The Life of King Henry the Eight • Paragraph 466
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Fidelity to friends and appreciation of manly qualities and special abilities were always characteristic of the Prince of Wales and, combined with his tact and the unusual qualifications of the Princess as a hostess, made Marlborough and Sandringham, in different ways, the most ideal centres of social entertainment. Taken as a whole, the Prince's leadership of society was emphatically for good. His approval and patronage of the opera or the theatre, the race-course or the shooting-box, may not have been agreeable to some people, but they represented the popular opinion of the great majority. He took things as they were, enjoyed them in a full-hearted and honest way, improved the _morale_ of the social system and the practices in vogue in many directions and left Society infinitely better and more honest than he had found it.