What manner of man is this ‘despot’ and prince behind his vast walls?  Verily his physique matters nothing; whether he be old or of middle age, tall or short, infirm or strong.  The policy of the house keeps the actual head and owner rather in the background.  His presence is never obtruded; he is rarely seen; you may stay in his capital for months and never catch a glimpse of him.  He will not appear at meetings, that every man may be free, nor hesitate to say his say, and abuse what he lists to abuse.  The policy is simply perfect freedom, with support and substantial assistance to any and to every movement set on foot by the respectable men of Fleeceborough, or by the tenant farmers round about.  This has been going on for generations; so that the personnel of the actual owner concerns little.  His predecessors did it, he does it, and the next to come will do it.  It is the tradition of the house.  Nothing is left undone that a true princely spirit could do to improve, to beautify, or to preserve.

The antiquities of the old, old town are kept for it, and not permitted to decay; the ancient tesselated pavements of Roman villas carefully protected from the weather; the remnants of the enclosing walls which the legions built for their defence saved from destruction; the coins of the emperors and of our own early kings collected; the spurs, swords, spearheads, all the fragments of past ages arranged for inspection and study by every one who desires to ponder over them.  Chipped flints and arrowheads, the bones of animals long extinct, and the strange evidences of yet more ancient creatures that swam in the seas of the prehistoric world, these too are preserved at his cost and expense.  Archaeologists, geologists, and other men of science come from afar to see these things and to carry away their lessons.  The memories of the place are cherished.  There was a famous poet who sang in the woods about the park; his hermitage remains, and nothing is lost that was his.  Art-treasures there are, too, heirlooms to be seen behind those vast walls by any who will be at the trouble of asking.

Such is the policy of Hodge’s own prince, whose silent influence is felt in every household for miles about, and felt, as all must admit, however prejudiced against the system, in this case for good.  His influence reaches far beyond the bounds even of that immense property.  The example communicates itself to others, and half the county responds to that pleasant impulse.  It is a responsible position to hold; something, perhaps, a little like that of the Medici at Florence in the olden times.  But here there is no gonfalon, no golden chain of office, no velvet doublet, cloak, and rapier, no guards with arquebuss or polished crossbow.  An entire absence of state and ceremony marks this almost unseen but powerful sway.  The cycle of the seasons brings round times of trial here as over the entire world, but the conditions under which the trial is sustained could scarcely in our day, and under our complicated social and political system, be much more favourable.