THE
SILVER ARROW
BY ELBERT HUBBARD
PRINTED
BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT
EAST AURORA, N.Y.
Copyrighted 1923
By The Roycrofters
THE SILVER ARROW
And so it happened that Sir Walter Raleigh, the graceful, the gracious,the generous, had spread his cloak in the pathway of Queen Elizabethand had been taken into her especial favor.
The Queen was nineteen years older than Sir Walter; that is to say, shewas in her fifties, and he was in his thirties.
But Queen Bess hated old age, and swore a halibi for the swift passingyears, and always delighted in the title of the "Virgin Queen."
Sir Walter did one great thing for England, and one for Ireland. Hetaught the [Pg 6]English the use of tobacco, and he discovered the "Irishpotato"—which is native to America.
They do say that Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth enjoyed many a quietsmoke with their feet on the table—so as to equalize circulation. Bothof them were big folk, with plans and ambitions plus. Sir Walter wascontemporary with Shakespeare, and in fact looked like him, acted likehim and had a good deal of the same agile, joyous, bubbling fertilityof mind. That is, Sir Walter and William were lovers by nature; andlove rightly exercised, and alternately encouraged and thwarted, givesthe alternating current, and lo! we have that which the world callsgenius. And I am told by those who know, that you can never get geniusin any other way.
Good Queen Bess—who was not so very good—fanned the ambitions of SirWalter and flattered his abilities. And of course any man born in alowly station, or high, would have been immensely complimented by thegentle love-taps, and sighs, vain or otherwise, not to mention theglimmering glances of the alleged Virgin Queen.
But a good way to throttle love is to spy on it, question it, analyzeit, vivisect it. And so Sir Walter's bubbling heart had chills of fearwhen he discovered that he was being followed wherever he went by thesecret emissaries of Elizabeth.
Had he been free to act he would have disposed of these spies, andquickly too; but he was in thrall to a Queen, and was paying for hispolitical power by being deprived of his personality. Oho, and Oho![Pg 8]The law of compensation acted then as now, and nothing is ever givenaway; everything is bought with a price—even the favors of royalty.
And behold! In the palace of the Queen, as janitor, gardener, scullionand all-around handy man was one John White, obscure, and yet elevatedon account of his lack of wit.
He was so stupid that he was amusing. Sayings bright and clever thatcourtiers flung off when the wine went around were imputed to JohnWhite. Thus he came to have a renown which was not his own; and SirWalter Raleigh, with his cheery, generous ways, attributed man