By graceful custom, every newcomer to a throne in Europe pays a round
of visits to his neighbours. When King Edward came back from seeing the
Tsar at Reval, his subjects seemed to think that he had fulfilled the
last demand on his civility. That was in the days of Abdul Hamid. None
of us wished the King to visit Turkey. Turkey is not internationally
powerful, nor had Abdul any Guelph blood in him; and so we were able to
assert, by ignoring her and him, our humanitarianism and passion for
liberty, quite safely, quite politely. Now that Abdul is deposed from
'his infernal throne,' it is taken as a matter of course that the King
will visit his successor. Well, let His Majesty betake himself and his
tact and a full cargo of Victorian Orders to Constantinople, by all
means. But, on the way, nestling in the very heart of Europe, perfectly
civilised and strifeless, jewelled all over with freedom, is another
country which he has not visited since his accession--a country which,
oddly enough, none but I seems to expect him to visit. Why, I ask,
should Switzerland be cold-shouldered?
I admit she does not appeal to the romantic imagination. She never has,
as a nation, counted for anything. Physically soaring out of sight,
morally and intellectually she has lain low and said nothing. Not one
idea, not one deed, has she to her credit. All that is worth knowing of
her history can be set forth without compression in a few lines of a
guide-book. Her one and only hero--William Tell--never, as we now know,
existed. He has been proved to be a myth. Also, he is the one and only
myth that Switzerland has managed to create. He exhausted her poor
little stock of imagination. Living as pigmies among the blind excesses
of Nature, living on sufferance there, animalculae, her sons have been
overwhelmed from the outset, have had no chance whatsoever of
development. Even if they had a language of their own, they would have
no literature. Not one painter, not one musician, have they produced;
only couriers, guides, waiters, and other parasites. A smug, tame, sly,
dull, mercenary little race of men, they exist by and for the alien
tripper. They are the fine flower of commercial civilisation, the
shining symbol of international comity, and have never done anybody any
harm. I cannot imagine why the King should not give them the
incomparable advertisement of a visit.
Not that they are badly in need of advertisement over here. Every year
the British trippers to Switzerland vastly outnumber the British
trippers to any other land--a fact which shows how little the romantic
imagination tells as against cheapness and comfort of hotels and the
notion that a heart strained by climbing is good for the health. And
this fact does but make our Sovereign's abstention the more remarkable.
Switzerland is not 'smart,' but a King is not the figure-head merely of
his entourage: he is the whole nation's figure-head. Switzerland, alone
among nations, is a British institution, and King Edward ought not to
snub her. That we expect him to do so without protest from us, seems to
me a rather grave symptom of flunkeyism.
Fiercely resenting that imputation, you proceed to raise difficulties.
'Who,' you ask, 'would there be to receive the King in the name of the
Swiss nation?' I promptly answer, 'The President of the Swiss
Republic.' You did not expect that. You had quite forgotten, if indeed
you had ever heard, that there was any such person. For the life of
you, you could not tell me his name. Well, his name is not very widely
known even in Switzerland. A friend of mine, who was there lately,
tells me that he asked one Swiss after another what was the name of the
President, and that they all sought refuge in polite astonishment at
such ignorance, and, when pressed for the name, could only screw up
their eyes, snap their fingers, and feverishly declare that they had it
on the tips of their tongues. This is just as it should be. In an ideal
republic there should be no one whose name might not at any moment slip
the memory of his fellows. Some sort of foreman there must be, for the
State's convenience; but the more obscure he be, and the more
automatic, the better for the ideal of equality. In the Republics of
France and of America the President is of an extrusive kind. His office
has been fashioned on the monarchic model, and his whole position is
anomalous. He has to try to be ornamental as well as useful, a symbol
as well as a pivot. Obviously, it is absurd to single out one man as a
symbol of the equality of all men. And not less unreasonable is it to
expect him to be inspiring as a patriotic symbol, an incarnation of his
country. Only an anointed king, whose forefathers were kings too, can
be that. In France, where kings have been, no one can get up the
slightest pretence of emotion for the President. If the President is
modest and unassuming, and doesn't, as did the late M. Faure, make an
ass of himself by behaving in a kingly manner, he is safe from
ridicule: the amused smiles that follow him are not unkind. But in no
case is any one proud of him. Never does any one see France in him. In
America, where no kings have been, they are able to make a pretence of
enthusiasm for a President. But no real chord of national sentiment is
touched by this eminent gentleman who has no past or future eminence,
who has been shoved forward for a space and will anon be sent packing
in favour of some other upstart. Let some princeling of a foreign State
set foot in America, and lo! all the inhabitants are tumbling over one
another in their desire for a glimpse of him--a desire which is the
natural and pathetic outcome of their unsatisfied inner craving for a
dynasty of their own. Human nature being what it is, a monarchy is the
best expedient, all the world over. But, given a republic, let the
thing be done thoroughly, let the appearance be well kept up, as in
Switzerland. Let the President be, as there, a furtive creature and
insignificant, not merely coming no man knows whence, nor merely
passing no man knows whither, but existing no man knows where; and
existing not even as a name--except on the tip of the tongue. National
dignity, as well as the republican ideal, is served better thus.
Besides, it is less trying for the President.
And yet, stronger than all my sense of what is right and proper is the
desire in me that the President of the Swiss Republic should, just for
once, be dragged forth, blinking, from his burrow in Berne (Berne is
the capital of Switzerland), into the glare of European publicity, and
be driven in a landau to the railway station, there to await the King
of England and kiss him on either cheek when he dismounts from the
train, while the massed orchestras of all the principal hotels play our
national anthem--and also a Swiss national anthem, hastily composed for
the occasion. I want him to entertain the King, that evening, at a
great banquet, whereat His Majesty will have the President's wife on
his right hand, and will make a brief but graceful speech in the Swiss
language (English, French, German, and Italian, consecutively)
referring to the glorious and never-to-be-forgotten name of William
Tell (embarrassed silence), and to the vast number of his subjects who
annually visit Switzerland (loud and prolonged cheers). Next morning,
let there be a review of twenty thousand waiters from all parts of the
country, all the head-waiters receiving a modest grade of the Victorian
Order. Later in the day, let the King visit the National Gallery--a
hall filled with picture post-cards of the most picturesque spots in
Switzerland; and thence let him be conducted to the principal factory
of cuckoo-clocks, and, after some of the clocks have been made to
strike, be heard remarking to the President, with a hearty laugh, that
the sound is like that of the cuckoo. How the second day of the visit
would be filled up, I do not know; I leave that to the President's
discretion. Before his departure to the frontier, the King will of
course be made honorary manager of one of the principal hotels.
I hope to be present in Berne during these great days in the
President's life. But, if anything happen to keep me here, I shall
content myself with the prospect of his visit to London. I long to see
him and his wife driving past, with the proper escort of Life Guards,
under a vista of quadrilingual mottoes, bowing acknowledgments to us. I
wonder what he is like. I picture him as a small spare man, with a
slightly grizzled beard, and pleasant though shifty eyes behind a
pince-nez. I picture him frock-coated, bowler-hatted, and evidently
nervous. His wife I cannot at all imagine.