ON 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 cats 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, 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, they do not
depress the high level of the
eye-glance, 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 trademarks of poverty, misery,
oppression, insult, and the other
several and common inhumanities
that sap the manliness out of
a man and make him a loyal and
proper and approved subject and
a satisfaction to his masters,
or the very infants will know
you for better than your disguise,
and we shall go to pieces at
the first hut we stop at. Pray
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 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 yards, so
that I can get a perspective
on the thing......Now, then --
your head's right, speed's right,
shoulders right, eyes right,
chin right, gait, carriage, general
style right -- everything's right!
And yet the fact remains, the
aggregate's wrong. The account
don't balance. Do it again, please......NOW
I think I begin to see what it
is. Yes, I've struck it. You
see, the genuine spiritlessness
is wanting; that's what's the
trouble. It's all AMATUEUR --
mechanical details all right,
almost to a hair; everything
about the delusion perfect, 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. In fact,
there isn't anything that can
right the matter but practice.
This is a good place for it:
roots and stony ground to break
up your stately gait, 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 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, and said,
with frozen austerity:
"Varlet, bring
a seat; 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 EACH OTHER varlets."
"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 'tis right."
"Not quite,
not wholly right. You have
asked for one, not US
-- for one, not both; food for
one, a seat for one."
The king looked puzzled --
he wasn't a very heavy weight,
intellectually. His head was
an hour-glass; it could stow
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 for both, and
in serving us present not ewer
and napkin with more show of
respect to the one 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 after the fashion
of the house, and all on equal
terms, except the man be of the
serf class; and finally, there
will be no ewer and no napkin,
whether he be serf or free. Please
walk again, my liege. There --
it is better -- it is the best
yet; but not perfect. The shoulders
have known no ignobler burden
than 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 it is a proud burden, and
a man standeth straight in it......Nay,
but 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 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. I drilled him as
representing in turn all
sorts 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 nothing,
vivify nothing to you, unless
you have suffered in your own
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 much harder than
a day'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
so far as I am concerned, there
isn't money enough in the universe
to hire me to swing a pickaxe
thirty days, but I will do the
hardest kind of intellectual
work for just as near nothing
as you can cipher it down --
and I will be satisfied, too.
Intellectual "work" is
misnamed; it is a pleasure,
a dissipation,
and is its own highest reward.
The poorest paid architect, engineer,
general, author, sculptor, painter,
lecturer, advocate, legislator,
actor, preacher, singer is constructively
in heaven when he is at work;
and as for the musician 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
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 the very law of those
transparent swindles, transmissible
nobility and kingship.
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