of twelve, had kept her word. Duty,
conscience, morality--yes! in the light of those high beacons the
Queen had always lived. She had passed her days in work and not in
pleasure--in public responsibilities and family cares. The standard
of solid virtue which had been set up so long ago amid the domestic
happiness of Osborne had never been lowered for an instant. For more
than half a century no divorced lady had approached the precincts of the
Court. Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid
down a still stricter ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow
who married again. Considering that she herself was the offspring of
a widow's second marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an
eccentricity; but, no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.
The middle classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability,
rejoiced with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens. They
almost claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have
been an exaggeration. For, though many of her characteristics were most
often found among the middle classes, in other respects--in her manners,
for instance--Victoria was decidedly aristocratic. And, in one important
particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude
toward herself was simply regal.

Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a
personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common to
all its qualities, that really tells. In Victoria, it is easy to discern
the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar sincerity. Her
truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of her emotions and
her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied forms which this
central characteristic assumed. It was her sincerity which gave her at
once her impressiveness, her charm, and her absurdity. She moved
through life with the imposing certitude of one to whom concealment was
impossible--either towards her surroundings or towards herself. There
she was, all of her--the Queen of England, complete and obvious; the
world might take her or leave her; she had nothing more to show, or to
explain, or to modify; and, with her peerless carriage, she swept along
her path. And not only was concealment out of the question; reticence,
reserve, even dignity itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well
dispensed with. As Lady Lyttelton said: "There is a transparency in her