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CHAPTER V.
QUEEN ANNE.
I.
Above this couple there was Anne, Queen of England. An ordinary woman
was Queen Anne. She was gay, kindly, august--to a certain extent. No
quality of hers attained to virtue, none to vice. Her stoutness was
bloated, her fun heavy, her good-nature stupid. She was stubborn and
weak. As a wife she was faithless and faithful, having favourites to
whom she gave up her heart, and a husband for whom she kept her bed. As
a Christian she was a heretic and a bigot. She had one beauty--the
well-developed neck of a Niobe. The rest of her person was indifferently
formed. She was a clumsy coquette and a chaste one. Her skin was white
and fine; she displayed a great deal of it. It was she who introduced
the fashion of necklaces of large pearls clasped round the throat. She
had a narrow forehead, sensual lips, fleshy cheeks, large eyes, short
sight. Her short sight extended to her mind. Beyond a burst of merriment
now and then, almost as ponderous as her anger, she lived in a sort of
taciturn grumble and a grumbling silence. Words escaped from her which
had to be guessed at. She was a mixture of a good woman and a
mischievous devil. She liked surprises, which is extremely woman-like.
Anne was a pattern--just sketched roughly--of the universal Eve. To that
sketch had fallen that chance, the throne. She drank. Her husband was a
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