Title: The passing of the great queen: A tribute to the noble life of Victoria Regina
Author: Corelli, Marie
Language: English
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QUEEN ***



  THE PASSING OF THE
  GREAT QUEEN

  A TRIBUTE
  TO THE NOBLE LIFE OF
  VICTORIA REGINA

  By MARIE CORELLI
  Author of “The Master Christian”

  NEW YORK
  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
  MDCCCCI



  _Copyright, 1901_,
  By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY



The Passing of the Great Queen.


War and rumours of war,--nation rising against nation,--these fulfilled
and yet threatening disasters have culminated in the worst disaster of
all, the “passing” of the greatest, purest, best, and most blameless
Monarch in our history. England’s Queen is dead! The words sound as
heavily as though one should say, “The sun is no longer in the sky!”
Strange indeed is it to think of England without the Mother-Queen
of the great British people;--to realize that she, the gentle and
beneficent Lady of the Land, has left us for ever! We had grown to
think of her as almost immortal. Her goodness, her sympathy, were
so much part of ourselves, and were so deeply entwined in the very
heart and life and soul of the nation, that we have seldom allowed
ourselves to think of the possibility of her being taken from us.
Always apparently “well,”--never permitting her subjects to think there
was anything the matter with her,--bearing bravely such trials and
bereavements as would have broken down the health and nerve of many
a stronger and younger woman, she was always as it seemed, ready to
our call. We,--spoilt children of long-favouring fortune,--had grown
accustomed to believe she would always be thus “ready,”--that our
constant prayer and chant which all we in our generation have sung
since we were children--“God Save the Queen!”--would be so potent and
persuasive as to altogether disarm the one invincible Angel who, when
the hour of his solemn visitation comes, will take no denial, but

  “Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
   To lead us with a gentle hand
   Into the Land of the Great Departed,
   Into the Silent Land.”

Thither she has gone, the great Mother of a great people; a people
growing out like their own English oaks, far and wide, taking broad
root, and spreading mighty branches in all lands,--just as her new
Empire of the South has been affixed like another jewel to her crown,
she has put off the earthly diadem and robes of earthly state and has
“passed” into that higher condition of being, wherein all things that
seemed sorrows become joys, and where eyes grown blind perchance with
tears for lost and loved ones, suddenly see “not as in a glass darkly,
but face to face.”

We grieve for the loss of our beloved Monarch because it is a most
personal loss,--one which is irreparable, and which will tell on the
English Empire for many years to come. But we do not grieve for her
_death_, because we know, not only through the Christian faith,
but also through the wondrous workings of Science and its recent
heaven-sent discoveries, that there is no such thing as Death. We
know that when the soul is ready for Heaven the body drops from that
radiant Essence like the husk from ripe corn, and sets it free to an
eternity of endless joy, work and wisdom; and we are beginning to learn
that all our trials and difficulties in this world, be they the trials
and difficulties of an exalted position or an humble one, are but the
necessary preparation for this divinely-ordained consummation.

The Queen, our Mother and our Friend, lived her life with a noble
simplicity commanding the admiration of the world. She accepted her
many bereavements with a patience and dignity which silently expressed
to all who cared to note it the purity of her faith in God. Occupying
the proudest position on earth, her days were passed in the quietest
pleasures,--and she stood before us, a daily unmatched example of
the inestimable value of Home and home-life, with all its peaceful
surroundings and sacred influences. There was nothing her Majesty
so greatly disliked as vulgar show and ostentation; nothing she
appreciated so thoroughly as quiet and decorous conduct, simplicity
in dress, gentleness of manner. The extravagance, loose morals, and
offensive assertion of flaunting wealth so common to London society
nowadays, met with her extreme disapproval, and such faults of modern
taste have often been set forth as the reasons why she so seldom
visited the Metropolis. She was an incarnation of womanhood at its
best; as a girl she is described by the chroniclers of the time as
being simple and modest, unaffected and graceful; as a wife and mother
she was devoted to her duties, and adored her husband and children; as
a widow, no more faithful worshipper of a beloved memory has ever been
writ down in our annals. As in our old legends the mythical King Arthur
was called “the blameless King,” so perchance, in the far ages to come,
when we, and all our progress, advancement, Imperialism and power shall
have disappeared into the infinite, leaving only a faint echo, like the
sound of a breaking wave upon the shore, future generations may know
Victoria as “the blameless Queen,” in whose long reign England’s glory
rose upward to an almost falling height!

And now we stand, sorrow-stricken, even as the Queen’s own Laureate,
Tennyson, wrote of his ‘Sir Bedivere,’--

  “The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
   Amazed him, and he groan’d, ‘The King is gone!’
   And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
   ‘From the great deep to the great deep he goes!’”

The Queen is gone! It will take us a long while to believe it. The
solemn and majestic death-march--the rolling of muffled drums--the
tolling of funeral bells do not help us to realize it any the more
plainly. We read the news, we shed tears,--we think of it and we ponder
it, but we do not really yet understand the full weight of the blow
that has fallen upon the English Empire in the death of the Queen at
this particular juncture in history. We shall realize it by-and-bye;
but not yet--not yet for a long while! We cannot believe but that she
is still with us; and the black pageant of death, we think, must be
a mere bad dream which will pass presently with the full light of
morning. It is not for me to play biographer; there are hundreds of
brilliant men and women in the land ready to write full and detailed
memoirs of the Queen, and to chronicle her virtues, her good deeds, her
never-failing sympathy with the suffering and the poor. I am merely
trying to express in this brief tribute to her imperishable glory what
I feel to be the special lesson of this noblest Woman’s life to women.
In a time like the present, when the accumulation of wealth seems to be
the chief object of existence, and the indulgence of self the rule of
daily conduct, and yet, when despite our exceptional advantages, our
modern luxuries and conveniences, so many of us are weary, restless
and ill at ease, travelling from one place to another in search of
some chimera of happiness which for ever eludes our grasp, is it not
plain and paramount, after all, that simple goodness is best? The
“old-fashioned” virtues,--is there not something in them?--something
sweet and penetrating like the perfume of thyme and lavender in the
“old-fashioned” garden? One recalls to-day the words of the great
Napoleon to a lady who, deploring lack of energy and enthusiasm in
France, said to him--

“Sire, we want _men_.”

“No, Madame,” was the curt rejoinder,--“we want mothers!”

This is what every great nation needs--mothers,--true good women,
content with their husbands and their homes--women whose dearest joy in
life is so to influence their sons that they may grow up to be useful,
clever, brave and honourable men. This invaluable influence of pure
and modest womanhood is what England is fast losing. For many of her
matrons, especially those of the upper classes, are no longer content
to be matronly,--they must have the pleasures, the dissipations, the
frivolous gaieties of the extremely young, and the girl of to-day is
often brought into reluctant rivalry with her own mother in the contest
for the unmeaning flatteries and attentions of men. Our late Monarch
has given to women a supreme example of what mothers should be,--wise,
prudent, patient, never weary in well-doing, and for ever tender, for
ever loving. How sweet it is to-day to remember the little endearing
words which she wrote when he who is now our King was a newborn infant
in her arms:--

“As my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and _our little love
between us_, I felt quite warm with happiness and love to God!”

The gentle woman’s heart, then so “warm with happiness,” was destined
to know the coldness of a life-long sorrow, but the “love to God” never
failed;--never relaxed in its firm trust and faith, and herein was the
great light that seemed to spring mystically from England’s throne and
spread a halo round England’s Sovereign.

“I am quite clear,” said the Queen, speaking of her eldest daughter,
then a child, “that she should be taught to have great reverence for
God and for religion, and that she should have the feeling of devotion
and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to
have for Him and not one of fear and trembling.”

“Reverence for God!” No one will deny that the Queen in the closing
years of her long and splendid reign must have seen this reverence
dying out and that her heart must often have been surcharged with
weeping when she considered the great change that has come over modern
thought and modern life since she first ascended the throne, a shy,
pretty little girl, with all England waiting to do her homage. She
must have noticed a complete departure from old ways and customs
which, however simple they were, certainly did mark English women
as the Queen-roses of the world, and did so influence men to love
their homes and to work for the glory of their country that they were
able to leave it greater than they found it. She must have watched
Progress marching with swift, impetuous strides in one direction,--but
Retrogression and Decay marching as steadily, though more slowly in
another,--progress let us say in machinery, but retrogression in men.
Who shall count the tears the Queen has shed for the evils which she,
with her well-known wisdom and prescience, may not have foreseen coming
upon England! Who shall estimate the grief and pain she has suffered
on account of the cruel war which has ravaged the homes of a people
who are one with ourselves in the Christian faith,--a war which, in
her last days on earth, she had to learn was not ended, but rather
likely to be prolonged! Noble-hearted, deeply God-loving woman as she
was, her beautiful spirit on the verge of eternal glory, must have
often contemplated the dark clouds on England’s horizon with the most
poignant and tender sorrow, and her anxiety for the many difficulties
likely to surround her son, our King, must have been acute and pitiful
indeed. For there can be no doubt that much of the peace of Europe was
the result of her personal influence; and personal influence is a far
more important factor in the welding together and holding of countries
and peoples than is generally taken into account by such of us as are
superficial observers and who imagine everything is done by Governments.

How many times in the history of the world has it been proved that
Governments are paralyzed in a great national crisis, and powerless to
avert a great national disaster! How often have the men composing the
governing body lost their heads in emergency, and thrown aside their
responsibilities in desperate dismay at the suddenly rising tide of
difficulties, many of which they had not foreseen! But the Queen’s
heart was true; her trust in God never faltered,--and her woman’s hand,
so small and delicate, held all things in the clasp of a fearless love
and faith such as we are told can remove mountains. One may say of her
that she taught all her fellow sovereigns the dignity of sovereignty.
There was no German Empire when she first came to the throne. There
was no free or united Italy. England’s chief foes were France and
Russia,--and may it not be said that they are her foes still? Yet in
Russia the personal influence of our late beloved Monarch has been of
weight, apart altogether from the ties of blood which unite her family
with that of the Tsar. Her personal word,--the benign action of her
quiet personal authority--these have smoothed over many animosities
which might otherwise have become subjects of hot international
dispute. The woman’s word and the woman’s touch are marvellous in
their working for good if the woman herself be pure and true! When
Bismarck, known as “the man of blood and iron,” called the Queen “the
greatest Statesman in Europe” his remark was neither a flattery nor
an exaggeration. It was strictly correct. The Queen possessed the two
supreme gifts with which God endows unspoilt women, Instinct and Tact.
While men with heavy logic and contentious disputes wearily argued pros
and cons of various deep questions, the Queen, bringing her quick brain
to bear on the subject in hand, easily sprang to a straight issue, and
by a word here, a gentle suggestion there, skilfully guided slower
perceptions and duller wits out of darkness into light. Her loss means
much more than is at present apparent to Europe. The very fact of her
sex commanded reverence and respect; a woman’s prayer has often proved
more potent than a man’s command!

Strange, beautiful and pathetic is the picture given to our thoughts
of the dead Majesty of England,--white and still, lying in her snowy
death-robes with the first snowdrops of the year and lilies around her,
and the golden Cross shining above her,--that emblem of the Christian
Faith which, in its simplest form, the Queen followed fervently without
any faltering doubt or fear. The words of one of her favourite hymns
were the daily echo of her own heart’s trust in the Divine,--

  “Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
     However dark it be;
   Lead me by Thine own Hand,
     Choose out the path for me.

   *       *       *       *       *

  “Not mine, not mine the choice
     In things or great or small;
   Be thou my Guide, my Strength,
     My Wisdom and my All.”

The Queen’s piety was of a simple and fervent nature, and ostentatious
or decorative ritual never met with her sympathy or approval. The
private chapel at Osborne is as simple as a mission house, and if her
Majesty had any preference for a devotional service other than that
of the Church of England, it was for the Presbyterian form, which she
always adopted when at Balmoral. The religious side of her character,
as displayed through her whole life, was a direct contradiction to
the statement rashly made in certain quarters that she favoured the
idea of what Leo XIII calls “the conversion of England,” that is,
the retrogression of England to Rome. Never did she warrant such a
report; never did she give the slightest ground for even a suspicion
of the accusation, though she was broad-minded and tolerant of all
shades of religious belief, as indeed every true Christian worthy of
the name should be, provided he is not asked to entertain the wolf of
money-grubbing and self-aggrandizement under the sheep’s clothing of a
Creed. The Queen was not a bigot; she was in herself the representative
of England and England’s freedom, and she would have been the last to
approve of any form of religious intolerance or persecution. Once in
long years back she was told by the then Bishop of London that two
members of the Royal band who were Wesleyans had refused to attend
Sunday rehearsals. “These men,” said the Bishop, “have since been
dismissed from the Service for their scruples.” “What,” exclaimed her
Majesty, “two of my men dismissed for conscience sake! They shall
be immediately reinstated. I will have no more persecution in my
service on account of religious belief, and I will have no more Sunday
rehearsals.” And she kept her word.

By numberless little anecdotes such as this, many of which will
be quoted for years and years to come, we recognize the steadfast
simplicity and candour of the Queen’s religious faith, and we know
that the angry quarrels of sects, the intolerant pride of precedence
in forms and rituals, the wrangling, the bitterness and malice which
have recently and regrettably disturbed the equanimity of some of
those ministers of Him whose New Commandment was “Love one another,”
could not have been otherwise than lamentable to the mind of that
crowned Defender of the Faith whose woman’s weakness made her stronger
than many armed hosts, and more potent than all other rulers of
the kingdoms of this world. Her devotion to the highest ideal of
sovereignty--namely, “Queen, _by the Grace of God_!”--enabled
her to hold the delicate balance of things aright, and to maintain
the equilibrium of national policy by the mere fact of her existence.
Not only will the British Empire miss Her, who, as the King has said,
“united the virtues of a supreme domestic guide with the affection and
patriotism of a wise and peace-loving Monarch,” but all Europe will be
the poorer for lacking her gentle counsel. True, she fulfilled a more
than ordinary length of days,--true, her reign extended beyond that of
all our other Monarchs,--but the fact that the blessing of her presence
and influence was vouchsafed to us so long does but little to console
us for its withdrawal. She was our Mother as well as our Queen,--and a
mother’s place can never be filled.

There is a deep melancholy in the thought that the nation begins its
first year of the Twentieth Century clad in “the trappings and the
suits of woe.” The sombre black under which the Ship of State sets sail
again upon the uncertain ocean of life strikes a dismal hue against
the arching azure of the sky, and many there are of us who deem it
un-Christian to wear mourning robes if truly we believe in Heaven.
Unfortunately, however, at this time of day thousands of us do not
believe in Heaven--will not believe, no, not for all our preachers and
teachers, and would not, if an angel brought us the assurance straight
from God! We believe in the dark grave because we see it with our
finite eyes, and we put on the sable colour of the earth to match the
dimness of our sight. What we see, or what we think we see with our
limited and doubtful vision we accept as actual; but what we feel in
the innermost recesses of our souls, when we are alone to think, alone
to realize in the deep silence that we are _not_ alone, this we
put aside hastily, sometimes with a careless laugh or nervous shudder
calling it “imagination,” “fancy,” or “morbidness.” It is “morbid” some
people will tell us to believe that there is a Divine Intelligence from
whose observation no smallest thing escapes; and yet if the conscience
be clear how far from “morbid,” how healthy, how reasonable, how
comforting is such belief!--for, no matter how evilly we are spoken of,
how vilely we are slandered,--no matter what sorrows we suffer or what
losses we endure, all will be righted by that Eternal Justice at the
end, when, “through the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of
what is higher.”

The great thing, therefore, is to live here and now, the daily life
of simplicity and self-denial such as our late glorious Queen
lived. For if by the rule of courts we must wear outward black as
a sign of mourning for her loss, let us in our hearts inwardly
rejoice that God found her so pure, so ready for the highest bliss of
Heaven. Sixty-three years of the most exalted position in the world,
sixty-three years of undisputed sovereignty over millions of human
beings, neither spoilt the earthly Woman nor the heavenly Soul which
God had made our Queen. Shall we not be grateful for this? Shall we
not give hearty thanks amid our lamentation? There is cause for very
profound rejoicing that the Queens of the earth to-day are proverbially
of simple tastes and gentle characters, and we may be proud that our
Queen was the simplest of them all. Remembering her, and cherishing
her memory as we shall ever do, it may be we shall help ourselves to
measure things rightly by the standard she has left us, so that we may
be no longer deceived by false appearances. We shall learn to recognize
extravagance and ostentation as mere vulgarity,--materialism and
atheism as the action of diseased brains, and social “swagger” as bad
manners. We shall demand of women that the matrons deserve our homage
and the maidens our respect,--that the aged command our reverence, and
the young our tenderness. We shall perhaps learn by-and-bye that paint
and dyed hair are not beautifiers of any woman’s face, and we shall
give the wearers of such the kindly compassionate cold shoulder. We
may even ask--who knows!--that certain of our “ladies” shall give up
smoking and the use of stable slang. This would be a great concession,
no doubt, but perhaps it will come. The memory of the great Queen who
has passed from our midst without a stain upon her character as a
woman, or a flaw in her wisdom as a Monarch, may exercise a softening
charm and refining influence upon us through the chastening sorrow we
feel at her irreparable loss. But that there are breakers ahead for
England, who shall deny? Who can refuse to see the gathering clouds?
Who that is not wilfully deaf cannot hear the ominous rising of the
storm-wind?

  “We live in a time of sorrow,
     A time of doubt and storm,
   When the thunder-clouds hang heavy,
     And the air is thick and warm;
   When the far-off lightnings gather
     On the verge of the darkening sky,
   And the birds of the air, fear-stricken,
     To nest and cover fly:
   Look up! ye drowsy people,
     There’s desolation nigh.

  “Look up! ye drowsy people,
     And shield yourselves in time,
   From the wrath and retribution
     That track the heels of crime;
   That lie in wait for the folly
     Of the lordly and the strong;
   That spare not high nor lowly
     From vengeance threaten’d long,--
   But strike at the heart of nations,
     And kings who govern wrong.

   *       *       *       *       *

  “Kneel down in the dust and sackcloth,
     And own, with contrite tears,
   Your arrogant self-worship,
     And wrongs of many years;
   Your luxuries hard-hearted;
     Your pride so barren-cold,
   Remote from the warmth of pity
     For men of the self-same mould,
   As good as yourselves or better,
     In all but the shining gold.

  “Kneel down, ye priests and preachers,
     Ye men of lawn and stole,
   Who call yourselves physicians
     And guardians of the soul,
   And own if ye have not hated
     Your brethren, night and day,
   Because at God’s high altars
     They bent another way,
   And sought not _your_ assistance
     To worship and to pray.

   *       *       *       *       *

  “Awake! awake! ye sleepers,
     There’s danger over all,
   When the strong shall be sorely shaken,
     And the weak shall go to the wall;
   When towers on the hill-top standing
     Shall topple at a word,
   And the principles of ages
     Shall be question’d with the sword,
   And the heart’s blood of the nations
     Like fountains shall be pour’d!

  “When a fierce and a searching Spirit
     Shall stalk o’er the startled earth,
   And make great Thrones the playthings
     Of his madness or his mirth;
   When ancient creeds and systems,
     In the fury of his breath,
   Shall whirl like the leaves of Autumn,
     When the north wind belloweth,
   And drift away unheeded,
     To the deep, deep seas of death!”

No one, save those who have selfish interests to serve and who for
latent purposes of their own may think it advisable to soothe or
to flatter the King, will for a moment question the dangers and
difficulties which surround our present Monarch at the opening of his
reign. His worst foes are not rival nations, for he has inherited from
his august Mother a certain fine and courteous tact which is rare to
find even in the most accredited diplomat. It is a helpful endowment,
and will of a certainty aid him to unknot many a perplexing tangle of
dispute. He is undoubtedly regarded by all foreigners with respect and
liking, and his broad-minded, liberal views are well known, so that as
a leading Austrian newspaper says, “It is anticipated that he will
prove a mild and wise ruler, under whom England will lose enemies and
gain new friends.”

It can scarcely be considered then too much to say that the whole
Continent is favourably disposed towards him, and that from this
particular standpoint alone he is surrounded by friendly and prospering
influences. In our own England he has long been regarded as the
“popular” Prince, and so begins his reign as a “popular” King. He is
full of kindness and generosity; and there are many who assert that to
those who deserve it least he is too kind and too generous. But “a good
heart never changes,” as Shakespeare makes his Henry V say, and we may
hope that the King’s reputation for this “good heart,” which he won as
Prince of Wales, will be the rock on which the Empire may rest secure.
Yet, without assuming the rôle of a soothsayer crossing the pathway
of a Cæsar, those who truly “fear God and honour the King,” and have
neither favours to ask, nor interests to serve, cannot but entertain
without undue foreboding certain fears for his well-being. Dark to
him, personally speaking, must be this particular turn in his pathway,
when he takes up the Imperial Crown, glistening more with tears than
with jewels, and dons the heavy robes of ceremonious state, for he has
already lived long and lost much. Sorrow has dealt hardly with him in
many ways, and the dangerous condition of his dearly beloved sister,
the Empress Frederick, is an additional pang to his already grieving
heart. Between duty and love his spirit must be sadly exercised.

  “A man is not as God,
   But then most Godlike being most a man.”

Scores of nobodies have for years been in the habit of talking glib
nonsense about “the Prince of Wales,” and of casually alluding to
“Albert Edward” as if they knew him personally, or as if he were
hail-fellow-well-met with every little “nouveau riche” that comes to
the social scum-top for a moment like a minnow in a garden cistern; and
the present writer has often been vastly entertained to hear persons
who have never seen the Prince, much less spoken to him, jabbering
about him very much after the fashion of monkeys discussing the
_habitat_ of the lion. There was never a great name but was not
slandered by the envious,--never a high reputation that some coward did
not strive to attack and tarnish--never a splendid fame that did not
serve as a target for the arrows of the mean and the malicious. And
the worst lies and slanders are always said and written of those whose
position is too exalted to allow them either answer or self-defence.
When persons are themselves ignoble they love nothing better than to
defame nobility, and if they could force an answer from those whom
they malign, they would be happy to have dragged down the higher than
themselves to their own base level. Thus it chances that we have
often heard male and female word-mongers mouthing idiot conversation
concerning our present King which has marked them as altogether outside
the pale of good manners, and has debarred them from every suspicion
of either patriotism or loyalty. “The King can do no wrong” is, of
course, too far-fetched a statement in any period or in any country,
as has been proved over and over again, but until some wrong has been
manifested, the King’s name should surely be set well beyond the limit
of vulgar society jesting.

It may be asked, why should this be said now, and why should I say
it? To which I would reply, that having had the honour of a personal
acquaintance with his Majesty, when Prince of Wales (through the late
Recorder of London, Sir Charles Hall), and having been treated by him
with great courtesy and attention, I was and am still sufficiently
impressed by his kindness to be conscious of gratitude. And that out
of this, my sense of gratitude, I have, whenever I have heard people
discussing the Prince, now the King, taken care to exercise those
particular privileges belonging to the profession of Literature, which
are, to hear, to observe, and to chronicle such things as may be useful
to remember in the history of the time. And so it has chanced that
I, being deemed altogether unimportant by that particular section of
Society which judges Literature merely as a sort of bill-posting or
press-reporting, which giggles foolishly at the names of Homer and
Shakespeare, and can never be brought to realize that all day and
every day, millions of pens are constantly at work, writing down such
impressions of the hour as will outlast thrones, and be read by future
generations,--even I, one of the least of these wielders of pens,
have had the opportunity of seeing and noting much which it might be
well and honest to set down. It can do no harm, and it may do good,
to say that I have seen women of birth and position so lost to every
sense of the true dignity of womanhood as to descend to the meanest
tricks and subterfuges in the endeavour to secure the notice of, or an
introduction to, the Prince of Wales, and that then, when such notice
or introduction has been obtained, I have heard them vilify him behind
his back with the fluency and choice diction common to the ladies of
Billingsgate. It can do no harm, and it may do good, to say that a
certain prominent American politician, professing to be a friend of the
Prince’s and having been entertained at dinner by His Royal Highness on
a certain evening in Homburg, met the present writer hard by Ritter’s
Park Hotel next morning, and did then and there point to the Royal
Standard flying above the door, with the remark,

“See that old rag! It ought to be rolled up and put away with all the
racks, thumbscrews, and other useless rubbish of Royalty!”

And, on my replying that it was not customary in Europe to accept the
hospitality of a Prince one evening, and attack his arms and insignia
the next morning, that proud tall-talking son of the Stars and Stripes
“cut” me from henceforth, for which I have ever since been thankful.
From such men as these,--and there are, we know, Englishmen who are
to the full as ill-mannered as any ill-mannered American,--and from
such women as have in the past struggled and fought against each
other to obtain the Prince of Wales’s kindly courtesies, merely to
gain personal advantage out of them, and who may be trusted to pursue
the same old campaign with regard to the King, may, and probably
_will_ come many vexations and difficulties, not directly from the
actually offending persons, but from the pernicious influences such
mischief-makers exercise on the weak minds of those who listen to
their unwarranted and unwarrantable accounts of the doings of Royalty.
Such irresponsible sources are the fountain-heads of all the foolish
and erroneous statements which often appear in the press, and though
Fleet Street knows “how things get into the papers,” the provinces
are ignorant of Fleet Street mysteries, and provincial people have
the unfortunate habit of accepting everything they see in the often
brilliantly imaginative columns of the cheap London press as truer than
Gospel. And though the cheap London press is a very useful institution,
there are times when its zeal outruns its discretion. We have had
several notable examples of this lately, and the shocking scene
described by the _Times_ Special Correspondent, as occurring
outside the gates of Osborne House on the night of our great Queen’s
death, was a disgrace to the very name of journalism.

“I cannot close,” wrote the correspondent in question, “without a
description of a very painful scene witnessed last night, which is
described only out of a sense of duty, and in obedience to an instinct
of journalistic self-preservation. It happened that I was not at the
gates of the lodge last evening when the news of the Queen’s death
was announced by Mr. Fraser, nor was there any object in being there,
since the news was certain to be received in London; in fact, it was
received some minutes before it could be received at the gates. They
are about a quarter of a mile from the house, and it was certain that
the telegraph from the house to London would be quicker than human
transmission from the house to the gate. But a few moments after
the news had been made known at the gate I was driving up the York
Avenue to Osborne in obedience to the summons, and in ignorance of
the calamity which had befallen the nation, when I was apprised of
it in a very shocking and unprecedented way. Loud shouts were heard
in the distance, then came a crowd of carriages at the gallop, of
bicycles careering down the hill at a breakneck speed, of runners
bawling ‘Queen dead’ at the top of their voices. The sound suggested
a babel of voices at a foxhunt rather than the very solemn occasion
which had called them forth; and it has to be confessed with shame
that they were emitted by persons connected with the Press, although
not, of course, with any London paper of long standing. They were an
outrage, and, taken in combination with a fictitious and disgraceful
‘interview’ with ‘the Queen’s physician,’ which has caused much pain
and annoyance, they contribute a real danger to the better class of
journalism, and, through it, to the public. How can journalists expect
to be treated with consideration when, on an occasion so mournful, they
behave in a manner so horribly contrary to common decency? Individual
cases of misconduct one has seen before, but this yelling stampede
established a record in bad taste and in humanity. I am told that there
was ‘whooping’ at the gates themselves, but that is hearsay, and the
evidence of my own eyes and ears is enough and to spare.”

We may unite to this account the very extraordinary statement made in
a well-known theatrical journal, namely, that Mr. Charles Wyndham, the
actor, convened a meeting of his confrères to put forth the proposition
that “as vast crowds would be in London on the day of the Queen’s
funeral, and as the procession would be over by three o’clock, would it
not be advisable for all theatrical managers, especially those of the
West End, to ask the Lord Chamberlain whether they might not be allowed
to open on the Funeral night!” A more shocking, gross, and unpatriotic
proposition was never set forth, and it is to be sincerely hoped for
Mr. Wyndham’s own sake, that the journal which has so written him down
has somehow been misled as to its information. The King has already
(with a hasty officiousness which borders on excessively bad taste
in the hour of his Majesty’s bereavement) been called by theatrical
gossips a “promising patron of the drama,” but if he has been so
in the past, the proposal of Mr. Wyndham to make profit out of his
Mother’s funeral will scarcely commend the stage so much to his future
consideration and favour. During the brief time that has elapsed since
our late glorious Sovereign’s death, there has been far too much
dragging-in of the King’s name to matters “theatrical and sporting,” in
the Press,--and it is of far more interest to the nation to remember
how ardently he, as Prince of Wales, has worked for good and charitable
aims, how much he has helped to promote the cause of the poor, the weak
and the aged, and how generously and promptly he has always given his
personal aid and influence to relieve any immediate suffering. I do not
think it is possible to appeal to the King for a good cause in vain;
I have never heard that he turned a deaf or callous ear to the cry of
suffering. Certain lines I wrote of him once I have now neither wish
nor need to recall, and I venture to quote them here, not that they are
worth quoting, but because many of my gentle enemies have taken much
pains to pretend that I have written “against” our present Monarch, a
disloyal task to which I have never bent my pen. The lines are these:--

“To entertain the Prince, do little; for he is clever enough to
entertain himself privately with the folly and humbug of those he sees
around him without actually sharing in the petty comedy. He is a keen
observer, and must derive infinite gratification from his constant
study of men and manners, which is sufficiently deep and searching to
fit him for the occupation of even the Throne of England. I say ‘even,’
for at present, till Time’s great hour-glass turns, it is the grandest
Throne in the world.... There is nothing the Prince will appreciate
so much as a lack of toadyism, a sincere demeanour, an unostentatious
hospitality, a simplicity of speech, and a total absence of
affectation. Of all the Royalties at present flourishing on this paltry
planet I have the greatest respect for the Prince of Wales.”

This, written four years ago, can be repeated to-day without a word of
alteration for the benefit of the aforesaid gentle enemies.

Certes, those who are sincerely loyal in their devotion to the King
will not be found in the train of flatterers, snobs and time-servers
who are, alas, the inevitable encumbrance attendant on Majesty.
Those who would serve him truly are not made in the mould of the
Court-parasite, which particular insect feeds on Royal favour while it
can, and stings when it can feed no more. Any student of human nature
knowing King Edward, and having taken pains to observe little personal
traits of his disposition and character, cannot have failed to perceive
how much that is to the superficial eye unsuspected lies behind the
easy manner, the smiling _bonhomie_ and invariable courtesy of
his outward bearing. As one of our leading journalists has aptly said
of him,--“He has done a good many wise things, and no one can ever
charge him with having said a foolish one. He is neither a bookworm nor
a prig, and he possesses that _civilitas_ which the old Romans
lauded so strongly as the soul of social amenity.” Apart from these
qualities, we, his subjects, have good reason to believe that in the
weighty duties of kingship, which his Mother fulfilled so steadfastly
and unerringly, he will be like Shakespeare’s heroic Henry,--

  “Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
   You would say it hath been all-in-all his study;
   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
   A fearful battle rendered you in music;
   Turn him to any cause of policy,
   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
   Familiar as his garter.”

And so, as the great Victorian epoch rolls away into the deep shadow
of the past, the Empire rests as it were on a rainbow-edge between
the storm and sunshine, grief and hope,--grief for the Monarch that
was, hope for the Monarch that is. One invaluable influence Edward VII
brings with him to the Throne in his Queen-Consort, the “sea-king’s
daughter from over the sea,” whom we all love and admire with a
boundless love and admiration. Never has there been a more exquisite
woman than the beautiful Princess whom we now call Queen Alexandra;
her sweet face has been a light in our land for many years, and her
generous deeds of sympathy and love are known wherever her name is
spoken. All manner of kindly thoughts have moved her spirit,--thoughts
which have blossomed into kindliest actions, and the very sorrows she
has suffered have seemed merely to increase her sweetness, if such a
thing could be possible. It will be strange at first to think of her
as Queen Alexandra, having known her always as Princess of Wales, but
if queenly deeds can make queenliness, then she has been a queen all
the time. Of gracious manner and rare dignity, she, too, possesses
the love of home and home surroundings which so notably distinguished
our late Queen, and it may be prophesied that her quiet influence
will maintain the Court at that high standard of combined excellence,
brilliancy and intellectuality which shall give the key-note to
manners and culture throughout Europe. All the same we shall do well
to remember that society is not what it was in the early Victorian
days, and also that with the spread of educational systems, the masses
of the people equally are not what they were. In the older times the
middle and lower classes were uneducated and illiterate; now they have
sufficient learning to be able to think for themselves, and to judge
men and matters more or less correctly. The toiling millions know while
they toil, that they have a right to an opinion on government and
social questions, and they give utterance to that opinion sometimes
in unexpected ways. The feudal system no longer works; and the most
careful, prudent and painstaking rulers of countries and peoples are
sometimes called to account sharply when altogether unprepared. The
militarism of the German Emperor is exceedingly picturesque, but it
would not find favour with free Britons, and though it is well that the
ties of amity and good-will should be cemented between nations, the
Englishman is not over fond of his German brother, or his German rival
in every branch of trade. “Made in Germany” has become a contemptuous
by-word with the British artisan, and the spirit which is at the root
of that contempt is a very strong spirit indeed. It can scarcely be
called pessimistic to feel, aye, to almost see, much political and
social agitation for England in the immediate future,--much trouble
and difficulty for all concerned in England’s government, when the
last tears have been shed, and the last farewells spoken in pulpit and
on platform for the “passing” of the great Queen! For with her passes
more than herself; her death sets the closing seal on the scroll of the
nineteenth century; and with her departs for ever a Royal dynasty! We
do not quite grasp the meaning of the grave historical events through
which we have rushed, half blind with amazement, during the first
month of the Twentieth Century; many of us do not yet fully understand
that we have done with the House of Hanover, and have accepted as
reigning Sovereigns the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It means nothing
very much to our ears as yet, but who shall predict that it may not
in future mean something more than we can anticipate? Edward VII is
King over a generation of people whose modes of thought and life are
totally different to the modes of thought and life which distinguished
the English during the first half of his Mother’s reign. Few will deny
that there is much in modern society which would be better eliminated,
and that the general callousness and carelessness shown for most
things save self and money are not good signs of the times. People
who made our late Queen’s Funeral an excuse for private rowdyism,
who engaged “windows with luncheon inclusive,” for £50 and £100,
and laughed and giggled in their “fashionable” black as the solemn
cortège went by, as if the whole pageant were a circus fair, are not
promising subjects of our great realm. Such persons, however, it
must be remembered, were of the ultra-moneyed class, and it is the
ultra-moneyed class who are likely to have much to do in the ruling
of social matters. The actual People of Great Britain have nothing in
common with these; these, who in their millions watched the mortal
remains of their great Queen carried through the streets of London in
a silence that was almost terrible, because so pregnant with unuttered
meanings. These millions are they who are most deeply and loyally
conscious of their loss in the death of the good Queen,--these are
they who take up the labour of their days again with heavy hearts,
and doubting, puzzled brains wondering what is to come next. War is
draining out young brave lives through the country,--trade is slipping
from British hands to Americans and foreigners,--taxation is heavy;
food and fuel are dear. Speculators in South African holdings are
preparing largely for their own self-aggrandizement, regardless of the
country’s welfare, or the life-blood that has been shed in the long and
cruel contest with the Boers; and it is, under the circumstances, which
are visible to the most casual observer, and need no exaggeration to
make them more serious, that Edward VII ascends the Imperial Throne
of England. He has what none of his early ancestors had,--a cheap
Press ready to flatter him,--to note his every movement,--to eulogize
his every smile and nod, to crawl and cringe and clean his boots with
paragraph blacking daily, and editors who want to be “Sirs” and “Barts”
will so demean themselves before him as to make him wonder, perchance,
in an idle moment why God made such men! Unfortunately he cannot avoid
this kind of thing, only it is devoutly to be wished that the people
who read such gratuitous accounts of his Majesty’s doings would once
for all understand that they are merely reading “smart” fiction, and
that for news of the King which shall be correct and legitimate, they
had best pin their faith on the _Court Circular_. Otherwise they will
soon lose their way in the wonderful web of Fleet Street imaginings,
which are more potent to transform a truth to a lie, and a wise man to
a fool, than the most direful spells of Circe.

A leading and popular journalist has lately penned the following:--

“That we have loved our Queen is beyond dispute, but the pretence that
has been offered that her departure brings a great epoch to a close is
ridiculous.”

Nevertheless, “ridiculous” as it seems to this one individual,
there can be no doubt that a great epoch has closed, and that it is
particularly doubtful whether as great a one will ever dawn again.
Nations have their lives and deaths like individuals, and in the
opinion of many, both here and abroad, the more active life of England
has already begun to decline. “For,” as Carlyle says, “never on this
earth was the relation of man to man long carried on by Cash-payment
alone. If at any time a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition, and
Supply-and-demand start up as the exponent of human relations, expect
that it will soon end.”

We will not, however, shall not accept forebodings of disaster; and yet
there are hints in the very air of a coming battle and a dawning change.

  “Great thoughts are heaving in the world’s wide breast;
   The time is labouring with a mighty birth; The old ideals fall.
   Men wander up and down in wild unrest;
   A sense of change preparing for the Earth Broods over all.
   There lies a gloom on all things under Heaven--
   A gloom portentous to the quiet men,
   Who see no joy in being driven
   Onwards from change, ever to change again;
   Who never walk but on the beaten ways;
   And love the breath of yesterdays;--
   Men who would rather sit and sleep
   Where sunbeams through the ivies creep,
   Each at his door-post all alone,
   Heedless of near or distant wars,
   Than wake and listen to the moan
   Of storm-vex’d forests nodding to the stars--
   Or hear, far off, the melancholy roar
   Of billows, white with wrath, battling against the shore.

  “Deep on their troubled souls the shadow lies;
   And in that shadow come and go--
   While fitful lightnings write upon the skies,
   And mystic voices chant the coming woe--
   Titanic phantoms swathed in mist and flame,
   The mighty ghosts of things without a name,
   Mingling with forms more palpably defined,
   That whirl and dance like leaves upon the wind;
   Who marshal in array their arrowy hosts,
   And rush to battle in a cloud-like land;
   Thick phalanx’d on those far aërial coasts,
   As swarms of locusts plaguing Samarcand.
   ‘Oh, who would live,’ they cry, ‘in time like this!
   A time of conflict fierce, and trouble strange;
   When Old and New, over a dark abyss,
   Fight the great battle of relentless change?’
   And still before their eyes discrownèd kings,
   Desolate chiefs, and aged priests forlorn,
   Flit by--confused--with all incongruous things,
   Swooping in rise and fall on ponderous wings.”

No one, even with the most persistent cheerfulness of disposition,
can say the political outlook is otherwise than stormy, or the social
one otherwise than depressing. Half the country is in mourning for
itself as well as for the Queen; so many loved ones have been lost on
the field of battle that there is scarcely a home to which grief has
not brought a cup of cruel bitterness during the past year. On the
one side is a section of humanity overbalanced with excess of money
and love of luxury; on the other an infinitely larger mass which
is struggling night and day for the barest means of subsistence,
and between these two is the strong wedge of a steady thinking,
hardworking middle class, whose vote of preference, if asked for,
would unquestionably be given to their poorer rather than their
richer brethren; and over them all the Heavens flame “War!” War means
taxation; War means loss of able-bodied men, and, therefore, loss of
trade; War means to some people, who can barely afford to buy bread
in time of peace, sheer famine. But, say the militarists, War means
conquest; War means gold! So thought Rome in her palmy days;--even so,
Rome fell!

“One might have thought,” wrote Sir George Mackenzie, in the sixteenth
century, “that as the world grew older luxury would have been more
shunned; for the more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers
grew, they should have been the more easily induced to shun all
expense, that they might the more successfully provide against those
inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise, and luxury was the last
of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after riches had been
hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that
tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel
than they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel,
and so triumphed over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and
courage subdued the world, it was drowned in that inundation of riches
which these brought upon it.”

“Drowned in an inundation of riches!” A similar inundation threatens to
engulf the higher ideals, the nobler morals of our English tradition.
The ostentatious assertion of wealth was never more in evidence among
us than it is to-day; an entrance into so-called “society” can, we
know, be bought for cash, and even on such a solemn occasion as that
which saw our great Queen’s body carried across the sea from her
island home to London, and thence to Windsor, it was not the most love
or loyalty which was rewarded by a full sight of the great historic
pageant, but merely the most push and the greatest amount of gold.
No one who witnessed it will be likely to forget the levity with
which bargains were made and luncheons “planned” for the occasion,
and sensitive ears will long remember the light jesting carried on in
certain of the more “smart” resorts of London among the “high-class”
revellers, when the solemn procession had passed by. Those who saw
and heard will not fail to chronicle the taste and conduct of the
“upper” mob on this supreme and historic occasion, for the edification
of future students who may desire to know something of the manners
and customs in vogue among the educated ladies and gentlemen at the
beginning of the Twentieth Century. The slangy epithets heaped on
the somewhat dull weather which prevented these _élite_ from
thoroughly “enjoying” the “general holiday,” might have stirred envy
in the soul of a prizefighter,--and the utter vulgarity, coarseness
and indifference displayed by persons whose names figure in newspaper
paragraphs as “leaders” of society, seemed to call urgently for a
visitation of the King’s displeasure.

“To Apes by the Dead Sea, this Universe is an Apery, a tragic humbug,
which they put away from them by unmusical screeches, by the natural
cares for lodging, for dinner, and such like,” only, unfortunately,
it often chances that these Ape-persons are the very ones who, in
the King’s presence, would be the first to bend the knee, and wear
the most close and becoming masks of decorum and respectful homage,
for there is no flattery so subtle or so difficult to deal with as
that which affects straightforwardness and sincerity. His Majesty
is known to despise compliments, therefore those who are anxious
to ingratiate themselves in the Royal favour will be careful not
to make them. But open adulation is a far less dangerous evil than
the appearance of blunt and bluff honesty which covers the deepest
motives of self-interest. And the men who practise this specious
form of candid and fair dealing are those who are likely to work
mischief to both society and government. The King’s position is one
of far more difficulty than that of the late Queen; in her case a
sense of chivalry and respect for noble and pure womanhood held many
evil tongues silent, and fastened invisible fetters on the hands of
evil-doers.

“She was,” says a leading journal, “a Constitutional Sovereign with
limited powers of controlling politics in this country, but let it
never be forgotten that she could bring the influence of a parent or
relative to bear upon sovereigns whose personal power was enormous. We
can see, negatively, what this influence was worth from the constant
alarm which it excited in Bismarck, who resented it. It is not to
be supposed that her Majesty’s successor can have at once either
the same personal authority, or a similar claim to the deference of
other sovereigns. Those things were the fruits of a long reign and
unremitting labours through sixty years. Yet it remains the function of
the Crown to mitigate the isolation of British politics and to remove
the asperities which may arise out of small matters as well as big. We
do not doubt that the King will work to that end, but statesmen also
must remember that the removal of the Queen makes a difference to the
position of the country, that there is less forbearance to be counted
on, and that some mistakes may, therefore, be less easy to retrieve.”

Taking into consideration various splits, discontent, and restlessness
in the Churches, brief attention may here be called to the unnecessary
announcement made by Leo XIII to the effect that he was “unwilling to
be represented at the funeral of a Protestant Queen,” and also to the
equally gratuitous information given out in all the Roman Catholic
Churches that “no Masses would be offered up for the soul of the
Queen.” The Imperial English nation has not asked for “Masses” for its
late Queen, nor did His Majesty the King and Emperor supplicate the
Pope to represent himself at the world-famed obsequies. Hence Roman
Catholic dignitaries had no cause whatever to make so loud and public
a statement of their particular form of bigotry, or to emphasize the
special width and height of their own little door into Heaven. Thanks
be to God, Heaven is wide, and the bounty and beneficence of the
Creator are infinite, and a pure and perfect soul will take its place
among angelic and immortal spirits without the assistance of finite
persons, who, according to the words of Christ, are “hypocrites,” who
“shut up the Kingdom of Heaven.”

At this particular moment when the great Timepiece of the Universe
strikes away for us one era and rings in another, it is well for us
that we should be brought to consider exactly where we stand in our
national life, and to remember that England has just completed a
thousand years of historical upward progress. From Alfred the Great
to Edward VII, one thousand years intervene, and during that immense
period the rise of the English nation has been steady, glorious, and
supreme. And in this present year of our Lord, 1901, when we not only
enter upon the accession of Edward VII, but are also preparing to
celebrate the thousandth anniversary of Alfred the Great, it is curious
and instructive to turn back to very ancient records, and read what
such an old-world chronicler as Stow says in his “Annales of Englande”
of the Monarch, who though dead and buried for such a vast period of
time is still remembered for his good and useful deeds. In an edition
of the antique volume dated 1605 occurs the following passage:--

“The victorious Prince, the studious provider for widowes, orphanes,
and poore people, most perfect in Saxon poetrie, most liberall, endued
with wisdome, fortitude, justice, and temperance, the most patient
bearer of sicknesse, wherewith he was dailie vexed, a most discreete
searcher of truth in executing judgment, a most vigilant and devout
Prince in the service of God, Alfrede, the XXIX yeere and sixt moneth
of his raigne departed this life, the XXVIII day of October and is
buried at Winchester. He ordained common schooles of divers sciences
in Oxonford, and turned the Saxon laws into English with divers other
Bookes. He established good lawes by the which he brought so great a
quietnesse to the country that men might have hanged golden bracelets
and jewels where the ways parted and no man durst touch them for feare
of the lawe.”

Since then we may assert that we have made much progress; but assuredly
our progress has not been of such a character that we can “hang up
golden bracelets and jewels at the parting of the ways and no man durst
touch them.” We have discovered a good many things and invented a good
many things; we have secured many little comforts and conveniences
for the greater ease of the lazy and the slothful, and our mechanical
appliances and contrivances for reducing human labour are ingenious and
numerous. Nevertheless, while gaining some little useful information,
we have lost much high faith and a good deal of happiness. Some of us
seem to be, as it were, “born tired,” and the fatigue of our minds
does not lessen with increasing knowledge. There is a deep symbolical
truth in the old Biblical legend which tells us how man, after having
eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, was driven out of the Garden of Eden,
and that now, “lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of
Life, and eat and live for ever,” there is indeed a “flaming sword”
turning every way to keep him from the fulfilment of his heart’s
desires and dreams. East and West, North and South, the sword turns
invincibly, and we can never pass it, save as Victoria, by the Grace
of God, has passed it, across the dark river we call death. For ever
we strive to be what we consider “happy,” and the majority of us
strive in vain. Much of our restlessness combined with discontent is
our own fault, because so many of us go the wrong way to work with our
lives, and try, not to help each other, but to overbear each other
down. Simplicity of life is best; natural and innocent pleasures are
best; and happiness comes quickest to those who are not seeking it.
Our late Queen chose a simple life because she knew it was the wisest,
the healthiest, and the nearest to God; she disapproved of vanity,
ostentation, and extravagance, because she knew that these things have
only one ending, vice and ruin. Her long and magnificent reign is much
more than a great Sovereign’s rule; it is a matchless Example which
will shine in history like a great Light for all time. None who saw it
will ever forget the great British Navy’s farewell to the little yacht
_Alberta_ as it bore across the glittering Solent the “robed and
crowned” coffin which held all that was mortal of England’s Greatest
Queen; none will ever forget the massed crowds of loyal, patient,
sympathetic people in London who rose in their thousands in the chilly
winter’s dawn, content to stand where they could and how they could
for hours and hours, just to breathe a prayer as that same robed and
crowned coffin passed them by. For many of them could not see it;
many could only _feel_, with deep and tender awe, the momentary
presence of their dead Sovereign. It was a wonderful sight; nothing so
wonderful has ever been witnessed before in England. It was the most
eloquent, touching, and magnificent testimony of the strong loyalty,
love and truth of the British people that has ever been chronicled in
history.

There are more reasons than our personal sense of deep loss which make
us linger round the tomb of Victoria the Great and Good, with aching
hearts and tearful eyes. Under the fragrant wreaths of violets and the
great garlands of lilies, by the side of the husband she loved so well,
the body of our noble Queen rests, in peace and honour, while her Soul
has “passed,” like Arthur’s,--

  “To the island-valley of Avilion;
   Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
   Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
   Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns
   And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea.”

The golden gates of Heaven have opened to receive Her who was so long
England’s Good Angel; she has entered into her well-earned joy and
rest. Age has fallen from her as falls a worn-out garment; and she
has taken upon herself the nature of immortal youth, eternal love,
and endless happiness. But for us who remain behind, striving to peer
beyond “the portals of the sunset;”--for us who enter on a new era
without her, there are dim shadows of fear and doubt which we cannot
altogether dismiss from our minds. They may be vain shadows,--deceptive
and transitory like the mists which sometimes herald the breaking of
a glorious summer day, but they are sufficient to make such of us as
take the trouble to think about anything but ourselves, pause ere we
turn away from the grave of our late beloved Monarch, and with all our
hearts and minds, in loyalty and faith and hope, pray beside that
grave for our Sovereign Lord, the King. Who can forget his careworn
face, as he rode, Chief Mourner for the noble dead, behind his Mother’s
coffin,--who was there amid all the gazing thousands that watched him
on that memorable Funeral Day that did not feel the deepest compassion
for the grief which so visibly and heavily weighed upon him! Never was
a sadder countenance than that of him whom we have loved as our ever
genial, ever kindly, ever popular Prince of Wales; and when we think
of the immense burden of public duty now laid upon his shoulders, the
thousand and one things which claim his attention, the importance and
necessity of his constant and unremitting study of all the affairs of
State, we shall do well to remember once and for all that he is about
the most hard-worked man in the realm, with the least independence, and
the smallest chance of having any relaxation from the routine of his
onerous splendor. Hating ceremony, he must now always be surrounded
by it; loathing the servility of courtiers and the etiquette of
Court functions, he must now of all these things be the chief and
centre; loving freedom, peace and privacy, he must now be everywhere
in evidence, with every word commented upon, and every action noted.
His position, stately and magnificent and imperial as it, is less to
be envied than that of any “gentleman at ease” living on his private
means, with liberty to do as he likes,--for while a monarch is not
always made aware of disloyal hearts, he has ever found it difficult
to be sure of true ones, inasmuch as “they do abuse the king that
flatter him.”

Self-interest often wears the garb of honesty, and it is only the
quickest ear that can catch the Falstaff whisper,--“I will make the
king do you grace; I will leer upon him as he comes by; and do but
mark the countenance that he will give me.” ALL thrones are
surrounded by such time-servers and creatures of circumstance, yet it
is likely that the throne of King Edward VII will be more than lavishly
supplied with their company. The good heart, the generous nature, the
invariable kindliness of the King’s disposition shed forth a sunshine
and honey which must needs attract flies. God save him, therefore, not
so much from foreign foes, for he can quell them, but from treacherous
friends. God save him from the liar and the sycophant, the self-seeker
and the hypocrite! God save him from the smiling mouth which carries
a poisonous tongue, from the false heart which offers the open hand!
These are the enemies against which mighty armies are of no avail,
and cannons thunder in vain. These are not fair foes; they do not
march out on the open field; they are cowards who shun discovery.
GOD SAVE THE KING! Again and yet again we offer up this
prayer, kneeling among the flowers which cover our greatest Queen’s
last resting-place. God save him, and endow him with such high faith
as shall befit England’s highest ideals, strengthen his spirit that
he may unfalteringly lift the glory of the Empire to still greater
glory, give to him and his fair Queen-Consort full grace of good days
and happy life, and may we, his faithful subjects, love and honour him
for high purposes, great deeds and kindly words as we have loved and
honoured his Mother, our late dear Sovereign-Lady Victoria! More love
he could not ask from us,--and less we will not give!



Transcriber’s Note:

  Page 60
    black as the solemn cortége _changed to_
    black as the solemn cortège





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