To be weary is the lot of kings, it is a part of their royal
prerogative; but it is only a great king who can be weary
gracefully. And Leopold was not a great king; indeed, he was
many inches short of the ideal; but he was philosophical, and by
the process of reason he escaped the pitfalls which lurk in the
path of peevishness.
To know the smallness of the human atom, the limit of desire,
the existence of other lives as precious as their own, is not
the philosophy which makes great kings. Philosophy engenders
pity; and one who possesses that can not ride roughshod over men,
and that is the business of kings.
As for Leopold, he would rather have wandered the byways of Kant
than studied royal etiquette. A crown had been thrust on his
head and a scepter into his hand, and, willy-nilly, he must wear
the one and wield the other. The confederation had determined
the matter shortly before the Franco-Prussian war.
The kingdom that was, an admixture of old France and newer
Austria, was a gateway which opened the road to the Orient, and
a gateman must be placed there who would be obedient to the will
of the great travelers, were they minded to pass that way.
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