The letters in their original form are here given to the English public, and I am sure that all who read them will feel thankful to my Mother for thus granting them a closer insight into my clear Sister’s beautiful and unselfish life.
They will see in them also, with satisfaction, how devoted she was to the land of her birth,--how her heart ever turned to it with reverence and affection as the country which had done and was doing for Liberty and the advancement of mankind more than any other country in the world. How deep was her feeling in this respect was testified by a request, which she made to her husband in anticipation of her death, that an English flag might be laid upon her coffin; accompanying the wish with a modest expression of a hope, that no one in the land of her adoption could take umbrage at her desire to be borne to her rest with the old English colors above her.
In any case I feel confident that the perusal of these letters must deepen the love and admiration which have always been felt for my beloved Sister in this country, where she ever thanked God that her childhood and youth had been tended with a wise love, that had fostered and developed all those qualities and tastes which she most valued and strove to cultivate in her later years.
I had written these words, when another beloved member of our family, whose name often recurs in my Sister’s letters, was suddenly taken from us, and from our country. Writing of my dear Brother to my Mother (February 1, 1868) she said: “May God spare that young bright and gifted life to be a comfort to you for many a year to come!” That life, which then hung trembling in the balance, was mercifully spared, not indeed for many a year, but long enough to make my Brother more beloved by his family and friends, and to enable him to give to his country some token of the good gifts with which he was endowed. As he was the last of us to see my dear Sister in life, so he has been the first to follow her into the Silent Land.
“I ever look back to my childhood and girlhood as the happiest time of life.”--(_13th June, 1869._)
Princess Alice, as she is ever called in England, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 25th of April, 1843. She was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort. At her christening, which took place at the Palace on the 2d of June, she received the names of Alice Maud Mary. Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester, niece of King George III., and sister-in-law to the Duchess of Gloucester, was one of her godmothers, and her Royal parents chose the name of Maud, which is the same as Matilda, on account of its being an old English name borne by the Empress Maud, and other British princesses. The name of “Mary” was chosen because the little princess was born on the Duchess of Gloucester’s birthday.