The Queen smiled, and continued:—
"You remember the paragraph which the Secretary of State pointed out a few days ago: it was in the Morning Post, if you recollect. That journal—which, by the bye, circulates entirely amongst the upper servants of the aristocracy, and nowhere else—declared 'that so great is the devotion of my loyal, subjects that, were such a sacrifice necessary, they would joyfully throw themselves beneath the wheels of my state-carriage, even as the Indians cast themselves under the car of Juggernaut.'[[31]] I never in my life saw but that one number of the Post: its circulation, I am told, is confined entirely to the servants of the aristocracy; still it seems in that instance to express the sentiments of the entire nation. You smile, Albert?"
"I was only thinking whether the paragraph to which you have alluded, was another specimen of newspaper metaphor," answered the Prince, with some degree of hesitation.
"Not at all," returned the Queen, quickly; "the Editor wrote precisely as he thought. He must know the real sentiments of the people, since he is a man of the people himself. I have been assured that he was once the head-butler in a nobleman's family: hence his success in conducting a daily newspaper exclusively devoted to the interests and capacities of upper-servants."
"I thought that English Editors were generally a better class of men?" observed the Prince.
"So they are for the most part," replied the Queen: "graduates at the Universities—barristers—and highly accomplished gentlemen. But in the case of the Morning Post there seems to be an exception. We were, however, conversing upon the distress in the country—for there certainly is some little distress here and there; although the idea of people actually dying of starvation in a Christian land is of course absurd. I am really bewildered, at times, with the reasons of, and the remedies proposed for, that distress. If I ask the Home Secretary, he declares that the people are too obstinate to understand what comfortable places the workhouses are;—if I ask the Colonial Secretary, he assures me that the people are most wilfully blind to the blessings of emigration: if I ask the Foreign Secretary, he labours to convince me that the distracted state of the East reacts upon this country; and if I ask the Bishop of London he expresses his conviction that the people require more churches."
"For my part, I do not like to interfere in these matters," said the Prince; "and therefore I never ask any questions concerning them."
"And you act rightly, Albert, for you certainly know nothing of English politics. I observe by the newspapers that the country praises your forbearance in this respect. You are a Field-Marshal, and Chief Judge of the Stannaries Court—and——"
"And a Knight of the Garter," added the Prince.
"Yes—and a Learned Doctor of Laws," continued the Queen: "any thing else?"