a thoroughly deserving domestic character, was destined to be thrust
into a seething whirlpool of political intrigue in which, for the first
time, his conscience was to be seriously troubled over the part he was
asked to play. And while that wakening of his conscience was to cause
him a vast amount of trouble, it was to have as enlarging and educative
an effect upon his character as her first love affair has upon a young
girl. From this moment, in fact, you are to see a shell-bound tortoise
blossom into a species of fretful porcupine, his shell splintering
itself into points and erecting them with blundering effectiveness
against his enemies. And you shall see by what unconscious and
subterranean ways history gets made and written.


III

And now let us turn to the Queen. In her case less analysis is needed:
one had only to look at her, at the genial and comfortable expression of
her face, at the ample, but not too ample, lines of her person, to see
that in her present high situation she both gave and found satisfaction.
She did, with ease and even with appetite, that which the King, with so
much anxious expenditure of nervous energy, was always trying to do--her
duty. She had a position and she filled it. She was not clever, but her
imperturbable common-sense made up for what she lacked intellectually.
No one, except the newspapers, would call her beautiful; but she was
comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a
good surface--nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any
chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There
you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as
good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your
individual taste--no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history