"The conditions maintaining a difference in men follow laws as immutable as those turning the world on its axis. Efforts at equalization are like devices to cheat gravity. Thus, the theory of rule by a universal electorate is a chimera. Men require a master as little boys in school require one. When the master goes down, terror follows until a second master emerges from the confusion. There is always back of order some one in authority. There is no distinction between the empire and republic except in a certain matter of disguises. The seizure of so-called liberty, attacking peoples, now and then, is a curious madness; a revolt against the school-master, ending always in the same fashion—disorder, riot, and a new master back at the desk. When this seizure passes, your government will again be able to control its subjects."
"But," said the Duke, "is there not an obligation on a government to see that its people are not underbid in the struggle for life!"
The old man's voice arose. "What is a government!" he said.
"It is the organized authority of a whole people," replied the Duke.
The old man laughed. "It is the pleasure of one or two powerful persons," he said.
CHAPTER XVII—THE STAIR OF VISIONS
That fantastic illusion, as of one come, after adventures, to the kingdom of some Magus, was preserved to the Duke of Dorset by the days that followed. He was for the most part wholly alone. He arose early, and lived the long day in the open; in the evening he dined with his host, and sat with him in the great library until midnight. At no other time did he see this curious old man.
He was distinctly conscious of two moods, contrary and opposite, changing with the day and night, like one going alternately into and out of the illusions of an opiate. Under the sun, in the dreamy haze of Indian summer, this beautiful château of yellow stone, set about with exquisite gardens, rimmed in the smoky distance with an amphitheater of mountains, was the handiwork of fairies, reset by enchantment from an Arabian tale. But at night, in the presence of Cyrus Childers, that mood vanished, as when one passing behind the staged scenery of a play meets there the carpenter.