solid, splendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at. You
have often seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing
on – you remember it? – he looks as if he had his head in a brass
platter. That don’t give you the right idea of it at all – it is
much more shining and beautiful.”
“Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?”
“Who – I? Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy? I ain’t
worthy to speak to such as they.”
“Is Talmage?”
“Of course not. You have got the same mixed-up idea about these
things that everybody has down there. I had it once, but I got
over it. Down there they talk of the heavenly King – and that is
right – but then they go right on speaking as if this was a
republic and everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and
privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and be
hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down.
How tangled up and absurd that is! How are you going to have a
republic under a king? How are you going to have a republic at
all, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place
forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his
affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole
universe with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a
hand in its matters, and nobody ALLOWED to do it? Fine republic,
ain’t it?”
“Well, yes – it IS a little different from the idea I had – but I
thought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees,
anyway – not exactly splice the main-brace with them, you know, but
shake hands and pass the time of day.”
“Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia and do
that? – on Prince Gortschakoff, for instance?”
“I reckon not, Sandy.”
“Well, this is Russia – only more so. There’s not the shadow of a
republic about it anywhere. There are ranks, here. There are
viceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and
a hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal
archangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck, where
there ain’t any titles. Do you know what a prince of the blood is,
on earth?”
“No.”
“Well, a prince of the blood don’t belong to the royal family
exactly, and he don’t belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom;
he is lower than the one, and higher than t’other. That’s about
the position of the patriarchs and prophets here. There’s some
mighty high nobility here – people that you and I ain’t worthy to
polish sandals for – and THEY ain’t worthy to polish sandals for
the patriarchs and prophets. That gives you a kind of an idea of
their rank, don’t it? You begin to see how high up they are, don’t
you? just to get a two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for
a body to remember and tell about for a thousand years. Why,
Captain, just think of this: if Abraham was to set his foot down
here by this door, there would be a railing set up around that
foot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would
flock here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of
years, to look at it. Abraham is one of the parties that Mr.
Talmage, of Brooklyn, is going to embrace, and kiss, and weep on,
when he comes. He wants to lay in a good stock of tears, you know,
or five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance to do it.”
“Sandy,” says I, “I had an idea that I was going to be equals with
everybody here, too, but I will let that drop. It don’t matter,
and I am plenty happy enough anyway.”
“Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other way. These
old patriarchs and prophets have got ages the start of you; they
know more in two minutes than you know in a year. Did you ever try