Word: magnus
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KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH by Phillip Magnus. 528 pages. Duffon...
Edward Prince of Wales grew up to be neither perfect nor anything like the Prince Consort, as Victoria learned to her dismay. But in one sense, argues British Biographer Philip Magnus, he was indeed the perfect man: he-fulfilled Britain's concept of itself as neither Victoria nor Prince Albert had ever done. If he was an anachronism, so was the Britain in which he grew up and ruled. The secret of his easy popularity, thinks Author Magnus, was that he scarcely ever betrayed by word or deed what some of his countrymen dimly suspected: the fact that...
...kept a yacht at Cowes, a hunting lodge at Abergeldie, stables at Ascot and a villa at Marienbad. But they admired the man who did, and cheerfully forgave him what the Times of London called his "round of questionable pleasures." He pursued those pleasures with particular vigor, thinks Biographer Magnus, precisely because Victoria and Albert had determined to make him a paragon of English virtues. As a result of that determination, his upbringing was appalling. He was not allowed to mix or play with other boys. He was given six hours of instruction by several private instructors six days...
Easy Scrapping. Biographer Magnus, who had access to several collections of unpublished papers, is most convincing when he is discussing the intricacies of Edwardian social life. He is on less firm ground when he tries to demonstrate that Bertie helped shape his country's foreign policy in the first decade of the century. After the death of Victoria, who never trusted her son with Foreign Office dispatches, Bertie became an ardent practitioner of personal diplomacy, paying "unofficial" visits to the capitals of Europe, where he practiced his charm on rulers, most of whom were his relatives. Magnus credits...
...hoisted aloft, the magician stabs him, the racist throws baseballs at him, and he is beaten by an irate sideshow barker. The cries of his death agony shatter the sound track. In a silence that follows, three empty harnesses dangle from their ropes, and the remorseful Magnus goes to put white makeup on his face. In the final scene an all-white figure is riding the donkey as the circus moves on. Is it the clown-or the puppeteer-or Everyman-or Christ...