. .
I am glad to have known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly
impossible not to like when you live with him, and not even to a
considerable extent to admire. I believe him to be capable of
kindness, affection, friendship, and gratitude. I feel confidence
in him as regards the future; I think he is frank, means well towards
us, and, as Stockmar says, 'that we have insured his sincerity and
good faith towards us for the rest of his life.'"
The Queen and her husband paid frequent visits, and made many tours
during their early married life. It was a great source of pleasure
to both of them to feel that everywhere they went they were received
with the greatest delight and enthusiasm.
In 1847 they visited Cambridge University, of which Prince Albert
was now Chancellor. "Every station and bridge, and resting-place,
and spot of shade was peopled with eager faces watching for the Queen,
and decorated with flowers; but the largest, and the brightest, and
the gayest, and the most excited assemblage was at Cambridge station
itself. . . . I think I never saw so many children before in one
morning, and I felt so much moved at the spectacle of such a mass
of life collected together and animated by one feeling, and that a
joyous one, that I was at a loss to conceive how any woman's sides
can bear the beating of so strong a throb as must attend the
consciousness of being the object of all that excitement, the centre
of attraction to all those eyes.
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