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| 5:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch. |
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| August 19, 2013. Overcast and warm with the weatherman predicting some more of that ole time humidity that gets the A/Cs roaring in my neighborhood. There was an article on the web about a 9-year-old kid who entered a library reading contest upstate, and read 63 books in a month. Evidently the librarian was not happy about this. She thought the kid’s speed was making it impossible for other kids to win, and therefore they might give up and read nothing. Some readers of the article suggested the kid was reading below his reading level and therefore pulling it off easily. In other words, the 9-year-old was working it. Someone else wrote that it was possible because he himself had once read 600 pages in two hours. I’m awestruck. It takes me days to read a book. Although I could imagine a little boy with the right frame of mind and imagination and emotional clarity being able to race through stories. I could also imagine a little boy being in on the game some way too. We get started very early with our way of thinking about life.
On its shelves were other worlds to live in, to learn about. But I’m slow reader. I get distracted easily. Many times I find it hard to sit still. Or I’ll compulsively run off to the internet to check certain sites for the latest news or commentary. Other than writing, reading is the one thing that I like to do most with my time. I don’t read enough when I consider all the books I want to read and all those things I will love to learn. As well as the things I won’t love to learn. Summertime is reading time for me. That’s the luxury. The calendar lightens up to the point where I have nothing to report, to write about. Over this past weekend, I finished the book, which I’ve already written about, “Serving Victoria.” It wasn’t compelling. You don’t wonder what’s going to happen next. Her actual day-to-day life was a deadly dull to be around. Yet I couldn’t put it down. She was a strange figure to behold — so remote, so somber in her frivolousness, yet likeable. Despite her congenital selfishness and self-centeredness, she genuinely liked people. Because of that she could listen — if you could get her ear, and that was the hard part because she was barricaded by protocol. There were many times when she was wise and admirable, including times when she was forced to submit to those who would’t go along. But she could be easily self-deluding when it came to those (men) she favored. Complaints of her Highlands servant’s drunkenness was excused as “bashful” or “tired.” |
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| She loved to eat, and had terrible indigestion, not surprisingly. She loved Tea (the tradition) — although despite her intake, it did not spoil her dinner. When she was at Balmoral, four times a week her confectionary at Windsor would send an order of: one fox of biscuits, one box of drop tablets, one box of pralines, sixteen chocolate sponges, twelve plain sponges, sixteen fondant biscuits, one box of wafer, one and a half dozen flat finger biscuits, one sponge cake, one Princess cake and one rice cake. Times four — all in a seven day period. She had help of course, in consuming this vast sugar quarry, but Victoria was generous with herself, by habit. She was then in her mid-70s and not getting any thinner.
Most people communicated with her through a third person. You can see how easy it would be to fall into that mode of communication. She hated London and avoided it as much as possible. She spent the majority of her time away and unavailable to most people except by specific appointment. In modern terms it’s referred to as “isolating,” Victoria was a champ at it. She had a lot of company though, at all times, night and day. Her doctor visited her at least three times a day. Her maids-in-waiting had to be there when she frequently awoke in the middle of the night. Attention had to be paid. When her doctor finally became engaged to marry at 50 she was outraged. It took months to bring her around to reality (that the man had a right to a life of his own), and to giving her approval. Once there, she was fine. She could briefly put aside the child who wanted everything her way. But she nevertheless expected the complete devotion and attention from those who “served” her. She was the Sovereign. She kept herself unapproachable, so that people had to figure out to communicate with her effectively while not appearing to. It was stunning to learn that it wasn’t until after she died that the doc actually saw her unclothed for the first and only time in the decades that he served her! |
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| It made me laugh to think about it because when you read this book you get that Victoria was as ignorant as the rest of us but could behave thusly because she was Queen. She wasn’t charming although there was something charming about her behavior. The part where her adored Munshi, the Indian servant (who saw to it that no one could refer to him as a servant) had run his course with the rest of the staff and must go, is an excellent document of the vagaries of personal political power in the presence of people who possess another kind of power – the power to attract.
As Victoria got older Munshi's power and misuse of it became more and more of a problem for the household as well as the government. No amount of complaints registered against him could sway Victoria's complete trust in him. Finally after he contracted a severe case of gonorrhea, treated by her doctor – who reported it to the Queen, did she, very very reluctantly begin to listen. But Munshi held on almost to the end of her life. The same was true with a previous man in her life after Albert:John Brown. A foreign temperament (to the Queen), Brown started out as one of Prince Albert’s gillies (a hunting/fishing guide) at Balmoral. Then he was promoted to the Queen’s “special servant,” with pony-leading duties. He is described as: “tall, powerfully built, firm-jawed and blue-eyed. He made the Queen “feel safe” with his “strong arm.” He was brusque, disregarded etiquette, was fearless, and loyal. After Albert died, Brown took over the role of male protector to the damsel in distress. He had his say with the Queen and didn’t have a problem letting her know when he disagreed. Apparently Victoria hungered for that while at the same time disallowing such opposition among her staff and servants (and even her children), always playing Queen. Brown was more than a "faithful servant" and a "good friend." He and the Queen slept in adjoining rooms. Victoria commissioned several portraits of him (and with her) and, after his death, she had a life-sized statue of him erected on the grounds of Balmoral Castle. After she died, Her son Edward VII had the statue removed to a place near the cottage that Brown lived in near the castle. |
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| In many ways she never grew up. She was an inexperienced 18-year-old sheltered girl when she came to the throne of the most powerful nation of the 19th century. England grew more powerful as her reign progressed through the Industrial Revolution. She learned about wielding political power from that peculiar unrealistic but nevertheless Very Real position of “majesty.” She remained childish when she felt like it. And although she had a kindness to her, she was habitually willful in her conduct with almost everyone around her except her men — Albert, Brown and then the scandalous, nefarious Munshi — all of whom possessed a power she could not replace. The power of sex. Does that still exist? Do we know it? |
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