Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/125

Rh thing of the kind in the court of the Czar of all the Russias or of a Grand Mogul. His admirers are filled with ecstasy at every word he speaks, at the utterances of an intellect enfeebled by age, almost approaching imbecility. They crowd to kiss his hand. They reverence and admire his old mistress and esteem it an honor to follow her funeral to the grave. They extend the worship of the ancient poet to his grandchildren, of whom we know nothing except that they are exceptionally spoiled and affected children, victims even in these early years of a mania of greatness. What is it which causes men to commit such follies? What was it that surrounded Beau Brummel and Cartouche with a court like that of any great artist or scientist? The answer lies close at hand and has been often given: Vanity; but it is a superficial answer. Wherein does the gratification to one's vanity lie, in belonging to the crowd surrounding some famous personage? What pleasure can there be in hustling around in the throng paying court to some well-known man? It lies in the fact that by so doing man is gratifying his instinct as a herding animal, the instinct of subordination to a leader. Snobbishness has an anthropological foundation, and this fact Thackeray forgot when he entered the lists to do battle with it, inspired by such bitter hatred. But loyalty, in the sense in which royalists understand the term, is the highest and most perfect manifestation of snobbishness.

It will be seen that I am trying to find ameliorating circumstances for Byzantinism. I would very much like to convince myself of the genuineness of the sentiments towards kings and princes, which so many people parade. 1 am ready to admit that the Russian peasant is not playing the hypocrite when he kisses the hem of the Czar's garment, and that the German soldier is not lying when