I can understand the respect paid to power; and royalty with power is far from ridiculous, even when it is unintelligent; but royalty without power is as great a bore as an aristocracy without the estate to support its pride. We are no longer in the feudal ages. Money has now the rule that used to belong to rank. And the chief use of the lesser royalties seems to be to dignify wealth by associating with it. Hence the court that the rich pay to them--the eagerness to entertain them, to take them on private yachts, to amuse them with automobile trips, to promote their fortunes on the Stock Exchange, and even to give them money if they will take it. They are usually too proud, of course; and the money is made by canny aristocrats who charge wealthy “climbers” for introductions to Court circles. The unfortunate royalties stifle in stuffy drawing-rooms, smiling on the compliments of aspiring riches, without even receiving a little “tip” for their complacency. Life in Court was little to my taste; I had found it no place for any one with an instinct for independence. But the accepted life of royalty outside of Court seemed to me worse. It was a life for gulls. When my father was on his death-bed, at the age of eighty, my mother asked him, as she was leaving the sick-room: “When do you want me to come back to see you?” He replied: “No more. No one. Let me, at last, have my desire for solitude. Let me die alone.” And he did. Before these years of travel were over, I had come to the same conclusion about myself. Since there was no life that I thought worth living in Courts, and no social life for royalty outside the Courts, I would have solitude. But it is easier to find solitude to die in than solitude to live in. By this time I had two sons growing up, whose careers had to be considered; I could not cut them off from the opportunities of advancement that would come from powerful friends and Court influence. I was very happy with them, in a companionship that had none of the lack of intimate parental affection so often denied to royalty; and I began to live for them, contentedly, as mothers do. After all, that is the real life--the natural life--and the best of life while it lasts. CHAPTER X THE SCANDINAVIAN DEMOCRACIES “I am so glad that I am queen of a country in which everybody loves simplicity.” This was the testimony to the charm of Norway which Queen Maud gave me, when I saw her in her little home near Christiania in the autumn of 1913. She spoke with enthusiasm of her adopted country, and I was not in the least surprised, for Norway is undoubtedly the happiest and most progressive country in Europe. Indeed, if anybody wants to know what life will be like in the good time that is coming, when Capitalism will be dead and Democracy triumphant on both sides of the Atlantic, let him go to Norway and study its institutions and the life of its people.