Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1873-02-08
THE LOVERS OF ELIZABETH.

THE LOVERS OF ELIZABETH. 30
The sex of Elizabeth Of ENGLAND,
was physiological blunder.l Many of
her most serious defects arose from her
not having been o man, as nature must
originally have designed. With mas
culine will, masculine character, and
masculine ambition, she had all the
feminine weaknesses without any of the
feminine graces or charms. Her vanity
was in excess of her pride, and, in spite
of her unqpestionable greatness, rem
dered her ridiculous through life. She
was ever aiixi3iis to be loved, and had
the exceeding misfortune to be least
loyeabls when shes loved smhstHu There
was no great need Of affection in her,
stubborn spirit, no yearning for SYM
pathy in her self-suficient nature, no
Iinappeasable craving for what the ro-
manticists would call intercourse of
soul. She wanted lovers more than
love, because lovers fattered her inor-
dinate vanity, and told her, as lovers
usually do, that which she secretly
thought Of herself She never tired df
hearing she was the Virgin Queen, and
and never acted as if she relished the ar
rogated honor. Coquetry she would
have carried to perilous degree, if there
had been any thing perilous in such a
homely Amazon. Not one of all the
men she had desperate and protracted
flirtations with, not even Raleigh, nor
Leicester, nor Essex-care maravedi
for her in the way she wished them to;
| but from reasons of state, and from
motives of policy, they pretended to
adore her. .l .t 4....1
Crafty courtiers as they were, it must
have been difficult for them to refrain
from laughing in Elizabeth's face when
they called her beautiful, or when they
compared her voice to the tones of the
lutte. They had passed through many
hardships but nothing harder than to
address Euryale in the language be-
coming to Agalaia. Raleigh showed
his keenness of insight when he spread
his rich mantle beneath her ungainly
feet, and Leicester his understanding
of character when he wrote to her that
her lovely image banished sleep from
his pillow. Of her numerous suitors
none would have given flip for her
heart, but much for her crown-the sole
aim of their gallant masquerading.
The secret love Of Elizabeth and Sey-
mour, and Raleigh, and Leicester and
Essex, and others, have often been
written, and not, it is to be presumed,
without basis of truth. But love is
fine baptism for relations springing
from vanity on one side and from con-
siderations of diplomacy on the other,
The princess in her early years appeared
to be fond of Seymour, and it is char
liable to think she was. Pretty stories
have been told of the Countess of Not
tingham's Withholding the ring sent to
the Queen by Essex before his execu-
ton, and of the consuming sorrow
which Elizabeth suffered after his death.
the stories are dramatic and interesting,
their chief defect being that they are
entirely untrue. The woman whose
reputation had been almost irreparably
injured by her connection with man
of whom she could calmly say after his
execution, His loss is not SO much,
for although he had large wit he had
little judgment" would not be likely
to be troubled by remorse for deliber-
ately sending her nearest friend to the
scafold. II. ,.aa G. ~ t!use
Elizabeth could not forgive in any OF
her sisters the possession of gifts and
graces which she must have been pri-
vately conscious were lacking in herself.
Mary Stuart's unpardonable offense was
her beauty and seductive charms, and
her rival was never able to regard with
kindness the men who, willing to forget
the woman in the sovereign had sought
her hand, and afterward welded where
inclination led There is species iof
dismal compensation in all conditions
of life.y If Elizabeth failed to awaken
in any masculine breast the fame with
which she hoped to kindle the torch 0f
her vanity, and if her vestal assttmp-
tons were not always credited, she had
the good fortune, $50 surrounded was
she by distinguished soldiers, statesr
men, and scholars, to shine with the
light reflected from them and bear in
history glow not her own. fa-1Fea