Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/410

 Shakspeare implies and justifies this delicate perception, and turns it into history. Both the queens of Scotland represented the kind of blonde women who are fired by sunlight: it crisps the golden or the chestnut hair, becomes quicksilver in the veins, hits every brain-cell with its actinic ray, and chases over the yielding hair in ripples like a blown wheat-field. The voice is low, but ever clear and even,—a fabric closely woven throughout, capable of sustaining the strongest moments of the soul, and of vibrating with them: the whole gamut of passion may be swept by it, from the enticing whisper to the peal of defiance. It is a trumpet, made of silver, and not one note of it is brassy; but it pierces the distance none the less directly, and summons Macbeth by sonorous phrases out of the mist and pointlessness of dreams.

But Nature drew the character of Mary Stuart from elements less simple than were used by Shakspeare in constructing Lady Macbeth. Mary, to all the culture of her times, added various tastes and a delicate susceptibility for art: she loved music, plays, minstrels, games, and was passionately devoted to the chase. Her great pace in hunting, her fiery dash through the underbrush, was observed and has been long remembered. Once, having been thrown from her horse, the attendants found her on the ground, gayly laughing as she put up the dishevelled hair.

In the cold autumn of 1562, she went in person upon an expedition to punish a Highland clan. She jested with fatigues and hardships, "and was as much at her