And when I began to poke my little
questions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest
of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general
effect I produced was that I wasn't by any means displaying the Royal
Tact they had expected of me....'
He meditated for a time.
'And yet, you know, there is something in the kingship, Firmin. It
stiffened up my august little grandfather. It gave my grandmother a
kind of awkward dignity even when she was cross--and she was very
often cross. They both had a profound sense of responsibility. My poor
father's health was wretched during his brief career; nobody outside the
circle knows just how he screwed himself up to things. "My people expect
it," he used to say of this tiresome duty or that. Most of the things
they made him do were silly--it was part of a bad tradition, but
there was nothing silly in the way he set about them.... The spirit of
kingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feel it in my bones; I do not know
what I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my people,
Firmin, and you couldn't. No, don't say you could die for me, because
I know better. Don't think I forget my kingship, Firmin, don't imagine
that. I am a king, a kingly king, by right divine.
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