And he said "I am tired of looking at these things, and tired of hearing about them. Why do you forever set before me that which is unpleasant?"
And they said "Because you are the king. If you choose you can turn the empty churches into free schools, teaching Heaven Building. You can gradually empty the hospitals and asylums and prisons, and destroy the Crime Mill, and obliterate the Disease Garden."
But the king said "You are dreamers and mad enthusiasts. These things are the order of nature and cannot be stopped. It was always so." For the king had been a subject all his life, and was used to submission; he knew not the work of kings, nor how to do it.
And the false counsellors and the false friends and all the lying servants who stole from the kitchens and the chambers answered falsely when he asked them, and said, "These evils are the order of nature. Your kingdom is very prosperous."
And the Sly Thieves and the Gay Wantons and the Bold Robbers and the Parasites and Poisoners and Impostors of every degree hung like leeches on the kingdom and bled it at every pore.
But the king was weary and slept.
Then the friends and counsellors went to the Queen, and called on her to learn Queen's work, and do it; for the King slept.
"It is King's work," she said, and strove to waken him with tales of want and sorrow in his kingdom. But he sent her away, saying "I will sleep."
"It is Queen's work also," they said to her; and though she had been a subject with her husband, she was more by nature a Queen. So she fell to and learned Queen's work, and did it.
She had no patience with the Gay Wantons and Sly Thieves and Bold Robbers; and the Poisoners and the Parasites and the Impostors of every degree were a horror to her. The false friends she saw through, and the lying servants she disbelieved.