DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The Queen's pleasure
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0043
By Henry Harland 39
you alternately—or, at least, to give you to understand as much—
three or four times a day. It is winter midnight or summer noon,
a climate of extremes.
“ Do you like the smell of tangerine-skin ? ”
Every evening for a week, when, at the end of dinner, the
fruit was handed round, the King asked her that question ; and
she, never suspecting his malice, answered invariably, as she
crushed a bit between her fingers, and fervidly inhaled its odour,
“ Oh, do I like it ? I adore it. It’s perfect rapture”
She is hasty, she is uncertain, she is intense. Will you be sur-
prised when I go on to insist that, down deep, she is altogether
well-meaning and excessively tender-hearted, and when I own that
among all the women I know I can think of none other who
seems to me so attractive, so fascinating, so sweetly feminine and
loveable ? (Oh, no, I am not in love with her, not in the least—
though I don’t say that I mightn’t be, if I were a king, or she
were not a queen.) If she realises that she has been unreasonable,
she is the first to confess it ; she repents honestly, and makes the
devoutest resolutions to amend. If she discovers that she has hurt
anybody’s feelings, her conscience will not give her a single second
of peace, until she has sought her victim out and heaped him with
benefits. If she believes that this or that distasteful task forms in
very truth a part of her duty, she will go to any length of
persevering self-sacrifice to accomplish it. She has a hundred
generous and kindly impulses, where she has one that is perverse
or inconsiderate. Bring any case of distress or sorrow to her
notice, and see how instantly her eyes soften, how eager she is to
be of help. And in her affections, however mercurial she may
appear on the surface, she is really constant, passionate, and, in
great things, forbearing. She and her husband, for example,
though
you alternately—or, at least, to give you to understand as much—
three or four times a day. It is winter midnight or summer noon,
a climate of extremes.
“ Do you like the smell of tangerine-skin ? ”
Every evening for a week, when, at the end of dinner, the
fruit was handed round, the King asked her that question ; and
she, never suspecting his malice, answered invariably, as she
crushed a bit between her fingers, and fervidly inhaled its odour,
“ Oh, do I like it ? I adore it. It’s perfect rapture”
She is hasty, she is uncertain, she is intense. Will you be sur-
prised when I go on to insist that, down deep, she is altogether
well-meaning and excessively tender-hearted, and when I own that
among all the women I know I can think of none other who
seems to me so attractive, so fascinating, so sweetly feminine and
loveable ? (Oh, no, I am not in love with her, not in the least—
though I don’t say that I mightn’t be, if I were a king, or she
were not a queen.) If she realises that she has been unreasonable,
she is the first to confess it ; she repents honestly, and makes the
devoutest resolutions to amend. If she discovers that she has hurt
anybody’s feelings, her conscience will not give her a single second
of peace, until she has sought her victim out and heaped him with
benefits. If she believes that this or that distasteful task forms in
very truth a part of her duty, she will go to any length of
persevering self-sacrifice to accomplish it. She has a hundred
generous and kindly impulses, where she has one that is perverse
or inconsiderate. Bring any case of distress or sorrow to her
notice, and see how instantly her eyes soften, how eager she is to
be of help. And in her affections, however mercurial she may
appear on the surface, she is really constant, passionate, and, in
great things, forbearing. She and her husband, for example,
though