, an uncrowned king in the world. To be noble is to
be aristocratic, that is to say, a ruler. Thence it follows that
aristocracy is multiple kingship, and to be an aristocrat is to partake
both of the nature of philosopher and king....

Yet it is manifest that the powerful people of this world are by no
means necessarily noble, and that most modern kings, poor in quality,
petty in spirit, conventional in outlook, controlled and limited,
fall far short of kingship. Nevertheless, there IS nobility, there
IS kingship, or this earth is a dustbin and mankind but a kind of
skin-disease upon a planet. From that it is an easy step to this idea,
the idea whose first expression had already so touched the imagination
of Amanda, of a sort of diffused and voluntary kingship scattered
throughout mankind. The aristocrats are not at the high table, the
kings are not enthroned, those who are enthroned are but pretenders and
SIMULACRA, kings of the vulgar; the real king and ruler is every man who
sets aside the naive passions and self-interest of the common life for
the rule and service of the world.

This is an idea that is now to be found in much contemporary writing. It
is one of those ideas that seem to appear simultaneously at many points
in the world, and it is impossible to say now how far Benham was
an originator of this idea, and how far he simply resonated to its
expression by others. It was far more likely that Prothero, getting it
heaven knows where, had spluttered it out and forgotten it, leaving it
to germinate in the mind of his friend....

This lordly, this kingly dream became more and more essential to
Benham as his life went on. When Benham walked the Bisse he was just
a youngster resolved to be individually brave; when he prowled in the
jungle by night he was there for all mankind. With every year he became
more and more definitely to himself a consecrated man as kings are
consecrated. Only that he was self-consecrated, and anointed only in
his heart. At last he was, so to speak, Haroun al Raschid again, going
unsuspected about the world, because the palace of his security would
not tell him the secrets of men's disorders. He was no longer a creature
of circumstances, he was kingly, unknown, Alfred in the Camp of the
Danes. In the great later accumulations of his Research the personal
matter, the introspection, the intimate discussion of motive, becomes
less and less. He forgets himself in the exaltation of kinglines