A minute and detailed analysis of these subheadings followed, filling several pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the gentlemen:  “If they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their position, and taking the points above laid down as the outline, will exercise their own good sense in acting upon all occasions all upon these principles, thinking no point of detail too minute to be important, but maintaining one steady consistent line of conduct they may render essential service to the young Prince and justify the flattering selection made by the royal parents.”  A year later the young Prince was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that he should not mix with the undergraduates.  Yes, everything had been tried—­everything... with one single exception.  The experiment had never been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself.  But why should it have been?  “Life is composed of duties.”  What possible place could there be for enjoyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales?

The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him another and a still more serious loss.  The Baron had paid his last visit to England.  For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to the King of the Belgians, he had performed “the laborious and exhausting office of a paternal friend and trusted adviser” to the Prince and the Queen.  He was seventy; he was tired, physically and mentally; it was time to go.  He returned to his home in Coburg, exchanging, once for all, the momentous secrecies of European statecraft for the little-tattle of a provincial capital and the gossip of family life.  In his stiff chair by the fire he nodded now over old stories—­not of emperors and generals—­but of neighbours and relatives and the domestic adventures of long ago—­the burning of his father’s library—­and the goat that ran upstairs to his sister’s room and ran twice round the table and then ran down again.  Dyspepsia and depression still attacked him; but, looking back over his life, he was not dissatisfied.  His conscience was clear.  “I have worked as long as I had strength to work,” he said, “and for a purpose no one can impugn.  The consciousness of this is my reward—­the only one which I desired to earn.”

Apparently, indeed, his “purpose” had been accomplished.  By his wisdom, his patience, and his example he had brought about, in the fullness of time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed.  The Prince was his creation.  An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for the highest ends, over a great nation—­that was his achievement; and he looked upon his work and it was good.  But had the Baron no misgivings?  Did he never wonder whether, perhaps, he might have accomplished not too little but too much?  How subtle and how dangerous are the snares which fate lays for the wariest of men!  Albert, certainly, seemed to be everything that Stockmar could have wished—­virtuous, industrious, persevering, intelligent.  And yet—­why was it—­all was not well with him?  He was sick at heart.