Kindle Notes & Highlights
you may rely upon it you will never get it out of my possession. You were pretty bold to acknowledge your foolishness to me so readily."
There was one mistress to rule there, she said, but no master.
We have already said that she seemed always to have a special feeling of ill will against marriage and every thing that pertained to it, and she had, particularly, a theory that the bishops and the clergy ought not to be married.
She proceeded to rebuke him severely for countenancing such a popish practice as the introduction of pictures in the churches. All this time Elizabeth had herself a crucifix in her own private chapel, and the dean himself, on the other hand, was a firm and consistent Protestant, entirely opposed to the Catholic system of images and pictures, as Elizabeth very well knew.
she would rather take her chance of being killed than to be kept shut up like a prisoner.
she would not believe any thing of her subjects which a father would not be willing to believe of his own children.
"Then," said Elizabeth, "she is too tall, for I am just of the right height myself."
To sum up all, Elizabeth was very great, and she was, at the same time, very little. Littleness and greatness mingled in her character in a manner which has scarcely ever been paralleled, except by the equally singular mixture of admiration and contempt with which mankind have always regarded her.
We would not be understood as denying that there is any difference between burning and plundering innocent towns and robbing ships, whether there is or is not a governmental permission to commit these crimes. There certainly is a difference.
Drake kept her on board his ship for a time, and then sent her ashore on some island that he was passing, and inhumanly abandoned her there, to become a mother among strangers, utterly friendless and alone.
"I have," said she, "I know, only the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king; and I am ready for my God, my kingdom, and my people, to have that body laid down, even in the
dust. If the battle comes, therefore, I shall myself be in the midst and front of it, to live or die with you."
Nothing has so great an effect in awakening in the heart a strong sentiment of kindness as the performance of a kind act.
