Victoria Aug: 10th 1835.
Carlyle, in a private letter to his brother (April, 1838), gave a vivid picture of the girl-Queen as he saw her then:—
“Going through the Green Park yesterday, I saw her little Majesty taking her ... departure for Windsor. I had seen her another day at Hyde Park Corner coming in from the daily ride. She is decidedly a pretty-looking little creature: health, clearness, graceful timidity, looking out from her young face, ‘frail cockle on the black bottomless deluges.’ One could not help some interest in her, situated as mortal seldom was.”
Writing of a later period, Baroness Bunsen, describing the scene in the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament in 1842, says:—
“The opening of Parliament was the thing from which I expected most, and I was not disappointed. The throngs in the streets, in the windows, in every place people could stand upon, all looking so pleased; the splendid Horse Guards, the Grenadiers of the Guard ... the Yeomen of the Body-Guard. Then in the House of Lords, the Peers in their robes, the beautifully dressed ladies with many very beautiful faces; lastly, the procession of the Queen’s entry, and herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall, but were she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity.... The composure with which she filled the throne while awaiting the Commons I much admired; it was a test—no fidget, no apathy. Then her voice and enunciation cannot be more perfect. In short, it cannot be said that she did well, but that she was the Queen,—she was and felt herself to be the descendant of her ancestors.”
These last words exactly describe Her Majesty’s bearing in age as well as in youth; and it is this, her intellectual grasp of the situation she fills as the highest officer of the State and the wearer of the crown of the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, that renders her dignity so entirely independent of mere trappings and finery. It has been remarked that on the occasion of her public appearances, the Queen may have been the worst-dressed lady present, and have had by her side or in the immediate background a galaxy of fair women dressed with all the art that Paris or London could command, and yet she has looked every inch the Queen, and they have looked milliner’s advertisements. She has over and over again proved that the saying, “Fine feathers make fine birds,” is not universally true.
In those portions of the Queen’s Journals which have been published, evidence is not wanting of that pride of race which, if we have interpreted it aright, is the true source of Her Majesty’s dignity of bearing. On one of her journeys through the Highlands, General Ponsonby reminded her that the great-great-grandfathers of the men who were showing her every possible mark of loyalty and affection, had lost their heads for trying to dethrone the Queen’s great-great-grandfather. “Yes,” adds the Queen, “and I feel a sort of reverence in going over these scenes in this most beautiful country which I am proud to call my own, where there was such devoted loyalty to the family of my ancestors; for Stuart blood is in my veins, and I am now their representative, and the people are as devoted and loyal to me as they were to that unhappy race.”
Returning to the subject of the influence of the Queen’s early education and character, the remarkable degree to which her natural conscientiousness was developed is noticeable in a great variety of directions. Her extreme punctuality is an instance in point. She never wastes the time of others by keeping them waiting for her. Punctuality has been described as “the courtesy of kings,” and it is a courtesy in which the Queen is unfailing. Her care for her servants and household is another manifestation of her conscientiousness. Her “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands,” and the subsequent book, “More Leaves,” are full of little touches illustrative of the Queen’s care for those dependent upon her, and her readiness to acknowledge the value of their services. Sir Arthur Helps, writing the introduction to the first of these volumes, draws attention to this feature of the Queen’s character. He says: “Perhaps there is no person in these realms who takes a more deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the household committed to his charge than our gracious Queen does in hers, or who feels more keenly what are the reciprocal duties of masters and servants.”
In one of the Queen’s letters to Dean Stanley, on the occasion of the death of a valued servant of his, she says: “I am one of those who think the loss of a faithful servant the loss of a friend, and one who can never be replaced.” In 1858, on their first journey to Prussia, to visit the Princess Royal after her marriage, the Queen and Prince heard of the sudden death of a valuable servant of the latter, who had been with him since his childhood. The Queen wrote in her Journal: “I turn sick now in writing it.... He died suddenly on Saturday at Morges of angina pectoris. I burst into tears. All day long the tears would rush every moment to my eyes, and this dreadful reality came to throw a gloom over the long-wished-for day of meeting with our dear child.... I cannot think of my dear husband without Cart! He seemed part of himself. We were so thankful for and proud of this good, faithful old servant.... A sad breakfast we had indeed.”[5]
The Duchess of Kent made the education of the Princess her one end and aim during the minority of the latter. She was hardly ever out of her mother’s sight, sleeping in her mother’s room, having her supper, at a little table, by the side of her mother at dinner. She was instructed in the usual educational subjects, besides, what was then unusual for a girl, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. From an early age she spoke French and German with fluency; the latter indeed was almost another mother tongue. All her life she has shown delight in languages, and her subjects, especially those in Asia, were very interested to hear that, even in old age, she had begun to make a systematic study of Hindustani. From an early age she acquired considerable proficiency in drawing and music, and developed in youth a pleasant mezzo-soprano voice. One of Mendelssohn’s letters to his family describes his visit to the Queen and Prince Consort at Buckingham Palace in 1842. She offered to sing one of his songs, and he handed her the album to choose one. “And which,” writes Mendelssohn, “did she choose? ‘Schöner und schöner schmäckt sich’!” The exclamation mark is due to the fact that this song was not by Mendelssohn at all, but by his sister Fanny. Germany in the forties would have been scandalized by a woman’s name on the titlepage even of a song, so that Mendelssohn’s album of songs was enriched by those which had been composed by his sister. The letter continues: “She [the Queen] sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and with very good execution. Only ... where it goes down to D and comes up again chromatically she sang D sharp each time.... With the exception of this little mistake, it was really charming, and the last long G I never heard better, or purer, or more natural from any amateur. Then I was obliged to confess that Fanny had written the song (which I found very hard, but pride must have a fall), and begged her to sing one of my own also.”