Victoria

“ Victoria, as she was known thenceforward, lived to see the dawn of the twentieth century, to witness the enormous development of the British empire in population, wealth, and power, and it is perhaps not too much to say, to win all hearts among her subjects by the simplicity, purity, and strength of her character. Had she displayed the stubborn stupidity of her grandfather, George III., or the immorality of some of his sons, it is not rash to believe that the tide of radicalism might have thrown down all barriers and swept away the throne on the flood of democracy. ”

“ In Victoria, it is easy to discern the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar sincerity. Her truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of her emotions and her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied forms which this central characteristic assumed. It was her sincerity which gave her at once her impressiveness, her charm, and her absurdity. She moved through life with the imposing certitude of one to whom concealment was impossible—either towards her surroundings or towards herself. There she was, all of her—the Queen of England, complete and obvious ”

“ To her own people Queen Victoria was England itself, the emblem of the realm and of the empire. To millions who were not her people the words "the Queen" do not bring even yet the thought of the well-beloved woman who now shares the English throne, but rather of her who for nearly sixty-four years wore the crown of Great Britain and gave freely to her country of the gift that was in her. ”

“ Never did any sovereign ascend the throne under more favourable circumstances than Victoria. Enshrined in a nation's heart—beloved by millions of human beings,—wearing the proudest diadem in the universe, and swaying the sceptre of a dominion extensive as that of Rome, in her most glorious days,—oh! ”

“ Who beams as a symbol of hope from heaven.
Anemone, flower of the wind! is the last
We cull,—and our garland is now complete:
Gentle the current, and soft be the blast,
Which Victoria, the queen of the ocean, shall meet! ”

“ Ah! may God bless you, my most beloved Victoria! may He shower on you His best blessings, fulfil all your heart's wishes and hopes, and let you enjoy for many, many years the happiness which the dearest ties of affection [page 193] alone can give, and which is the only real one, the only worthy of the name in this uncertain and transitory world! ”

“ Aye, if Victoria was endowed with the science of foreseeing the future, as so many of our venerable female druids have been before her; if ever her redoubtable prophecies are verified—then, woe is Gaul! Woe is our race! Woe is our family! A longer period of even more cruel sufferings will lie before our country under the yoke of the Rome of the Bishops than it experienced under the yoke of the Rome of the Caesars and the Emperors! ”

“ Victoria, my tale is done.’
Victoria toyed with her scarf awhile as though to remember all the points, then untied it knot by knot, in sheer weariness of soul.
‘And is that England, is that the Empire?’ she said, fixing me with her eyes in a way I did not exactly like.
‘Oh no, not altogether. Don’t let me be unfair. There are hundreds of square miles of beauty, refinement, luxury; exquisitely ordered homes, fine-natured men, courteous, suave, poised, high-bred from the bone; white women, oh, so white! some of them able to read Greek—Learning robed and perfumed. ”

“ Victoria—you are to be pitied—I pity you. Victorin loved you—he was a worthy son—I also loved him. My beard has turned grey, and yet I found a delight in serving under that young man. He was the first captain of our age. None of us can replace him. He had but two vices—the taste for wine and, above all, the pest of profligacy. I often quarreled with him on that. I was right, you see it! Well, we must not quarrel with him now. He had a brave heart. I can say no more to you, Victoria. And what would it boot? A mother can not be consoled. ”

“ The collecting instinct has its roots in the very depths of human nature; and, in the case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to two of her dominating impulses—the intense sense, which had always been hers, of her own personality, and the craving which, growing with the years, had become in her old age almost an obsession, for fixity, for solidity, for the setting up of palpable barriers against the outrages of change and time. ”

“ Once the first freshness of being Queen was dulled, Victoria set herself to enjoy life as much as possible. Theatres, the opera, balls, and parties were the order of the evening. She rode every day, generally accompanied by the Duchess of Kent, and often with Melbourne on one side of her and Lord Palmerston on the other. ”

“ I am reading with Victoria—reading in the deep eyes, without book. It is a course of social economy by a new method. The method is to look on this image of the Divine, as intently as may be without being caught in the act. I must not be caught; half of the gusty anger of the gods with adoring mortals comes of their dislike of being stared at. And, besides looking, there must be listening—listening with the heart. The ear will not do; the true message of this exquisite piece of being is only for a finer organ. ”

“ And as Victoria watched them form, rise and vanish into nothingness, the sun kiss gently but pitilessly the old vagrant hunched up against the parapet, the horror seemed to melt away. The peace of the evening was expelling it, but another dread visitor was heralded in. Victoria felt like lead in her heart, the return of uncertainty. Once more she was an outcast. No work. Once more she must ask herself what to do and find no answer. ”

“ If a victoria came along and in it a delicate, lonely old gentleman who had a large empty house with deep quiet rooms and a large sunny garden with high walls and wanted someone to be about there singing and happy till he died she would go. ”

“ To those still young, but old enough to remember Queen Victoria, it may seem hardly credible that she was born into a world devoid of all the marvels of steam and electric contrivance that appear to us the necessities, and not merely the luxuries, of life. ”

“ This day upon Victoria shine,
And a thousand blessings attend the reign
Of Victoria, Queen of England.
Then let England, Ireland, Scotland, join,
And bless thy name in every clime—
In unison we all combine
To hail the Queen of England.
Then hail, Victoria, Royal Maid, &c.
There is Portugal, and likewise Spain,
Each govern’d by a youthful Queen,
But of all the Sov’reigns to be seen,
None like the Queen of England:
Her virtues are so very rare,
The poor shall ever be her care,
And all her generous bounty share,
Victoria, Queen of England. ”

“ As the Queen drove through the Park in her open carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet appurtenances on the small bowing head.
It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest point. All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants rapidly increased; there were many marriages in the third generation; and no fewer than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living at the time of her death. ”

“ Heaven be praised!" cried Victoria, whose face seemed for a moment to beam with divine splendor. "The noble woman has risen to her feet! Behold her—more beautiful, prouder than ever before! Her head is wreathed in a crown of fresh oak-leaves! In one hand she holds a sheaf of grain, grapes and flowers; in the other a red flag, [4] surmounted by the Gallic cock. Superbly she tramples under foot the fragments of her collar of slavery, the crown of the Frankish kings and that of the Roman pontiffs! Yes, that woman, free at last, stately, glorious and fruitful—she is Gaul! Hesus! Hesus! ”

“ To a young colony like Victoria, the large export produce is in an especial sense the great lever of progress and civilization, because it enables us for our own use and benefit to procure at once, and in their highest modern perfection, all those productions of older countries, that we are unable to create for ourselves, and which are now giving a marvellous furtherance to our progress. ”

“ It was a charming Oriental sight, the grand, open- fronted room with its stone floor and many pillars, the superbly dressed directors and their blue-robed attendants, and the immense costumed crowd outside the gate in the sunshine, kept back by crimson-turbaned Sikh orderlies.
If civilization were to my taste, I should linger in Victoria for the sake of its beauty, its stirring life, its costume and color, its perfect winter climate, its hospitalities, its many charming residents, and for various other reasons, and know nothing of its feuds in state, church, and society. ”

“ THE QUEEN IN SORROW
It had certainly become clear to all her Ministers that Victoria was no mere figurehead, for while she yielded if their judgment was against her, yet she never failed to have an opinion and a reason for her opinion. In 1861, the fact that both she and Prince Albert were able to think for themselves and had come to a wise conclusion proved to be a matter of the utmost importance to two countries, England and the United States. Everyone in England was thinking about the war in America. ”

“ VIEWS ON THE PEAK. Nestling at the foot of the hills, and stretching from east to west for nearly five miles along the northern coast of the island, is the city of Victoria. A thriving hive of industry, built on a narrow riband of land, much of which has been won from the sea, it is a wonderful monument to the enterprise, energy, and success of the British as colonisers. The streets are well laid out and well kept, and the buildings which abut upon them are remarkable for their massive and imposing design. ”

“ Victoria is, therefore, justly considered as a colony possessing the purest extraction of the Anglo-Saxon race. And, although it has happened that during the wild mania of emigration, after the discovery of the Gold Fields, thousands of every nation and class flocked to its shores, still, the foundation being so English in character, and the squatters holding possession of such immense tracts of country, we may reasonably hope that they and their principles will still predominate. ”

“ In one of the intervals, I walked under the King's stand, and saw Her Majesty the Queen, and the young Princess Victoria, very distinctly. They were leaning over the railing listening to a ballad-singer, and seeming as much interested and amused as any simple country-folk could be. The Queen is undoubtedly the plainest woman in her dominions, but the Princess is much better-looking than any picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily, pretty and interesting. She will be sold, poor thing! ”

“ My dearest Victoria,—I am most grateful for your long letter of the 27th and 28th inst. I send a messenger to be able to answer quite confidentially. I must confess that I never saw anything so disgraceful than the discussion and vote in the Commons.6 The whole mode and way in which those who opposed the grant treated the question was so extremely vulgar and disrespectful, that I cannot comprehend the Tories. The men who uphold the dignity of the Crown to treat their Sovereign in such a manner, on such an occasion! ”

“ Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians. Osborne, 6th March 1849.
My dearest Uncle,—Your dear letter reached me yesterday, and I thank you warmly for it. I wish you could be here, for I never remember finer weather than we have had since we came here; perfect summer, and so sweet, so enjoyable, and then with all the pleasures and beauties of Spring you have that beautiful sea—so blue and smooth as it has been these three days. If we have no mountains to boast of, we have the sea, which is ever enjoyable. ”

“ They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months, enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor. She corresponded daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German and English; but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business and the pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was once more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as ever. ”

“ The warrior, sage, and poet fill their story
With all the various honours of mankind;—
May thy young reign achieve yet truer glory,
The pure, enlightened triumphs of the mind!
Too much in this wide world yet needs redressing;
But with thy reign Hope’s loveliest promise came.
May thy sweet youth be sheltered by the blessing
A nation breathes upon Victoria's name! ”

“ Queen Victoria for the greater part of her reign was a widow and a recluse, who divided all her thought with unremitting application between politics and family affairs. The new king had wider interests, Without his mother's power of concentration or her tenacity of purpose, he distributed his energies over a more extended field. ”

“ But square shoulders are not all that is wanted for the chief of a great people. No—no. I am robust—granted. But the burden of state is too heavy. Therefore, Victoria, do not put such a weight upon me. I would break down under it—and Gaul will, in turn, break down under the weight of my weakness. And, moreover, it might as well be said, I love, after service hours, to go home and empty a pot of beer in the company of my friend Eustace, and chat with him over our old blacksmith's trade, or entertain ourselves with furbishing our arms like skilful armorers. ”