I was quite interested in the Vancouver Sun's editorial for Victoria Day. Here is some of it. Can't seem to blog the link but it appears at the end.
...Of course, there was a real person behind the indelible image of the dowdy dowager.
Victoria began her reign as a beautiful young woman throbbing with passion and sensuality. Her journals survive, or at least 111 manuscript volumes do — about two-thirds were edited out by her youngest daughter after the Queen’s death. They include in her own words her impression of momentous events: meeting her future husband Prince Albert, the death of the king and the awesome realization that she had just become queen, her coronation, her wedding night, the death of her lover and soulmate.
These entries reveal not a political caricature of prudery and hypocrisy — the stereotypes that subsequent generations affixed to her age — but a high-spirited romantic. “I never, never spent such an evening! ... bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!” she wrote of her wedding night. The mutually smitten couple had nine children.
Victoria proved a feisty, self-directed woman with an earthy, well-developed sense of humour, capable of laughing uproariously at an accidental double-entendre or an official faux pas. And she was also wise, pragmatic, tough-minded and fearless when she had to be.
During one of the eight personal attacks and assassination attempts during her reign, the 23-year-old Victoria responded to one by using herself as bait...
After being installed as Empress of India, she scandalized high society by taking it upon herself to learn Urdu from a young Muslim man who introduced curry to the royal menu. Abdul Karim became her personal confidant regarding matters on the complicated subcontinent. He taught her well enough that she kept a 13-volume journal written in Hindustani. Victoria brushed aside complaints about his presence at court as racism and bigotry unworthy of response....
On Victoria Day, this is what we celebrate as much as the birthday of a monarch whose reign happened to be in the right place at the right time. But let’s strive not to forget the pulsing vitality of the young woman who could write in her diary of her beloved prince, that he “clasped me in his arms & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness — really how can I ever be thankful enough ...” It’s spring. Summer will soon be here in full. We’re celebrating life, too.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Editorial+celebration+queen+innovation/6647682/story.html#ixzz1vReTxmcm
