Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/48

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"that Latin is the foundation of English grammar and of all the elegant expressions, and I learned it as you wished it; but I understand all better now.' And the Princess gave me her hand, repeating, 'I will be good.''"

This anecdote gives the key-note to the Queen's character. Her childish resolve, I will be good, has been the secret of her strength throughout her reign. She has never shrunk from anything which has presented itself to her in the light of a duty. When she became Queen she did not go through her business in a perfunctory way, giving her signature without question to whatever documents were placed before her. She required all the State business explained to her to such a degree that Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, said laughingly that he would rather manage ten kings than one queen. On one occasion, in the early years of her reign, the Minister urged her to sign some document on the grounds of "expediency." She looked up quietly, and said, "I have been taught to judge between what is right and what is wrong, but 'expediency' is a word I neither wish to hear nor to understand." Another word which she objected to was "trouble." Mrs. Jameson relates that one of the Ministers told her that he once carried the Queen some papers to sign, and said something about managing so as to give Her Majesty "less trouble." She looked up from her papers, and said, "Pray never let me hear those words again; never mention the word 'trouble.' Only tell me how the thing is to be done and done rightly, and I will do it if I can." This has been her principle throughout her reign: to do her work as well as she knew how to do it, without sparing herself either trouble or responsibility.

It is not only the larger questions of State policy that she follows now, after more than fifty years of sovereignty, with all the knowledge which long experience gives, but she bestows close attention to the