the grotesque effrontery
that wears the Hellenic crown and the undeviatingly decorous
self-effacement of the Dutch sovereign; and yet there is something of a
common complexion runs through the whole range of establishments, all
the way from the quasi-dynastic to the pseudo-dynastic. For reasons
unavoidable and persistent, though not inscribed in the constituent law,
the governmental establishment associated with such a royal concern will
be made up of persons drawn from the kept classes, the nobility or
lesser gentlefolk, and will be imbued with the spirit of these "better"
classes rather than that of the common run.

With what may be uncanny shrewdness, or perhaps mere tropismatic
response to the unreasoned stimulus of a "consciousness of kind," the
British government--habitually a syndicate of gentlefolk--has uniformly
insisted on the installation of a constitutional monarchy at the
formation of every new national organisation in which that government
has had a discretionary voice. And the many and various constitutional
governments so established, commonly under British auspices in some
degree, have invariably run true to form, in some appreciable degree.
They may be quasi-dynastic or pseudo-dynastic, but at this nearest
approach to democracy they always, and unavoidably, include at least a
circumlocution office of gentlefolk, in the way of a ministry and court
establishment, whose place in the economy of the nation's affairs it is
to adapt the run of these affairs to the needs of the kept classes.

There need be no imputation of sinister designs to these gentlefolk, who
so are elected by force of circumstances to guard and guide the nation's
interests. As things go, it will doubtless commonly be found that they
are as well-intentioned as need be. But a well-meaning gentleman of good
antecedents means well in a gentlemanly way and in the light of good
antecedents. Which comes unavoidably to an effectual bias in favor of
those interests which honorable gentlemen of good antecedents have at
heart. And among these interests are the interests of the kept classes,
as contrasted with that common run of the population from which their
keep is drawn.

Under the auspices, even if they are only the histrionic and decorative
auspices, of so decorous an article of institutional furniture as
royalty, it follows of logical necessity that the personnel of the
effectual government must also be drawn from the better classes, whose