| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 45254 |
| QUOTATION: | Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact. Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King Harry’s temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse, and irascible; while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners. Once resolved, she was constant in her purposes, and her conduct in public and private life was characterized by candor and integrity. Both may be said to have shown that magnanimity which is implied by the accomplishment of great objects in the face of great obstacles. But Elizabeth was desperately selfish; she was incapable of forgiving, not merely a real injury, but the slightest affront to her vanity; and she was merciless in exacting retribution. Isabella, on the other hand, lived only for others,—was ready at all times to sacrifice self to considerations of public duty. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | William H. Prescott (1796–1859), U.S. historian. History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. 3 (1838). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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