r Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the
purpose which the Queen had in view. Perhaps she was unfortunate in her
coadjutors, but, in reality, the responsibility for the failure must lie
with Victoria herself. Sir Theodore and the others faithfully carried
out the task which she had set them--faithfully put before the public
the very image of Albert that filled her own mind. The fatal drawback
was that the public did not find that image attractive. Victoria's
emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for subtlety,
rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicuity, or humour,
might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute and the
categorical. When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal emphasis
which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally outside
the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were equally
unmitigated. In the case of Albert her passion for superlatives
reached its height. To have conceived of him as anything short of
perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the glories and
graces of man--would have been an unthinkable blasphemy: perfect he
was, and perfect he must be shown to have been. And so, Sir Arthur, Sir
Theodore, and the General painted him. In the circumstances, and under
such supervision, to have done anything else would have required talents
considerably more distinguished than any that those gentlemen possessed.
But that was not all. By a curious mischance Victoria was also able to
press into her service another writer, the distinction of whose talents
was this time beyond a doubt. The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from
complaisance or conviction, the tone of his sovereign, joined in the
chorus, and endowed the royal formula with the magical resonance of
verse. This settled the matter. Henceforward it was impossible to forget
that Albert had worn the white flower of a blameless life.

The result was doubly unfortunate. Victoria, disappointed and chagrined,
bore a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite of all her
efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth. She did not understand
that the picture of an embodied perfection is distasteful to the
majority of mankind. The cause of this is not so much an envy of the
perfect being as a suspicion that he must be inhuman; and thus it
happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a
figure resembling the sugary hero of a mora