LADY ANNE.
[KING RICHARD III.]
The favour of fair women, like fortune, is a free gift—we receive it without knowing how or why. But there are men who know how to force it with iron will from fate, and these attain their aim either by flattery or inspiring terror in women, by awaking their sympathy, or by artfully giving them opportunities to sacrifice themselves. This last—that is, self-sacrifice—is the favourite part of women in the play of love, for it sets them off so well before the world, and assures them so many raptures of tears and woe when alone.
Lady Anne is impelled by all these forces at once. Words of flattery flow like virgin honey from his terrible lips. Richard flatters her—that same Richard who inspires her with all the horrors of hell—he who has murdered her loved husband, and the paternal friend whose corpse she is accompanying to the grave. He commands the pall-bearers with imperious voice to set down the coffin, and at this moment begins to woo the beautiful sufferer. The lamb sees with dread the gnashing teeth of the wolf—but the terror at once tunes his voice to the sweetest sounds of flattery, and this flattery from a wolf works so prevailingly, so like
