Personality
Alexandra was tall, slender with a small head of refined features. Her blue eyes were set deep in her head. She had an air of regal majesty. Her quick, light walk was graceful. She was frail, often in poor health. Her voice was hoarse, but she spoke rapidly and with decision.
Alexandra Feodorovna was an avid reader and enjoyed music. She was kind and liked privacy and simplicity. She dressed elegantly, with a decided preference for light colors, and collected beautiful jewels. Neither arrogant nor frivolous, Alexandra was not without intelligence and had an excellent memory; her reading was quite extensive; her judgment of men sure, slightly ironical. However, she took no active interest in politics and fulfilled the role of being an empress consort, rather than being active in the public sphere. She loved her family very dearly, and even developed facial tics whilst fearing the Decembrist Uprising and its plans to kill her family. The facial tics were a trait that run in the royal German-Russian-British family in many branches.
For her, Russia was summed up in the person of her beloved husband. By forcing his will on this fragile, irresponsible and delicate creature, Nicholas destroyed Alexandra’s individuality. Her husband gave her no time for reflection, for giving herself a sustained occupation, other than adoring wife and devoted mother.
Read more about this topic: Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte Of Prussia)
Famous quotes containing the word personality:
“Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order, of union with God, the principle of all perfection.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)
“The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behoves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c’est l’homme, what is likely to happen if l’homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?”
—Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)