Because--as anciently Propertius demanded, though not, to speak the
truth, of any woman--

Quo fugis? ah demens! nulla est fuga, tu licet usque
Ad Tanaim fugias, usque sequetur amor.

And a dairymaid, let us say, may love whom she will, and nobody else be
a penny the worse for her mistaking of the preferable nail whereon to
hang her affections; whereas with a queen this choice is more
portentous. She plays the game of life upon a loftier table, ruthlessly
illuminated, she stakes by her least movement a tall pile of counters,
some of which are, of necessity, the lives and happiness of persons whom
she knows not, unless it be by vague report. Grandeur sells itself at
this hard price, and at no other. A queen must always play, in fine, as
the vicar of destiny, free to choose but very certainly compelled in the
ensuing action to justify that choice: as is strikingly manifested by
the authentic histories of Brunhalt, and of Guenevere, and of swart
Cleopatra, and of many others that were born to the barbaric queenhoods
of extinct and dusty times.

All royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the responsible
stewards of Heaven; and since the nature of each man is like a troubled
stream, now muddied and now clear, their prayer must ever be, _Defenda
me, Dios, de me_! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their near
associates, life, because it aims more high than the aforementioned
Aristotle, demands upon occasion a more great catharsis, which would
purge any audience of unmanliness, through pity and through terror,
because, by a quaint paradox, the players have been purged of humanity.
For a moment Destiny has thrust her scepter into the hands of a human
being and Chance has exalted a human being to decide the issue of many