r thing long celebrated to you by the praises of books and
pictures--no, that gaze is only the gaze of intense curiosity, interest,
wonder, engaged in drinking delicious deep draughts that taste good all
the way down and appease and satisfy the thirst of a lifetime. Satisfy
it--that is the word. Hugo and the mastodon will still have a degree
of intense interest thereafter when encountered, but never anything
approaching the ecstasy of that first view. The interest of a prince is
different. It may be envy, it may be worship, doubtless it is a mixture
of both--and it does not satisfy its thirst with one view, or even
noticeably diminish it. Perhaps the essence of the thing is the value
which men attach to a valuable something which has come by luck and not
been earned. A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you
than the ninety-and-nine which you had to work for, and money won at
faro or in stocks snuggles into your heart in the same way. A prince
picks up grandeur, power, and a permanent holiday and gratis support by
a pure accident, the accident of birth, and he stands always before
the grieved eye of poverty and obscurity a monumental representative of
luck. And then--supremest value of all-his is the only high fortune
on the earth which is secure. The commercial millionaire may become
a beggar; the illustrious statesman can make a vital mistake and be
dropped and forgotten; the illustrious general can lose a decisive
battle and with it the consideration of men; but once a prince always a
prince--that is to say, an imitation god, and neither hard fortune nor
an infamous character nor an addled brain nor the speech of an ass can
undeify him. By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the
most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved
or undeserved. It follows without doubt or question, then, that the most
desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I think it also
follows that the so-called usurpations with which history is littered
are the most excusable misdemeanors which men have committed. To usurp a
usurpation--that is all it amounts to, isn't it?

A prince is not to us what he is to a European, of course. We have
not been taught to regard him as a god, and so one good look at him is
likely to so nearly appease our curiosity as to make him an object of
no greater interest the next time. We want a fresh one. But it is not so
with the European. I am quite su