1909] 071 The Letters of Queen Victoria. 501 



this Royal influence working backwards and forwards, like a shuttle, 

 through the slowly forming web of our political fabric, undetected at 

 the time, but largely responsible for the harmonious colouring of the 

 whole. The published correspondence of Queen Victoria has carried, 

 onward the curious story a further stage. No one can read the 

 volumes printed last year, by leave of the King, and fail to perceive 

 that men forty years ago were right, and that the nation owes a 

 heavy debt of gratitude to the Queen and Prince Albert. I approach 

 the consideration of these volumes with much diffidence. 



The Atmosphere of Historical Works. 



It has always appeared to me that the true significance of any 

 historical work is to be found in what — for want of a better designa- 

 tion — must be called atmosphere. Few have been able to create it. 

 The most famous prose writer of ancient Greece, with light touches 

 and in half-a-dozen lines, carries the reader straight into the palaestra 

 at Athens, and you seem to feel the hot summer sun beating down 

 upon the playgrounds, and can see the teachers seated on the low 

 benches, and the white-robed scholars grouped round them. The 

 greatest of English poets has made the Forest of Arden as real to us 

 as the Forest of Windsor^and to many men, as to the first Duke of 

 Marlborough, the only history that is really alive is Shakespeare's. 

 Dumas the Elder and Sir Walter Scott possessed this magical gift, 

 while among living Englishmen, if a master-writer of history has 

 beeiA lost in George Meredith, perhaps lovers of literature have been 

 the gainers because he chose another field. These supreme artists, 

 as I have said, could create atmosphere, and the mere mention of 

 their names shows the hopelessness of the task before me. 



I shall, however, make no serious attempt, for, by the gracio*us 

 leave of His Majesty the King, I am enabled to quote certain passages 

 from the unpublished journals of the Queen which will create for us 

 that atmosphere which, as I have said, is so essential to the true 

 understanding of character and of events. Before proceeding further 

 I should like to state concisely the questions which readers of the 

 correspondence of Queen Victoria should set before themselves, and 

 seek to answer : — What do we owe to Queen Victoria ? What was 

 the secret of her influence ? What will be her place in history ? I 

 cannot pretend to answer them, but we can perhaps proceed some 

 little way together along the path which leads to their ultimate 

 solution. ■»• 



The Beginning of the Journals. 



On the day, the 24th of May, 1832, that the little Princess 

 Victoria was thirteen years old, her life, as described by herself, 

 began. As described by herself, because on that day her mother 



