She was a shrew--a magnificent,
enigmatic shrew, who was perhaps the more fitted to rule a kingdom
which was in a state of transition in that she was lacking in all
sense of pity, shame, or remorse. She was the apotheosis of the shrew,
and no one of the tribe can ever be like unto her again. Carlyle's
Termagant of Spain is a shadowy figure that flits through all the
note-books on Frederick, but we never get so near to her as we do to
Elizabeth, and she remains to us as a vast shape that gibbers and
threatens and gesticulates in the realms of the dead. Jael, the wife
of Heber the Kenite, must have been a terrible shrew, and I should
think that Heber was not master in the house where Sisera died. The
calm deliberation, the preliminary coaxing, the quick, cool
determination, and the final shrill exultation which was reflected in
Deborah's song all speak of the shrew. Thackeray had a morbid delight
in dwelling on the species, and we know that all of his portraits were
taken from real life. If he really was intimate with all of the cruel
figures that he draws, then I could pardon him for manifesting the
most ferocious of cynicisms even if he had been a cynic--which he was
not.
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