Page:The life and times of King Edward VII by Whates, Harry Richard 1.djvu/34

16 i6 LIFE AND TIMES OF EDWARD VII. Cornwall, so I stepped out of the parlour with Bertie, and Lord Palmerston told them that that was the Duke of Cornwall, and the old Mayor of Penrhyn said that he ' hoped he would grow up to be a blessing to his parents and to his country.'" The Queen dressed him in a sailor suit for the first time during this cruise. " The officers and men of the Royal yacht, who were assembled on deck to see him," she wrote, " cheered and seemed delighted with him." In the next summer the Royal party, with the children's governess now Mrs. Hildyard, who had succeeded Lady lyyttelton on her retirement from the position extended the cruise from Osborne round the coast of Wales and through the Irish Sea to the west coast of Scotland. The Princess Royal was also a very beautiful child. The people did not know whom to admire the more the charming little Princess or the hand- some, manly, mischievous-looking little Prince. They lavished interest and ad- miration on both. Of the educative value and pleasure of summer cruises such as these, it would be agreeable, but it would be needless, to write. It can easily be imagined how they would enlarge the horizon of the children's minds, and how the curiosity to see the Prince and do him honour would insen- sibly initiate him into a realisation of the position it was his destiny to hold among men. The early childhood of King Edward has now been described with a detail which the reader may deem sufficient with touches of triviality, too, which some may regard as superfluous. But the environment of infancy is surely as important an element for the develop- ment of a personality as that of later childhood can be. Indeed, it is arguable that the first few years of existence have a more determining influence on the life as a whole than any other formative period can have. They are the years in which physical health is made or marred, the years in which the temperament and dis- position are finely or ill developed by parental love and wisdom, or parental deficiencies in sympathy and in the right treatment of the young life. The early environment of King Edward as nearly approached the ideal as any such environment could do. He came, as Lord Melbourne had observed, of good stock on both sides. He was born with- out blemish, of parents in the prime of youth and health, each of them endowed with beauty of form and rare qualities of mind and character ; each having for the other an affection so high and deep that their union presents one of the purest and most elevating stories of wedded happiness in the biographical literature of our era. All these things count for much. They account for the beauty and charm of the infant Prince, for early influences and tender associations by which mind and emotions were formed and controlled and guided along the right lines of self-expression. From the first assertions of individuality in the cradle the young life was moulded with affectionate care by its authors. No child had or could have had more intelli- gent love and care lavished upon its infancy. Add to these all that wealth, wisely used, could bring in ministering to the needs of the child, in giving to the life such a setting that nothing mean or coarse or brutal should mar its growth, and it will be realised that the Royal child started life under conditions seldom