Английский язык. История Великобритании от Георга III до Первой мировой войны

83 Unit 5 THE ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE (by N. Ferguson) At the apex of the Victorian Empire was the Queen herself: industrious, opinionated, as passionate in private as she was im-passive in public, indefatigably procreative and spectacularly long-lived. Like a latter-day Plantagenet, she was remarkably per-ipatetic. She disliked Buckingham Palace, preferred Windsor and had a soft spot for remote and rainy Balmoral. Her favourite resi-dence, however, was probably Osborne, on the Isle of Wight. Osborne House itself is built in the Renaissance style, a typi-cal piece of nineteenth-century architectural historicism. It is both literally and metaphorically thousands of miles from the global Empire over which Victoria reigned. In other ways, however, it was far from backward looking. The garish allegorical fresco above the main staircase looks at first sight like yet more Italian-ate pastiche. But closer inspection reveals 'Britannia' receiving the crown of the sea from Neptune, attended by 'Industry', 'Com-merce' and 'Navigation'. As those three figures on her right sug-gest, the royal couple understood full well the connection between Britain’s economic power and her global mastery. Since the late eighteenth century, Britain had been pulling ahead of her rivals as a pioneer of new technology. British engi-neers were in the vanguard of a revolution — the Industrial Revo-lution — that harnessed the power of steam and the strength of iron to transform the world economy and the international balance of power. Nothing illustrated this better than the view from Os-borne House, which looks straight across the Solent. Reassuringly visible on the other side is Britain’s principal naval base at Ports-mouth, then the largest in the world, and an imposing manifesta-tion of British sea power. Fog permitting, the Queen could watch the comings and goings of her navy as she and her husband prom-enaded through Osborne’s elegantly landscaped gardens. By 1860