Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a still stricter ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married again.

Considering that she herself was the offspring of a widow's second marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an eccentricity; but, no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.
The middle classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens.

They almost claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have been an exaggeration.

For, though many of her characteristics were most often found among the middle classes, in other respects--in her manners, for instance--Victoria was decidedly aristocratic.

And, in one important particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude toward herself was simply regal.
Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common to all its qualities, that really tells.