Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/107

 a sensible woman must be much the same, one would imagine, as the way of explaining it to a sensible man; but this simple view of the facts was by no means perceived intuitively in 1841, but was only arrived at by demonstration from actual experiment. However this may be, when Peel and his colleagues learned their lesson, they learned it thoroughly. In this second series of interviews between the Queen and the leaders of the Tory Party, when a new Ministry was being formed in 1841, all passed off most satisfactorily. Peel said the Queen behaved perfectly to him; he was more than satisfied with her bearing towards him. To the Duke of Wellington she was equally gracious. She reproached him for not taking office himself, and he assured her that his one object was to serve her and the country in every way he could, and that he thought he could do this more effectually by making way for some of the younger men. It is true that there was still some talk about Peel's shyness making the Queen shy; and Greville has a little hit about Peel, after dinner at Windsor, talking to the Queen in the attitude of a dancing-master giving a lesson, and says that the Queen would like him better if he would keep his legs still; but this gossip probably reflects Greville's sentiments rather than the Queen's. Her respect for Peel and attachment to hm grew with her growing knowledge of his character and powers. In 1843 the Queen wrote of him to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, as "undoubtedly a great statesman, a man who thinks but little of party, and never of himself." In February, 1846, Lady Canning, who was then in Waiting on the Queen, notes in her journal, "The Queen is very keen about politics, and has an immense admiration for Sir Robert Peel."

Before the end of his Administration, she not only

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