She developed naturally. At first she was not thought to be so highly gifted as later years proved her to be. Her father often used to speak of her as “poor dear little Alice,” as if he had to take her part. She soon became a great favorite with all around her. Lady Lyttleton, who up to 1851 was entrusted with the supervision of the Royal children, and to whose pen we owe so many accounts of that happy family life, writes as follows on the little Princess’ fourth birthday:
“Dear Princess Alice is too pretty, in her low frock and pearl necklace, tripping about and blushing and smiling at her honors. The whole family, indeed, appear to advantage on birthdays; no tradesman or country squire can keep one with such hearty simple affection and enjoyment. One present I think we shall all wish to live farther off: a live lamb, all over pink ribbons and bells. He is already the greatest pet, as one may suppose.
“Princess Alice’s pet lamb is the cause of many tears. He will not take to his mistress, but runs away lustily, and will soon butt at her, though she is most coaxy, and said to him in her sweetest tones, after kissing his nose often, ‘Milly, dear Milly! do you like me?’”
One of the main principles observed in the education of the Royal children was this—that though they received the best training, of body and mind, to fit them for the high position they would eventually have to fill, they should in nowise come in contact with the actual Court life. The children were scarcely known to the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, as they only now and then made their appearance for a moment after dinner at dessert, or accompanied their parents out driving. The care of them was exclusively entrusted to persons who possessed the Queen and Prince Consort’s entire confidence, and with whom they could at all times communicate direct. The Royal parents kept themselves thoroughly informed of the minutest detail of what was being done for their children in the way of training and instruction.
After the first years of childhood were past, the Royal children were placed under the care of English, French, and German governesses, who, again, were under a Lady Superintendent, and accompanied the children in their walks and watched over them during their games.
To the lessons in foreign languages, music and drawing were soon added, for which the young Princess showed a decided talent.[2] “Her copybooks were always neatness itself, and she wrote a very pretty hand.” “Fresh, blooming, and healthy, escaping most of the illnesses of childhood, cheerful, merry, full of fun and mischief,” she delighted in all bodily exercises, such as gymnastics, skating, etc. Above all, she was passionately fond of riding and of horses. She preferred playing with her brothers, and was bold and fearless as a boy. With all this, however, she soon showed proofs of real kindness of heart and of tender consideration for others. “I remember well,” a former dresser of the Queen’s relates, “meeting the Royal children playing in the corridor, and, as I passed on, the Prince of Wales making a joke about my great height, the Princess said to her brothers, but so that I should hear it: ‘It is very nice to be tall; Papa would like us all to be tall.’” “Her kindness of heart showed itself in all her actions when a child. Whenever she in the least suspected that anybody’s feelings had been hurt, she always tried to make things smooth again.” “At Christmastime she was most anxious to give pleasure to everybody, and bought presents for each with her own pocket-money. She once gave me a little pincushion, and on another occasion a basket, and wrote on a little card with a colored border (always in German for me) ‘For dear Frida [now Madame Müller], from Alice’ and brought it to me herself on Christmas Eve. I felt that she had thought how much I must have missed my home that day.”
The, first journeys on which she, with her elder sister and brother, was allowed to accompany her parents are vividly described in the Queen’s Journal. They were those to Ireland, in 1849, and, in 1850, to the Highlands; and to the beauty and grandeur of Highland scenery she remained through life an enthusiastic devotee.
Her intellectual faculties and the deeper qualities of her character did not, in her case, as, indeed, generally happens with high-spirited, healthy children, develop very early; but almost from the first she showed those qualities of disposition which win all hearts and lend a charm to daily life.
Little theatrical pieces performed by the Royal children on festive anniversaries in the family—partly, too, with a view of gaining facility in foreign languages—were the field in which the young Princess decidedly distinguished herself. No child ever performed the part of the High Priest Joad in Racine’s “Athalie,” with more dignity, and with a more pleasing intonation; and a more delightful German Red Ridinghood[3] than the Princess never appeared upon the stage.
Of one of these performances, given in honor of the Queen and Prince’s wedding-day in 1864, Baroness Bunsen gives the following description in her biography of Baron Bunsen. A tableau representing the Four Seasons had been studied and contrived by the Royal children. “First appeared Princess Alice as the Spring, scattering flowers, and reciting verses, which were taken from Thomson’s ‘Seasons’; she moved gracefully, and spoke in a distinct and pleasing manner with excellent modulation, and a tone of voice sweet and penetrating like that of the Queen.”[4]