The fatal drawback was that the public did not find that image attractive.

Victoria's emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for subtlety, rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicuity, or humour, might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute and the categorical.

When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal emphasis which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally outside the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were equally unmitigated.

In the case of Albert her passion for superlatives reached its height.

To have conceived of him as anything short of perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the glories and graces of man--would have been an unthinkable blasphemy: perfect he was, and perfect he must be shown to have been.