“People with strong feelings and of nervous temperament, for which one is no more responsible than for the colour of one's eyes, have things to fight against and to put up with, unknown to those of quiet equable dispositions, who are free from violent emotions, and have consequently no feeling of nerves -- still less, of irritable nerves. If I did not control mine they would be dreadful....One can overcome a great deal -- but -alter- one's self one cannot....

[Princess Alice, in a letter dated 24 September 1874]”