Her grand rebukes to both, her
ill-concealed preference for Leicester, her whispered ridicule of
Sussex, the impulses of tenderness which she stifles, the flashes of
resentment to which she gives way, the triumph of policy over private
feeling, her imperious impatience when she is baffled, her jealousy as
she grows suspicious of a personal rival, her gratified pride and
vanity when the suspicion is exchanged for the clear evidence, as she
supposes, of Leicester's love, and her peremptory conclusion of the
audience, bring before the mind a series of pictures far more vivid
and impressive than the greatest of historical painters could fix on
canvas, even at the cost of the labour of years. Even more brilliant,
though not so sustained and difficult an effort of genius, is the
later scene in the same story, in which Elizabeth drags the unhappy
Countess of Leicester from her concealment in one of the grottoes of
Kenilworth Castle, and strides off with her, in a fit of vindictive
humiliation and Amazonian fury, to confront her with her husband.
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