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Dane, thoroughbred. A Tory, she governed by the Whigs--like a woman,
like a mad woman. She had fits of rage. She was violent, a brawler.
Nobody more awkward than Anne in directing affairs of state. She allowed
events to fall about as they might chance. Her whole policy was
cracked. She excelled in bringing about great catastrophes from little
causes. When a whim of authority took hold of her, she called it giving
a stir with the poker. She would say with an air of profound thought,
"No peer may keep his hat on before the king except De Courcy, Baron
Kingsale, an Irish peer;" or, "It would be an injustice were my husband
not to be Lord High Admiral, since my father was." And she made George
of Denmark High Admiral of England and of all her Majesty's plantations.
She was perpetually perspiring bad humour; she did not explain her
thought, she exuded it. There was something of the Sphinx in this goose.
She rather liked fun, teasing, and practical jokes. Could she have made
Apollo a hunchback, it would have delighted her. But she would have left
him a god. Good-natured, her ideal was to allow none to despair, and to
worry all. She had often a rough word in her mouth; a little more, and
she would have sworn like Elizabeth. From time to time she would take
from a man's pocket, which she wore in her skirt, a little round box, of
chased silver, on which was her portrait, in profile, between the two
letters Q.A.; she would open this box, and take from it, on her finger,
a little pomade, with which she reddened her lips, and, having coloured
her mouth, would laugh. She was greedily fond of the flat Zealand
gingerbread cakes. She was proud of being fat.
More of a Puritan than anything else, she would, nevertheless, have
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