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As far as admiration of courts and a deep desire for court-life and a belief in the saving grace of contact with royalty can go, therefore, there are Canadians fully prepared for the establishment of a court “in their midst.” The society of the province was, in fact, in an imflammable eagerness to kiss hands, and back out from the presence of royalty, and perform the various exercises pertaining to admission to court circles, and in a proper state of Jingo distrust of the wicked Czar and his minions–which in the Colonies is now one of the marks of gentility–when the magician, Lord Beaconsfield, determined to apply the match to it by sending out a real princess. In spite of his contempt for the “flat-nosed Franks,” however, he can hardly have been prepared for the response which he elicited. He cannot have designed to make monarchy and royalty seem ridiculous, and yet the articles and addresses and ceremonies with which the new Governor-General and his wife have been received look as if the Minister had determined, before he died, to have the best laugh of his farcical career over the barbarians who have called him in to rule over them. A court is a very delicate thing, and a strong capacity for enjoying it does not of itself make good courtiers. In England the reasons which prevent a man’s being received at court–such as active prosecution of the dry-goods business–are a thousand years old; in fact, they may be said to have come down from the ancient world along with the Roman law. They have, therefore, a certain natural fitness and force in the eyes of the natives of that country. That is, it seems to “stand to reason” that a trader should not go to court. Moreover, they can be enforced in England and still leave an abundant supply of spotless persons for the purposes of court society. The court-line is drawn along an existing and well-marked social division.

In Canada this preparation for court gayeties does not exist. If the persons soiled by commerce were to be excluded from the princess’s presence, she would lead a lonely and dismal life, and the court would be substantially a failure. If, on the other hand, the court is to be made up exclusively of rich traders, it will not only excite the fiercest jealousies and bitterness among those who are excluded, but it will be very difficult to provide a rule for passing on claims for presentation when once the line of official position is passed. But, it may be said, why not throw all restrictions aside and admit everybody, as at White House receptions? Nobody will ask this question who has mastered even the rudiments of royalty, and we shall not take the trouble of answering it fully. We are now discussing the question for the benefit of persons of some degree of knowledge. Suffice it to say that any laxity of practice at Ottawa would do a good deal of damage to the monarchical principle itself, which, as Mr. Bagehot has pointed out, owes much of its force and permanence even in England to its hold on the imagination. The princess cannot go back to England receiving Tom, Dick, and Harry in Canada without a certain loss of prestige both for herself and her house.

Not the least curious feature of the crisis is the interest the prospect of a Canadian court has excited in this country. Our newspapers know what they are about when they give whole pages to accounts of the voyage and the reception, including a history of the House of Argyll and a brief sketch of the feelings of Captain the Duke of Edinburgh, now on the Halifax Station, over his approaching meeting with his sister. They recognize the existence of a deep and abiding curiosity, at least among the women of our country, about all that relates to royalty and its doings, in spite of the labor expended for nearly a century by orators and editors in showing up the vanity and hollowness of monarchical distinctions. In fact, if the secrets of American hearts could be revealed, we fear it would be found that the materials for about a million of each order of nobility, from dukes down, exist among us under quiet republican exteriors, and that if a court circle were set up among us no earthly power could prevent its assuming unnatural and unmanageable proportions. A prince like the late Emperor Maximilian, whose purse was meagre but whose connection with a reigning house was unquestioned and close, might find worse ways of repairing his fortune than setting up an amateur court in some of the Atlantic cities and charging a moderate fee for presentation, and drawing the line judiciously so as to keep up the distinction without damaging his revenues. To prevent cutting remarks on the members of the circle, however, and too much ridicule of the whole enterprise, he would have to give the editors high places about his person, and provide offices for the reporters in his basement. If the scheme were well organized and did not attempt too much, its value in settling people’s “position,” and in giving the worthy their proper place without the prolonged struggles they now have sometimes to undergo, would be very great, and it would enable foreign students of our institutions to pursue successfully certain lines of inquiry into our manners and customs in which they are now too often baffled.