Mrs. Raddle and Mrs. Mackenzie are as far apart as two
creatures may be; nevertheless they are veritable specimens of the
British shrew, and it should be within the resources of civilisation
to find a definition capable of fitting both of them. As for Queen
Elizabeth--that splendid, false, able, cruel, and inexorable
shrew--she requires the space of volumes to give even the shadow of
her personality and powers. She has puzzled some of the wisest and
most learned of men. She was truly royal, and wholly deceitful;
self-controlled at times, and madly passionate at others; a lover of
pure literature, and yet terribly free in her own writings; kind to
her dependants, yet capable of aiming a violent blow at some courtier
whom she had caressed a moment before the blow came; an icy virgin,
and a confirmed and audacious flirt; a generous mistress, and an
odious miser; a free giver to those near her, and a skinflint who let
the sailors who saved her country lie rotting to death in the open
streets of Ramsgate because she could not find in her heart to give
them either medical attendance or shelter. Was there ever such another
being known beneath the glimpses of the moon? Some might call her
superhuman; I am more inclined to regard her as inhuman, for her
blending of characteristics is not like anything ever seen before or
since among the children of men.
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