After a lifetime of being indulged in every conceivable physical and material whim that she believed her station warranted, Victoria had, unsurprisingly, become a woman of settled partialities. She hated a small but strictly applied list of annoyances, a roster that included bishops, loud noises, meeting people she knew when out for an afternoon drive, meeting any new people, Gladstone, smoking (throughout all her homes she had "no smoking" signs conspicuously posted), hot rooms, coal fires, and death duties. She had never "accepted" the telephone, though her son had talked her into allowing two to be installed at Buckingham Palace...One more particular Victoria especially disliked was competition, especially that from her eldest son.

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