Victoria (1819-1901), who was 18 when she became the Queen, had all the personal traits and characteristics of her age; in the arts she did not introduce any changes; she simply approved them and became a symbol of them. She was a sheltered child, with well-marked personal traits which she demonstrated throughout her long life as the queen of England.
For the moderns, (he represents false modesty, squeamishness in facing the facts of life (Particularly if they concerned sex). We associate with her name such concepts as complacent narrowness, artificial ‘respectability, a code of ‘decency’ decided upon by the ‘best’ people. Victoria, as a queen was simply an ideal, who personally agreed with the practices and ideals of the new commercial upper-middle classes of England.