Drilling the King
In the morning of the fourth day, when it was just sunrise, and we had been tramping an hour in the chill dawn, I came to a resolution: the king must be drilled; things could not go on so, he must be taken in hand, and deliberately and conscientiously drilled, or we couldn’t ever venture to enter a dwelling; the veryⒶalteration in the MS catsⒶemendation would know this masquerader for a humbug and no peasant. So I called a halt, and said:
“Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are all right, there is no discrepancy; but as between your clothes and your bearingⒶemendation, you are all wrong, there is a most noticeable discrepancy. Your soldierly stride, your lordly port—these will not do. You stand too straight, your looks are too high, too confident. The cares of a kingdom do not stoop the shoulders, they do not droop the chinⒶalteration in the MS, they do not depress the high level of the eyeglance, they do not put doubt and fear in the heart and hang out the signs of them in slouching body and unsure step. It is the sordid cares of the lowly born that do these things. You must learn the trick; you must imitate the trade-marks of poverty,Ⓐalteration in the MS misery, oppression, insult, and theⒶalteration in the MS other several and common inhumanities that sap the manliness out of a man and make him a loyal and proper and approved subjectⒶalteration in the MS, and a satisfaction to his masters, or the very infants will know you [begin page 321] for better than your disguise, and we shallⒶalteration in the MS go to pieces at the first hut we stop at. PrayⒶalteration in the MS try to walk like this.”
The king took careful note, and then tried an imitation.
“Pretty fair—pretty fair. Chin a little lower, please—there, very good. Eyes too high; pray don’t look at the horizon, look at the ground, ten steps in front of you. Ah—that is better, that is very good. Wait, please; you betray too much vigor, too much decision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me, please—this is what I mean. . . . . . Now you are getting it; thatⒶalteration in the MS is the idea—at least, it sort of approaches it. . . . . . . Yes, that is pretty fair. But! There is a great big something wanting, I don’t quite know what it is. Please walk thirtyⒶalteration in the MS yards, so that I can get a perspective on the thing. . . . . Now, then—yourⒶalteration in the MS head’s right, speed’s right, shoulders right,Ⓐalteration in the MS eyes right, chin right, gait, carriage, general style right—everything’s right! And yet the fact remains, the aggregate’sⒶalteration in the MS wrong. The account don’t balance.Ⓐalteration in the MS Do it again, please . . . . . . now Ⓐalteration in the MS Ⓐemendation I think I begin to see what it is. Yes, I’ve struck it.Ⓐalteration in the MS You see, the genuine spiritlessnessⒶemendation is wantingⒶalteration in the MS; that’s what’s the trouble. It’s all amateur—mechanical details all right, almost to a hair; everything about the delusion perfectⒶalteration in the MS, except that it don’t delude.”
“What then, must one do, to prevail?”
“Let me think. . . . . I can’t seem to quite get at it.Ⓐalteration in the MS In fact there isn’t anything thatⒶalteration in the MS can right the matter but practice. This is a good place for it: roots and stony ground to break up your stately gait,Ⓐalteration in the MS a region not liable to interruption, only one field and one hut in sight, and they so far away that nobody could see us from there. It will be well to move a little off the road and put in the whole day drilling you, sire.”
After the drill had gone on a littleⒶemendation while, I said:
“Now sire, imagine that we are at the door of the hut yonder, and the family are before us. Proceed, please—accost the head of the house.”
The king unconsciously straightened up like a monumentⒶalteration in the MS, and said, with frozen austerity:
“Varlet, bring a seatⒶalteration in the MS; and serve to me what cheer ye have.”
“Ah, your grace, that is not well done.”
“In what lacketh it?”
“These people do not callⒶalteration in the MS each other varlets.”
[begin page 322]
“Nay, is that true?”
“Yes; only those above them call them so.”
“Then must I try again. I will call him villein.”
“No-no; for he may be a freeman.”
“Ah—so. Then peradventure I should call him goodman.”
“That would answer, your grace, but it would be still better if you said friend, or brother.”
“Brother!—to dirt like that?”
“Ah, but we are pretending to be dirt like that, too.”
“It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring a seat, and thereto what cheer ye have, withal. Now Ⓐemendation ’tisⒶalteration in the MS right.”
“Not quite, not wholly right. You have asked for one,Ⓐalteration in the MS not us—for one, not both; food for one, a seatⒶalteration in the MS for one.”
The king looked puzzled—he wasn’t a very heavy weight, intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; it could stowⒶalteration in the MS an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.
“Would you have a seat also—and sit?”
“If I did not sit, the man would perceive that we were only pretending to be equals—and playing the deception pretty poorly, too.”
“It is well and truly said! How wonderful is truth, come it in whatsoever unexpected form it may! Yes, he must bring out seats and food [begin page 323] for both, and in serving us present not ewer and napkin with more show of respect to oneⒶrejected substantive than to the other.”
“And there is even yet a detail that needs correcting. He must bring nothing outside; we will go in—in among the dirt, and possibly other repulsive things,—and take the food with the household, andⒶalteration in the MS after the fashion of the house, and all on equal terms, except the man be of the serf class; and finally,Ⓐalteration in the MS there will be no ewer and no napkin, whether he be serf or freeⒶalteration in the MS. Please walk again, my liege. There—it is better—it is the best yet; but not perfect. The shoulders have known no ignoblerⒶalteration in the MS burden thanⒶalteration in the MS iron mail, and they will not stoop.”
“Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spirit that goeth with burdens that have not honor. It is the spirit that stoopeth the shoulders, I ween, and not the weight; for armor is heavy, yet is itⒶrejected substantive a proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it. . . . . Nay, butⒶalteration in the MS me no buts, offer me no objections. I will have the thing. Strap it upon my back.”
He was complete, now, with that knapsack on, and looked as little like a king as any man I had ever seen. But it was an obstinate pair of shoulders; they could not seem to learn the trick of stooping with any sort of deceptive naturalness. The drill went on, I prompting and correcting:
“Now, make believeⒶalteration in the MS you are in debt, and eaten up by relentless creditors; you are out of work—which is horse-shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and your wife is sick, your children are crying because they are hungry—”
And so-on, and so-onⒶemendation. I drilled him as representing, in turn,Ⓐalteration in the MS all sorts [begin page 324]
of people out of luck and suffering dire privations and misfortunes. But lord, it was only just words, words,—they meant nothing in the world to him, I might just as well have whistled. Words realizeⒶalteration in the MS nothing, vivify nothingⒶalteration in the MS to you, unless you have suffered in your own [begin page 325] person the thing which the words try to describe. There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about “the working classes,” and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual work is veryⒶalteration in the MS much harder than a dayⒶalteration in the MS’s hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the other. But I know all about both; and as farⒶrejected substantive as I am concerned, there isn’t money enough in the universe to hire me to swingⒶemendation a pickaxe thirty daysⒶemendation, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down—and I willⒶemendation be satisfied, too. Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation,Ⓐalteration in the MS and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general,Ⓐalteration in the MS author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislatorⒶalteration in the MS, actor, preacher, singer,Ⓐalteration in the MS is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine soundⒶalteration in the MS washing over him—why certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair—but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it’s alsoⒶalteration in the MS the very law of those transparentⒶalteration in the MS swindlesⒶemendation, transmissible nobility and kingship.Ⓐalteration in the MS