, and it can either die in foolish decrepitude, or it can die mightily, merging itself in democracy for a final blow against bureaucratic government. All that is written in my book. That is why I am now able to express myself so well: these periods are largely a matter of quotation. The right rôle for monarchy to-day is, believe me, to be above all things democratic—not by truckling to the ideas of the people in power—the 'ruling classes' as they still call themselves—but by daring to be human and natural, and to refuse absolutely to be dehumanized on the score of its high dignity and calling.
"If, for instance, I came to you to-day and said I wanted to marry one of my own nation—say even a commoner—in preference to the daughter of some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish tradition—largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were seeking to keep up our prestige—it may annoy or even embarrass the Government. Well! have they not annoyed and embarrassed you?"
The King nodded sympathetically, but in words hastened to correct himself. "One has often to make sacrifices in defense of an institution," he said. "That is a duty we both owe."
"Why," inquired the Prince, "should I make sacrifices to an institution I do not really approve? Why should I pretend to love some foreign princess if I have given my heart to one—I cannot say of my own race—for I remember that we are an importation—but of the country of my adoption? Do you really suppose that because it annoys the Prime Minister and disturbs his political calculations, an alliance within those artificially prohibited degrees imposed on royalty will lessen the influence of the Crown by a straw's weight, or quicken its demise by an hour? This country, like all civilized countries, is moving towards some form of republican government. If we are sufficiently human, if we show ourselves determined to call our souls our own—it is not merely possible, it is probable, that when the change comes we shall be called on by popular acclaim to provide the country with its first President. If we did we could secure for that presidency a greater power and prestige than any bureaucratic government would willingly concede. It may be that the real counter-stroke to the present increase of Cabinet control can most effectively be administered by a monarch who is not too careful to preserve the outward forms of monarchy. When that is done, by you, or by me, or by one who comes after us, I am confident that there will be the sound of a people's rejoicing."
"You have strange ideas," said the King, "for one who calls himself a monarchist."