Chapter 9

The Queen as an Artist and Author--In her Holiday Haunts--Side-lights on the Queen--Norman Macleod--The Queen's appreciation of Tennyson, Dickens, and Livingstone--Letter to Mr Peabody--The Queen's Drawing-room--Her pet Animals--A Model Mistress--Mr Jeaffreson's Tribute--Baron Stockmar--A golden Reign.

The Prince-Consort, as we have seen, was accomplished in music and painting, and knew much about many subjects. The Queen is not only an author, but an artist, and takes a great interest in art. To an exhibition under the auspices of the Royal Anglo-Australian Society of Artists, the Queen contributed five water-colour drawings, and a set of proof-etchings by the Prince-Consort. The subjects were the Duke of Connaught at the age of three; the princesses Alice and Victoria of Hesse (1875); portraits of the Princess Royal, now Dowager Empress of Germany, and Prince Alfred. In advanced life, too, the Queen began to study Hindustani.

In her Leaves from Her Journal (1869) and More Leaves (1884), and letters printed in the Life of the Prince-Consort, the Queen took the public into her confidence, and afforded a glimpse of the simplicity and purity of the court in our era. In the extracts from her Journals (1842-82), we have homely records of visits and holiday excursions, with descriptions of picturesque scenery, simply and faithfully set down, the writer expressing with directness the feelings of the moment.

Deprived by her high rank of friends--as we understand them in ordinary life--Her Majesty seems to have borne an affection for her husband and her offspring even above the common. With her devotion to the late Prince-Consort we are all acquainted; but her books show us that it was an attachment by no means owing any of its intensity to regret. While he yet lived and gladdened her with the sunshine of his presence, there are no words she can use too strong to express her love and admiration for him; and it is easy to see, before it happened, how desolate his loss would leave her. Then the Prince of Wales was always 'Bertie,' and the Princess Royal 'Vicky,' and the family circle generally a group as loving and united--without a trace of courtly stiffness--as was to be found round any hearth in Britain.

What the Prince-Consort wrote of domestic servants, seems to have also been the feeling of the Queen: 'Whose heart would fail to sympathise with those who minister to us in sickness, receive us upon our first appearance in the world, and even extend their cares to our mortal remains--who lie under our roof, form our household, and are part of our family?'

There is no one, in ever so menial position, about her person, who is not mentioned with kindness and particularity. A footnote annexed to the humble name almost always contains a short biography of the individual, whether wardrobe-maid, groom, or gillie. Thus of her trusty attendant John Brown (1826-83) she writes: 'The same who, in 1858, became