Note 29 — Chapter XVI · THE ILLNESS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

Some of the comments of the Press on the wedding were instructive. The Times said: “To-day a ray of sunshine will gladden every habitation in this island, and force its way even where uninvited. A daughter of the people, in the truest sense of that word, is to be married to one of ourselves. The mother is ours, the daughter is ours.” Vanity Fair, a “Society” journal, considered that it was “an additional claim of the dynasty on our loyalty that means should have been found to enable us to keep so charming a Princess in the country.” The Daily Telegraph, in describing the history of the marriage, said: “The old dragon Tradition was routed by a young sorcerer called Love, who laughs at precedents as heartily as at locksmiths, and has an equal contempt for etiquette and armour cap-à-pie.”