"How I will strive to make him feel, as little as possible, the great
sacrifices he has made! I told him it _was_ a great sacrifice on his
part, but he would not allow it."

This record has been enthusiastically dwelt upon for its thorough
womanliness; and so it is truly womanly, royally womanly. But it seems to
us that less weight has been put on the fine sympathetic intuition of the
Queen which enabled her to look beyond herself, beyond mere outward
appearance and worldly advantages, and see the fact of the sacrifice on the
part of such a man as Prince Albert, which he made with all his heart,
cheerfully, refusing so much as to acknowledge it, for her dear sake. For
the Queen was wisely right, and the Prince lovingly wrong. He not only gave
back in full measure what he got, but, looking at the contract in the light
of the knowledge which the Queen has granted to us of a rare nature, we
recognise that for such a man--so simple, noble, purely scholarly and
artistic; so capable of undying attachment; so fond of peaceful household
charities and the quiet of domestic life; so indifferent to pomp and show;
so wearied and worried in his patience by formality, parade, and the vulgar
strife and noise, glare and blare of the lower, commoner ambitions--it
_was_ a sacrifice to forsake his fatherland, his father's house, the
brother whom he loved as his own soul, the plain living and high thinking,
healthful early hours and refined leisure--busy enough in good thoughts and
deeds--of Germany, for the great shackled responsibility which should rest
on the Queen's husband, for the artificial, crowded, high-pressure life of
an England which did not know him, did not understand him, for many a day.
If Baron Stockmar was right, that the physical constitution of the Prince
in his youth rendered strain and effort unwelcome, and that he was rather
deficient in interest in the ordinary work of the world, and in the broad
questions which concern the welfare of men and nations, than overendowed