d higher duties than those of mere representation
which are now thrown upon the Queen, alone and unassisted--duties which
she cannot neglect without injury to the public service, which weigh
unceasingly upon her, overwhelming her with work and anxiety." The
justification might have been considered more cogent had it not been
known that those "other and higher duties" emphasised by the Queen
consisted for the most part of an attempt to counteract the
foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. A large
section--perhaps a majority--of the nation were violent partisans of
Denmark in the Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of
Prussia was widely denounced. A wave of unpopularity, which reminded
old observers of the period preceding the Queen's marriage more than
twenty-five years before, was beginning to rise. The press was rude;
Lord Ellenborough attacked the Queen in the House of Lords; there
were curious whispers in high quarters that she had had thoughts of
abdicating--whispers followed by regrets that she had not done so.
Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood. She
was profoundly unhappy. After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey
declared that he "had never seen the Queen so completely upset."
"Oh, how fearful it is," she herself wrote to Lord Granville, "to be
suspected--uncheered--unguided and unadvised--and how alone the poor
Queen feels!" Nevertheless, suffer as she might, she was as resolute
as ever; she would not move by a hair's breadth from the course that a
supreme obligation marked out for her; she would be faithful to the end.

And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten, and even the image of the
Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the solitary
watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task. The
world's hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced by
the impenetrable weeds of Victoria. Would the world never understand?
It was not mere sorrow that kept her so strangely sequestered; it was
devotion, it was self-immolation; it was the laborious legacy of love.
Unceasingly the pen moved over the black-edged paper. The flesh might be
weak, but that vast burden must be borne. And fortunately, if the world
would not understand, there were faithful friends who did. There was
Lord Granville, and there was kind Mr. Theodore Martin. Perhaps Mr.
Martin, who was so clever, would find means to make people realise