Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/389

Rh. You have no patent, and they have. Jupiter, Allah, Vishnou, Sabaoth, it matters not who, has given them the passport to happiness. Beware of them. Do not meddle with them, lest they should meddle with you. Wretch! do you know what the man is who is happy by right? He is a terrible being. He is a lord. A lord! He must have intrigued pretty well in the devil's unknown country before he was born, to enter life by the door he did. How difficult it must have been to him to be born! It is the only trouble he has given himself; but, just Heaven! what a one!—to bribe destiny, that egregious blockhead, to mark him in his cradle a master of men; to bribe the box-keeper to give him the best place at the show. Read the memoranda in the old van which I have placed on the half-pay list. Read that breviary of wisdom, and you will see what it is to be a lord. A lord is one who has all, and is all. A lord is one who lives far above his own nature. A lord is one who has when young the rights of an old man; when old, the success in intrigue of a young one; if vicious, the homage of respectable people; if a coward, the command of brave men; if a do-nothing, the fruits of labour; if ignorant, the diploma of Cambridge or Oxford; if a fool, the admiration of poets; if ugly, the smiles of women; if a Thersites, the helm of Achilles; if a hare, the skin of a lion. Do not misunderstand my words. I do not say that a lord must necessarily be ignorant, or a coward, or ugly, or stupid, or old. I only mean that he may be all those things without any detriment to himself. On the contrary. Lords are princes. The King of England is only a lord, the first peer of the peerage ; that is all, but it is much. Kings were formerly called lords,—the Lord of Denmark, the Lord of Ireland, the Lord of the Isles. The Lord of Norway was first called king three hundred years ago.