carried on in a remarkable manner--with perpetual compromises, with
fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with

shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light and airy
mastery of men and of events. He conducted the transactions of business with

extraordinary nonchalance. Important persons, ushered up for some grave
interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered with books and papers, or

vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when they went downstairs again, they
would realise that somehow or other they had been pumped. When he had to

receive a deputation, he could hardly ever do so with becoming gravity. The
worthy delegates of the tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of

Capital Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of their
speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather, or suddenly

cracked an unseemly joke. How could they have guessed that he had spent the
night before diligently getting up the details of their case? He hated

patronage and the making of appointments--a feeling rare in Ministers. "As for
the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe they die to vex me." But

when at last the appointment was made, it was made with keen discrimination.
His colleagues observed another symptom--was it of his irresponsibility or his

wisdom? He went to sleep in the Cabinet.
Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a simpler

and a happier man. As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth century whose
lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age. He was an autumn rose.

With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his happy-go-lucky ways, a deep
disquietude possessed him. A sentimental cynic, a sceptical believer, he was

restless and melancholy at heart. Above all, he could never harden himself;
those sensitive petals shivered in every wind. Whatever else he might be, one

thing was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too
human, perhaps.

And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new, extraordinary
turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimateadviser and the

daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at once from a nursery to
a throne. His relations with women had been, like everything else about him,

ambiguous. Nobody had ever been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional
complexities of his married life; Lady Caroline vanished; but his peculiar

susceptibilities remained. Female society of some kind or other was necessary
to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of every day was invariably

spent in it. The feminine element in him made it easy, made it natural and
inevitable for him to be the friend of a great many women; but the masculine

element in him was strong as well. In such circumstances it is also easy, it
is even natural, perhaps it is even inevitable, to be something more than a

friend. There were rumours and combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a
co-respondent in a divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit. The

lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the law
exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But at any rate

it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in
Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one. However, he was used to

delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate success. His behaviour
was from the first moment impeccable. His manner towards the young Queen

mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness and the respect of a
statesman and a courtier with the tender solicitude of a parent. He was at

once reverential and affectionate, at once the servant and the guide. At the
same time the habits of his life underwent a surprising change. His

comfortable, unpunctual days became subject to the unaltering routine of a
palace; no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single "damn" escaped his

lips. The man of the world who had been the friend of Byron and the regent,
the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the cynic whose

ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose soft words
had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit, might now be seen,

evening after evening, talking with infinitepoliteness to a schoolgirl, bolt
upright, amid the silence and the rigidity of Court etiquette.

IV
On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne. The

good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was wisely
propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was never afterwards

belied. She found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he remained. Her
absolute and unconcealed adoration was very natural; what innocent young

creature could have resisted, in any circumstances, the charm and the devotion
of such a man? But, in her situation, there was a special influence which gave

a peculiar glow to all she felt. After years of emptiness and dullness and
suppression, she had come suddenly, in the heyday of youth, into freedom and

power. She was mistress of herself, of great domains and palaces; she was
Queen of England. Responsibilities and difficulties she might have, no doubt,

and in heavy measure; but one feeling dominated and absorbed all others--the
feeling of joy. Everything pleased her. She was in high spirits from morning

till night. Mr. Creevey, grown old now, and very near his end, catching a
glimpse of her at Brighton, was much amused, in his sharp fashion, by the

ingenuous gaiety of "little Vic." "A more homely little being you never
beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently" target="_blank" title="ad.明显地">evidently dying to be always more

so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go,
showing not very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I

think I may say she gobbles... She blushes and laughs every instant in so
natural a way as to disarm anybody." But it was not merely when she was

laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the performance of her official
duties gave her intensesatisfaction. "I really have immensely to do," she

wrote in her Journal a few days after her accession; "I receive so many
communications from my Ministers, but I like it very much." And again, a week

later, "I repeat what I said before that I have so many communications from
the Ministers, and from me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every

day, that I have always a very great deal to do. I delight in this work."
Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the woman

were pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with delicious
force.

One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention. Apart from the
splendour of her social position and the momentousness of her political one,

she was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament met, an annuity of
L385,000 was settled upon her. When the expenses of her household had been

discharged, she was left with L68,000 a year of her own. She enjoyed besides
the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, which amounted annually to over

L27,000. The first use to which she put her money was characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic: she paid
off her father's debts. In money matters, no less than in other matters, she

was determined to be correct. She had the instincts of a man of business; and
she never could have borne to be in a position that was financially unsound.

With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily enough.
And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us, with undiminished

clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the early months of her
reign--a life satisfactorily regular, full of delightful business, a life of

simple pleasures, mostly physical--riding, eating, dancing--a quick, easy,
highly unsophisticated life, sufficient unto itself. The light of the morning

is upon it; and, in the rosy radiance, the figure of "Lord M." emerges,
glorified and supreme. If she is the heroine of the story, he is the hero; but

indeed they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no other characters
at all. Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are unsubstantial shadows--the

incidental supers of the piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons, and
surely that was enough. One sees them together still, a curious couple,

strangely united in those artless pages, under the magicalillumination of
that dawn of eighty years ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the

whitening hair and whiskers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile lips
and the big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny Queen--fair, slim,

elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking up at
him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and half-open mouth.

So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon every page Lord M. is
present, Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being amusing, instructive,

delightful, and affectionate at once, while Victoria drinks in the honied
words, laughs till she shows her gums, tries hard to remember, and runs off,

as soon as she is left alone, to put it all down. Their long conversations
touched upon a multitude of topics. Lord M. would criticise" target="_blank" title="v.批评；批判；评论">criticise books, throw out a

remark or two on the British Constitution, make some passing reflections on
human life, and tell story after story of the great people of the eighteenth

century. Then there would be business a despatch perhaps from Lord Durham in
Canada, which Lord M. would read. But first he must explain a little. "He said

that I must know that Canada originally belonged to the French, and was only
ceded to the English in 1760, when it was taken in an expedition under Wolfe:

'a very daring enterprise,' he said. Canada was then entirely French, and the
British only came afterwards... Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much

better than I have done) and said a good deal more about it. He then read me
Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than 1/2 an hour

to read. Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of his, and
with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I was much interested

by it." And then the talk would take a more personal turn. Lord M. would
describe his boyhood, and she would learn that "he wore his hair long, as all

boys then did, till he was 17; (how handsome he must have looked!)." Or she
would find out about his queer tastes and habits--how he never carried a

watch, which seemed quite extraordinary. "'I always ask the servant what
o'clock it is, and then he tells me what he likes,' said Lord M." Or, as the

rooks wheeled about round the trees, "in a manner which indicated rain," he
would say that he could sit looking at them for an hour, and "was quite