THE PRINCE ON ROYAL RANK.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3334, 16 August 1926, Page 2

THE PRINCE ON ROYAL RANK.

LESSON IN TACT

“If you came to think of it, the Prince of Wales is the man who attracts more attention than any other living person,” writes Major F. E. Verney in ’an authentic life study of the Prince in the current issue of “Hutchison's Magazine.” “The Prince,” he writes, “has never had any illusions of divine favoritism or providential partiality. On the other hand, there have been occasions when ho has suspected the opposite. In _ his earlier days his rank was more a handicap to him; it was a heavy burden. Ih fact, to use his oym words, As a kid it was the,very devil.’ “Life’s principal inspiration is the spirit of adventure, and the chief field of adventure is the unknown. Nature provided the Prince with a large stock of the spirit of adventure, but his destiny denied him a field of the unknown. “As a child and a youth he keenly felt these inhibitions. To a modified extent lie feels them now, and I think will continue to do so for some years. He is much too human and far too vital to become yet case-hardened to the deadening inevitability of living on a. cast-iron plan. To H.R.H. chance is an essential factor of life. His physical vitality demands it. His composition screams for it. He wants to take chances. He actually needs this cow mon heritage which is so remorselessly denied him by the accident, of his birth.”

Sidelights into the life of the Prince as a child and boy are presented. Another of his ambitions was inspired by his envy of the physical proportions and the authority of the police man on duty in Ambassadors' Court, and the dominating autocracy of the constables on point duty in tnc traffic til rough which he was sometimes taken in a carriage. He informed his grantfather of his intention to become a policeman on reaching the necessary size, and King Edward agreed that the idea was remarkably sound. “King Edward used to tell, an amusing story of the Prince of Wales when a child. Asked who Perkin Warhcck was, the Prince replied, ‘He said he was the son of a King. He wasn’t — he was the sou of respectable parents.' His first lesson in royal tact, which was taught by a lady called Mine. Bricka, who had much experience of royal schoolrooms, was surprising. “Jt was pointed out to him that when he grew tired in company ho was not to show it, or admit it, but to observe if the other person was showing signs of fatigue, and then to say, “i am sure you are getting weary. Would you like to rest a little?’ i am informed that he learned this lesson rapidly, and applied it sometimes with a mischievous readiness that robbed it of its diplomatic value.”