"
"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.
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