"Magical, so vast, so glorious, so touching. One felt—as so many did whom I have since spoken to—filled with devotion, more so than by any service I have ever heard. The tremendous cheers, the joy expressed in every face, the immensity of the building … the organ (with 200 instruments and 600 voices, which sounded like nothing), and my beloved husband the author of this 'Peace Festival': … all this was moving indeed, and it was and is a day to live forever."
It is interesting to compare this account by Her Majesty of her own emotion at the opening of the exhibition with an account of how she impressed a spectator. Dr. Stanley (afterwards Dean Stanley) wrote in a private letter:—
"I never had so good a view of the Queen before, and never saw her look so thoroughly regal. She stood in front of the chair turning round, first to one side and then to the other, with a look of power and pride, flushed with a kind of excitement which I never witnessed in any other human countenance."
There were said to have been 34,000 people in the building on opening day, and nearly a million on the line of route. The Queen, with her husband and eldest son and daughter, drove through this huge multitude with no other guard than one of honor and some policemen who were there, not so much to keep order as to aid the crowd to keep it for themselves. The Home Secretary reported to the Queen the next day that there had not been a single accident, nor had there been a single case of misconduct of any kind calling for the interference of the police. It was a magnificent object-lesson on the advantages of order springing out of liberty. Foreigners present were deeply impressed by the good behavior of the crowd, and also by its loyalty. Jacob Ominum described a dispute he overheard between a German and a Frenchman as to whether in England loyalty was a principle or a passion. His own comment was that it was both—a principle even when the Crown behaves badly; "but let it treat the people well, and this quiet prin-
