Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/252

 To appreciate all that this touching letter from working-women to their Queen means, would be to understand the great national work which Her Majesty has accomplished by her life. The throne has become once more a living power for good in our national life mainly through the unceasing devotion to her duty, high character, and practical sagacity of its present occupant. Compare the warm human feeling of genuine affection and sorrow which breathes through every line of this letter with Greville's description of the funeral of George IV.: "A gayer company I never beheld. … They were all as mery as grigs," and so on. Two more such kings as Georve IV. would have run out the English monarchy. Mr. R. L. Stevenson said in one of his stories that the first service a patriot ought to render his country was to be a good man. Being a good woman underlies all our Queen's services to her country, and it is this which has established her throne in righteousness.

Her Majesty was deeply touched by the many expressions of affectionate sympathy which reached her from every class and from her subjects all over the world. She replied by a letter to her people setting forth in strong and simple words her mingled feelings of grief for her loss, gratitude for the sympathy expressed by the nation, and her sources of consolation:—

, January 26, 1892.

I must once again give expression to my deep sense of the loyalty and affectionate sympathy evinced by my subjects in every part of my Empire on an occasion more sad and tragical than any but one which has befallen me and mine, as well as the Nation. The overwhelming misfortune of my dearly loved Grandson having been thus suddenly cut off in the flower of his age, full of promise for the future, amiable and gentle, and endearing himself to all, renders it hard for his sorely stricken Parents, his dear young Bride, and his fond Grandmother to bow in submission to the inscrutable decrees of Providence.

The sympathy of millions, which has been so touchingly and visibly expressed, is deeply gratifying at such a time, and I wish, both in my