A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
QUEEN MARY has succeeded, and most worthily, to the place held in the hearts of her countrymen by Queen Alexandra after the death of King Edward. The tributes paid to her this week have not for a moment been perfunctory, nor can they be assessed merely as royalty's natural and lawful due. Such affection cannot be counted on ; there was a fairly long period in Queen Victoria's life when she could hardly be said to enjoy popularity, much less genuine regard. But Queen Mary had and has many claims. She is the first British consort of a British king since the sixteenth century, King George V setting the precedent so auspiciously followed by King George VI. Of all her characteristics sanity of mind should, I think, be put highest. She is as full of common sense as any woman, or for that matter any man, in the kingdom—which goes far to explain why she was so admirable a wife, a mother and a grandmother. Nothing in her career can have put her in a harder position than the Abdication in 1936, but there is reason to believe that she never for a moment doubted the wisdom of the course followed. At the age of eighty her zest for life and her pleasure in it are plainly unabated.
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