Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/250

 Having reached the summit of nobility in his dukedom, the duke's further ambition could be gratified only in the repetition of additional ducal and other titles. His great aim at last was to pile up all these upon his already crowded escutcheon. Thus, the name of any place that had become illustrious the duke would claim for addition to his category of titles. He would be earl of this, marquis of that, and duke of the other. Smith, his old enemy, while still premier, did not see much need to thwart his political supporter in that harmless and conveniently fertile direction; and thus, happily, there came between them, in the end, well-nigh a reconciliation.

So grand a life must needs be fittingly concluded by a grand death. The noble duke, in his later years, turned all his mind to this final family triumph; and, accordingly, the splendid funeral, and the grand monument, upon which was to be emblazoned all the family titles and greatness, were duly arranged for. If anything could have added to the proud satisfaction with which the duke must have gazed back from the tomb upon that resplendent monument of the titled glories of his house, it might have been the fact that another monument, to a different kind of human greatness, happened to stand over against his own, and strikingly to contrast its brief inscription, wholly destitute as it was of allusion to one particle of family nobility, or even a vestige of the current national rank, hereditary or personal, with all the length and fulness of the Selphnil honours.

The inscription on the great duke's grand monument ran thus:—