Life of Her Majesty Queen VictoriaFawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
Philosophy
Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
like to talk of him to those who love children, and can understand how
great the gap, how intense the pain, the ending of a bright little
existence causes.” The resemblance between the mother and daughter came
out in their grief. After the Prince Consort’s death, the Queen’s chief
comfort was to speak of him constantly to those who had known and loved
him; and the Princess Alice’s letters continually dwell on her darling
child whom she had lost in such a terrible way.
Several of the Queen’s daughters, notably the Empress Frederick and
Princess Alice, have shown the greatest sympathy with what is known
in England as the women’s movement. They have promoted by every means
in their power improved opportunities of education and employment for
women, and greater social liberty for them. The Queen, it must be
confessed, has never shown that she sympathizes with her daughters in
their attitude on this question. Princess Alice’s letters show that
Her Majesty was rather anxious and nervous about the women’s meetings
and associations promoted by the Princess, and not really pleased
at the ceaseless activity of her daughter’s mind on these subjects.
She inquired anxiously if Princess Alice took counsel with her
mother-in-law, Princess Charles of Hesse, upon them; when the Princess
was studying anatomy and physiology, she, as it were, apologized to her
mother for her interest in them, and said it might even be useful to
be not entirely ignorant on such things: she added that she knew her
mother did not like such studies, but affirmed that for her own part,
instead of finding them disgusting, they filled her with admiration
to see how wonderfully the human body was made. Though, on the whole,
the Queen has been very far from giving encouragement, except by the
magnificent example of her own life and character, to the modern
movement among women for sharing in political work and responsibility,
she testified her interest in their higher education by opening in
person, in 1887, the palatial buildings of Holloway College. It was
rather a singular coincidence that the year in which the Queen did this
(which was also the year of her Jubilee) a young lady, Miss Agneta
Ramsay, occupied the then unprecedented position of Senior Classic in
the University of Cambridge. This made 1887, in a very special degree,
a woman’s year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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