recht so.'[3] Thus the diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed by. Fewer and fewer grew the moments of recreation and of exercise. The demands of society were narrowed down to the smallest limits, and even then but grudgingly attended to. It was no longer a mere pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early as possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.[4] The important and exacting business of government, which became at last the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science, to philosophy; and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his energies increased as the demands upon them grew. For whenever duty called, the Prince was all alertness. With indefatigable perseverance he opened museums, laid the foundation-stones of hospitals, made speeches to the Royal Agricultural Society, and attended meetings of the British Association.[5] The National Gallery particularly interested him: he drew up careful regulations for the arrangement of the pictures according to schools; and he attempted--though {187} in vain--to have the whole collection transported to South Kensington.[6] Feodora, now the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England, expressed in a letter to Victoria her admiration of Albert both as a private and a public character. Nor did she rely only on her own opinion. 'I must just copy out,' she said, 'what Mr. Klumpp wrote to me some little time ago, and which is quite true.--"Prince Albert is one of the few Royal personages who can sacrifice to any principle (as soon as it has become evident to them to be good and noble) all those notions (or sentiments) to which others, owing to their narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are so thoroughly inclined strongly to cling."--There is something so truly religious in this,' the Princess added, 'as well as humane and just, most soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt and disturbed by what I hear and see.'[7]