By royal I do not mean kings and emperors only, or queens and empresses. I should have very little to tell of them. But royal, as is well known, has a wider meaning. The families of all reigning sovereigns, whether grand dukes, dukes, princes, landgraves, electors, etc., are royalty, nay even certain mediatised families, families that have ceased to be reigning, and which are very numerous on the continent, claim the same status, and may therefore intermarry with royal princes and princesses. Princes and princesses may also marry persons who are not royalty, but in that case the marriage is morganatic—a perfectly good and legal form of marriage both from an ecclesiastical and civil point of view, only that the children of such marriages, though perfectly legitimate, cannot succeed to the throne: in many cases no great loss to them. It has been my good fortune to see a good deal of royalty during the whole of my life. I say good fortune on purpose, for, with all the drawbacks inherent in Court life, royal persons enjoy some great advantages. Their position is assured and well defined. It requires no kind of self-assertion, and wherever they appear, they have no equals, no rivals, and hardly any enviers. They know that their presence always gives pleasure, and that every kind word or look from them is highly appreciated. They seldom have any inducement to try to appear different from what they are, or to disguise what they think or feel. What is the use of being a bishop, Stanley used to say, except that you can speak your own mind! The same applies to crowned heads, and if some of them, and it may be some bishops also, do not avail themselves of this privilege, it is surely their own fault. No doubt, if a bishop wants to become an archbishop, he has to think twice about what he may and what he may not say. But a king or a prince does not generally want to become anything else, and as they want nothing from anybody, they are not likely to scheme, to flatter, or to deceive. Whatever people may say of the atmosphere of courts and the insincerity of courtiers, the sovereign himself, if only left to himself, if only seen in his own private cabinet, is generally above the vitiated atmosphere that pervades his palace, nor does he, as a rule, while speaking with perfect freedom himself, dislike perfect freedom in others. Of course there are differences among royalty as well as among commonalty. Some sovereigns have become so accustomed to the daily supply of the very cheapest flattery, that the slightest divergence from the tone of their courtiers is apt to startle or to offend them. Still most human beings like fresh air.