Ifyou have known how to composeyourlife, you have done a great deal more than theperson who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one whohas taken cities and empires.
If someone has already received more than his or her just financial deserts for what they do in life, the knighthood might then look like an institutionalised form of having your cake and eating it: lovely for the recipient, but perhaps of limited social utility.