Queen Victoria | Page 8

Queen, as daughter and sister, stands alone.
A kind friend and a well-known English writer, F. Aiken Kortright, for many years a resident of Kensington, tells some pleasant little local stories of the Princess Victoria. She says: "In her childhood the Princess Victoria was frequently seen in a little carriage, drawn over the gravel-walks of the then rural Kensington Gardens, accompanied by her elder and half-sister, the Princess Feodore, and attended by a single servant. Many elderly people still remember the extreme simplicity of the child's attire, and the quiet and unpretentious appearance and manners of her sister, who was one day seen to stop the tiny carriage to indulge the fancy of an unknown little girl by allowing her to kiss her future Queen."
That "unknown little girl" was an elder sister of Miss Kortright. My friend also says that the Duchess of Kent and her daughters frequently on summer afternoons took tea on the lawn, "in sight of admiring promenaders, with a degree of publicity which now sounds fabulous."
It was then safe and agreeable for that quiet, refined family, only because the London "Rough"--that ugly, unwholesome, fungous growth on the fine old oak of English character--had not made his unwelcome appearance in all the public parks of the metropolis. Our friend also states that so simple and little-girlish was the Princess in her ways that, later on, she was known to go with her mother or sister to a Kensington milliner's to buy a hat, stay to have it trimmed, and then carry it (or more likely the old one) home in her hand. I should like to see a little Miss Vanderbilt do a thing of that kind!
The Kents and Leiningens--if I may speak so familiarly of Royal and Serene Highnesses--when away from the quiet home in Kensington, spent much time at lovely Claremont as guests of the dear brother and Uncle Leopold. They seem also to have travelled a good deal in England, visiting watering-places and in houses of the nobility, but never to have gone over to the Continent. The Duchess probably felt that the precious life which she held in trust for the people of England might possibly be endangered by too long journeys, or by changes of climate; but what it cost to the true German woman to so long exile herself from her old home and her kindred none ever knew--at least none among her husband's unsympathetic family--for she was, as a Princess, too proud to complain; as a mother, cheerful in her devotion and self-abnegation.

CHAPTER IV.
Queen-making not a Light Task--Admirable Discipline of the Duchess of Kent--Foundation of the Character and Habits of the future Queen--Curious Extract from a Letter by her Grandmamma--A Children's Ball given by George IV. to the little Queen of Portugal--A Funny Mishap--Death of George IV.--Character of his Successor--Victoria's first appearance at a Drawing-room--Her absence from the Coronation of William IV.
Queen-making is not a light task. It is no fancywork for idle hours. It is the first difficult draft of a chapter, perhaps a whole volume, of national history.
No woman ever undertook a more important labor than did the widowed Duchess of Kent, or carried it out with more faithfulness, if we may judge by results.
The lack of fortune in the family was not an unmixed evil; perhaps it was even one of those disagreeable "blessings in disguise," which nobody welcomes, but which the wise profit by, as it caused the Duchess to impress upon her children, especially the child Victoria, the necessity of economy, and the safety and dignity which one always finds in living within one's income. Frugality, exactitude in business, faithfulness to all engagements, great or small, punctuality, that economy of time, are usually set down among the minor moralities of life, more humdrum than heroic; but under how many circumstances and conditions do they reveal themselves as cardinal virtues, as things on which depend the comfort and dignity of life! It seems that these things were so impressed on the mind and heart of the young Victoria by her careful, methodical German mother, that they became a part of her conscience, entered so deeply into the rule of her life that no after-condition of wealth, or luxury, or sovereign independence; no natural desire for ease or pleasure; no passion of love or grief; no possible exigencies of imperial state have been able to overcome or set them aside. The danger is that such rigid principles, such systematic habits, adopted in youth, may in age become, from being the ministers of one's will, the tyrants of one's life.
It seems to be somewhat so in the case of the Queen, for I hear it said that the sun, the moon, and the tides are scarcely more punctual and regular in their rounds and mighty offices, in their coming