stream there, and be intensely
interested as you throw pebbles into it to see how wide you can
make the circles from the spot where the pebble strikes the water."

I thought I understood my temperament better than the doctor, and
that any rest for me was not solitude but entire change of
occupation. So I remained in London and lunched and dined out
every day for several weeks, with a week-end over every Sunday.
In other ways, however, I adopted the doctor's directions and not
only returned home cured, but have been free from rheumatism
ever since.

I was in London at both the queen's fiftieth anniversary of her
reign and her jubilee. The reverence and love the English people
had for Queen Victoria was a wonderful exhibition of her wisdom
as a sovereign and of her charm and character as a woman. The
sixty years of her reign were a wonderful epoch in the growth of
her empire and in its relations to the world.

Once I said to a member of the Cabinet, who, as minister of
foreign affairs had been brought in close contact with the queen:
"I am very much impressed with the regard which the people have
for Queen Victoria. What is her special function in your scheme
of government?"

"She is invaluable," he answered, "to every prime minister and
the Cabinet. The prime minister, after the close of the debate
in the House of Commons every night, writes the queen a full
report of what has occurred at that session. This has been going
on for more than half a century. The queen reads these accounts
carefully and has a most retentive memory. If these communications
of the prime ministers were ever available to the public, they
would present a remarkable contrast of the minds and the methods
of different prime ministers and especially those two extreme
opposites, Gladstone and Disraeli. The queen did not like Gladstone,
because she said he always preached, but she had an intense
admiration for Disraeli, who threw into his nightly memoranda all
his skill not only as a statesman, but a novelist. The queen also
has been consulted during all these years on every crisis, domestic
or foreign, and every matter of Cabinet importance. The result
is that she is an encyclopaedia. Very often there will be a dispute
with some of the great powers or lesser ones, which is rapidly
growing to serious proportions. We can find no report of its
beginning. The queen, however, will remember just when the
difficulty began, and why it was