The girl who lived in Bloomsbury Square, or in the suburbs--say Clapham Common--had, in those days, to make herself happy with slender and simple materials. There were very few concerts: I think the Philharmonic was already in existence; Oratorios were sometimes performed: it was not every girl who liked what was then called classical music; the general cultivation of music was poor and meagre, and within very narrow limits: people liked songs, it is true, especially pathetic songs. These, like the poetry of the _Keepsake_ and _Friendship’s Offering_, mostly turned on the domestic affections. The young ladies recognised this sentiment, bought or copied those songs, and sang the most mournful of ditties. Everybody, in every class which respected itself and claimed gentility of any kind, talked about the opera, to which the well-to-do young lady was taken once a year, solemnly. This gave her the right for the rest of the year to talk about the _repertoire_, and to speak with disrespect of the leading singers. The theatre was very seldom visited; indeed there were reasons why it was not desirable that young ladies should go to the theatre; if they did go it was an event very much discussed both before and after. There were only one or two theatres that respectable people could possibly attend, and the one part of the house where ladies could be seen was the dress circle. Now in the Thirties, if my information is correct, there were good actors, but the plays were monstrously bad. The Queen, however, used to like going to the theatre. If you walk down to those north of the Strand, you may see how the road was widened for her to go to the Adelphi melodramas. The reading of girls was carefully selected for them; in serious circles--there were many circles in 1840 privileged to be serious--fiction was absolutely forbidden; its place was taken by religious biography: wonderful to think how large a part was played by religious biography about that time. I do not know what books besides these biographies and records of “conversation” were allowed, but I imagine that there were not many. At all events, a young woman must not be allowed to read anything which would suggest to her the wickedness of the world, the realities of the world, the truth about men and women, or the meanings of humanity. She was to leave her mother’s nest not only innocent--girls do still leave their mothers in innocence--but also in a state of ignorance, which was then mistaken for a state of grace. How far she really was ignorant no one but herself could tell; one imagines that there may have been some knowledge behind that demure countenance that was not generally suspected. [Illustration: _Painting by Winterhalter_ THE FOUR ROYAL PRINCESSES PRINCESS ROYAL, PRINCESS ALICE, PRINCESS LOUISE, AND PRINCESS HELENA]