Queen Victoria's Hallucination.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 114, 16 January 1872, Page 6

Queen Victoria's Hallucination.

O — (Boston Journal.) The particular mental infirmity undei which the Queen labours, and which has] grown upon her day by day, takes the form of a harmless hallucination. She has a firm conviction that her dead husband, Prince Albert, is always present with her, and that she can hold personal communication with him. She has moods, it is said, when she will hold an imaginary conversation with the Prince for hours together, conducting! her own share of the conversation aloud, and j with the vigour and interest of old times. In imitation of the Prince's frugal, almost par-' simonious, habits, she superintends as much! as possible all her private affairs herself, re-1 quiring the most rigid economy from every department of the household. Her table is j set with the greatest simplicity, and she imagines that her husband looks on well pleased. At times, she will order a knife and fork to be placed on the table for his use, and cause the attendant to place every course before the empty chair as if the master still occupied it. This strange belief of communion with the dead, so nearly resembling that of the sect in this country known as spiritualists, is said to have been inculcated by the Prince himself when he was alive, he having been a disciple of Behmen and Fichte. But an . . . . aberration so obsorbmg must incapacitate Her Majesty for all the more serious duties of her station, and if continued, can have but; ; one ending, viz. : her abdication of the British crown. Were it not that this " gimcraok u ! bauble" has become more of a sentiment jto than a governing power —move of a figure-Ila1 la I head to the ship of state than tli3 incarnation !., I of a great government —directed by a force,' w more powerful than itself, and in whose, b I hands it is as plastic as wax —doubtless the : I abdietion now feared would have consuin- \ I united long since. But a sovereign capable j r , [of the physical exertion incident to the ap- j ti i pending of her signature to official papers I c i and documents, meets all the requirements j , of the present hour, and so the status rp, > ii '■ s kept up. Gladstone is quite content with j ' I the exercise of regal powers, while the poor | a ' Queen i 3 supposed to be the embodiment, j * j although in fact almost a nonentity. The j a ! situation is, however, an anomalous one, and ; k cannot last. The next decade will witness stirring times in England, and great changes, * ! or else the potents are all false. < I ________________ i