our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which. We
are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments paid
us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown. There is
not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that. Do I
mean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply flattering
attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source that can
pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source that is humble enough
for that. You have heard a dear little girl say to a frowzy and
disreputable dog: "He came right to me and let me pat him on the head,
and he wouldn't let the others touch him!" and you have seen her eyes
dance with pride in that high distinction. You have often seen that. If
the child were a princess, would that random dog be able to confer the
like glory upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her
mature life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still
recall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming
and lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,
remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields "talked to her"
when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book; and that
the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of
not being afraid of them; and "once one of them, holding a nut between
its sharp little teeth, ran right up against my father"--it has the very
note of "He came right to me and let me pat him on the head"--"and when
it saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised,
and stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished
leather"--then it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers with
pride that "they came boldly into my room," when she had neglected her
"duty" and put no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the
wild birds, and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with
pride that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal
friends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship to her
injury: "never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee." And here is that
proud note again that sings in that little child's elation in being
singled out, among all the company of children, for the random dog's
honor-conferring attentions. "Even in the very worst summer for wasps,
when, in lunching out of doors, our table was covered with them and
every one else was stung,