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y I should trouble to resuscitate these Victorian remains. My answer is because I myself am Victorian, and because the Victorianism to which I belong is now passing so rapidly into history, henceforth to present to the world a colder aspect than that which endears it to my own mind.
The bloom upon the grape only fully appears when it is ripe for death. Then, at a touch, it passes, delicate and evanescent as the frailest blossoms of spring. Just at this moment the Victorian age has that bloom upon it--autumnal, not spring-like--which, in the nature of things, cannot last. That bloom I have tried to illumine before time wipes it away.
Under this rose-shaded lamp of history, domestically designed, I would have these old characters look young again, or not at least as though they belonged to another age. This wick which I have kindled is short, and will not last; but, so long as it does, it throws on them the commentary of a contemporary light. In another generation the bloom which it seeks to irradiate will be gone; nor will anyone then be able to present them to us as they really were.
Contents
PART ONE: ANGELS AND MINISTERS
I. THE QUEEN: GOD BLESS HER! (A Scene from Home-Life in the Highlands)
II. HIS FAVOURITE FLOWER (A Political Myth Explained)
III. THE COMFORTER (A Political Finale)
PART TWO
IV. POSSESSION (A Peep-Show in Paradise)
PART THREE: DETHRONEMENTS
V. THE KING-MAKER (Brighton--October, 1891)
VI. THE MAN OF BUSINESS (Highbury--August, 1913)
VII. THE INSTRUMENT (Washington--March, 1921)
Part One: Angels and Ministers
The Queen: God Bless Her!
Dramatis Personae
QUEEN VICTORIA LORD BEACONSFIELD MR. JOHN BROWN A FOOTMAN
The Queen: God Bless Her!
A Scene from Home-Life in the Highlands
_The august Lady is sitting in a garden-tent on the lawn of Balmoral Castle. Her parasol leans beside her. Writing-materials are on the table before her, and a small fan, for it is hot weather;