“Draw you nearer,
Let weeping cease;
In her chamber
All is peace.
Angels hovered
Softly o’er her;
In the night
Away they bore her.
Death o’er her senses
Did softly creep;
Saved her a parting,
Wrapped her in sleep.
Flowers of beauty
Wreathe her around;
Drowsily chiming
The sweet bells sound.
Draw you nearer,
Let weeping cease;
In her chamber
All is peace.”
From Carlsbad the Grand Duchess travelled with her great niece to the
great Exhibition at Paris. There Princess Elizabeth had arrived unwell;
she suffered from a bad throat and momentary deafness. Consequently
she could not enjoy the great sights with her usual freshness. The
reception at the Tuileries, visits to the Exhibition, to the Louvre
and the neighbouring castles, seemed like a dream to her. Under the
impression of this deafness, and inclining as ever to melancholy
thoughts, she writes to her mother--“I have often thought in these
last days that one can well do without occupation in old age. Then we
can sit in our arm-chair, lost in thoughts, quite still, and without
prejudice. One can think sweetly of the dead, and tell those around one
of our past life as a curiosity. I fancy it very beautiful. I would not
change now, for I would taste of life with all it brings, and hope to
toil and endeavour. But all the time I shall look forward to the peace
of old age.”
The suffering state of the Grand Duchess Hélène necessitated another
sojourn in Ragaz, but she would not let her niece leave her side. It
was the end of September before they arrived, and few visitors were
there. This quiet they found very refreshing after the noisy bustle and
moral tension of Paris. The young Princess became quite herself again.
Her restless mind immediately undertook new work.
“Last night,” she writes on the 22nd September 1867, “I was telling
Fräulein von Rahden so much about our lost little brother (Prince
Otto) that she exclaimed--‘His life must be written. It will be a
great blessing for all who read it.’ She told me to write as fully as
possible, and said that what was written in the greatest simplicity
must, if it comes from the heart, find an echo in the hearts of others.
I have wished to do this for years, and felt that I ought to do it, and
found it too difficult. I really think that the moment has come now. I
should like to add a detailed memoir to our archives.
“I have just come from the little church, in which I heard a beautiful
sermon. Pfarrer Steiger preached from Jer. ix. 24, ‘For in these things
I delight, saith the Lord.’ It was full of enthusiasm, and suitable to
my state of mind, which was rather sad, as many memories awake here in
Ragaz. And then this good man brought God’s healing, conquering, and
inspiring love so near to us that I nearly wept for joy. It was too
beautiful. I seemed to hear Maria Sulzer’s voice saying to me, ‘Lay
yourself in the arms of God.’ I have already thought of writing prayers
for our church, but I am not sufficiently advanced. Perhaps I shall be
able to do so when I am writing Otto’s Memoirs.”
“_Ragaz, 30th September._--Thinking of our little services, I have
written the enclosed prayers. Perhaps you can use them. I have also
begun Otto’s Memoirs, and have written to Nana (Prince Otto’s English
nurse) and begged her to give me details of his earliest childhood, ‘If
with all your hearts ye truly seek Me, ye shall ever surely find Me,
saith the Lord.’ I should like to inscribe this text on every page. I
should like to seek and find Him. I have never really loved Him. Frau
Arnemann says: ‘God is drawing me to Him through all that I love, and
whom He has taken to Himself.’ How gladly I will let myself be drawn!
This winter I shall stay at home, and look forward to it much. I have
my hands full of business too, for when I have finished my translation
of Carlyle I have a new plan. Frau Arnemann always wished me to write a
book for children. Only I cannot think of anything suitable. I can only
write about what I have lived through and felt.”
After many fine days, during which walks of three or four hours were
undertaken, a sudden and lasting fall of snow had induced the Grand
Duchess to leave Ragaz. Princess Elizabeth now returned home. She spent
the winter quietly and happily with her mother at Monrepos. “I look
back upon this time with particular pleasure,” she writes; “I think of
the dreamy hours spent in the little room, of the endless conversations
on deep subjects with Fräulein Lavater, and of the evenings when our
spinning wheels hummed and my brother read aloud to us.” In the summer
of 1868 she travelled to Sweden on a visit to her royal relations. She
calls Sweden the land of poetry; and the magnificence of nature there,
and the beautiful legends which are attached to every stone, inspired
her fancy. She liked to be in the north, and delighted in Stockholm.
The magnificent town is enthroned like a queen of the waters on her
islands between the lake and the sea. It is surrounded by many oaks of
a hundred years’ growth, which are the masts and pennons of the ships,
and historical treasures of all sorts. “We made a wonderful expedition
to the Malarsee. The Duke of Ostgothland, the present King Oscar II.,
had taken a ship, and we glided on the shining sea between a hundred
emerald isles to the curious old castle of Grypsholm. What added
immensely to the charm of our voyage were the songs of the Swedish
officers, whom my uncle invited for our amusement. These gentlemen
sing nearly the whole day, and songs varied according to the places we
passed. Their voices were as clear as bells, whispering mysteriously
or sounding loud in the uncontrollable joy of youth. My uncle had the
tombs of the kings in the Riddersholmskirche open for us to see. Each
dynasty has a separate vault. I laid my hand upon the coffins of Gustav
Adolph and Karl XII., but could not help shuddering before these open
graves. The drive through the country to Helsingborg was very fine. We
passed more than a hundred seas. The red wooden houses and the castles
built of red tiles are picturesquely situated between the huge blocks
of stone of volcanic origin with which the whole country is strewn.
These blocks are covered with beech and fir trees. We spent a night in
Toncoping, and wandered through the bright wooden town, by the shining
Wettersee, at five in the morning.”
With the facility peculiar to her, Princess Elizabeth learnt Swedish,
and could soon read “Tegner’s Frithjofsage” and the beautiful poems of
Runeberg in the original. The Princess of Wied had spent three months
in Sweden with her daughter. On the way back they visited Copenhagen
and Friedrichsborg, and stayed some days with their relations at
Arolsen. There Princess Elizabeth was a peculiar favourite of her
cousins of Waldeck, and her appearance at Arolsen gave the signal to
endless rejoicings.
Princess Elizabeth had scarcely returned to Monrepos with her mother
when the Grand Duchess Hélène called her niece to her side at
Heidelberg. In November of 1868 she spent three most enjoyable weeks
there. The recollections of this time were so deep and lasting that
Princess Elizabeth, then Princess of Roumania, mentions it nine years
after with such life and freshness as if years and great changes had
not come over her meanwhile. We will here give that part of a letter
written from Bucharest in May 1877:--
“How beautiful it must now be in Heidelberg! Have I not spent almost
the happiest three weeks of my life there with my aunt and so many
distinguished people. A gathering of great thinkers, Kirchhoff,
Friedreich, Bluntschli, Treitschke, Gervinus, and Helmholtz in one
drawing-room! Besides which Joachim with his heavenly violin, and Frau
Joachim with her voice like a mountain torrent. An evening for the
gods! and then those walks with Fräulein von Rahden, those dreams in
the ruins. How they seemed to teem with life and flitting forms, with
banquets and fair women. Indeed those were visions worthy of the gods!
Of course we were often wet through, but I think the rain belongs
to Heidelberg as the dew to flowers. You should read the ‘Trompeter’
together, that suits there, ‘Frau Aventiure,’ and ‘Gaudeamus.’ One must
become as jolly as the students, drink wine and lounge, in order to be
in the right spirit for Heidelberg: then it is a magic circle, a land
of dreams, such as weary wayfarers may long for. You breathe so freely
in the warm damp air.”
With these bright impressions the year 1868 closed. The next year was
to be one of great importance for Princess Elizabeth. But although her
immediate future shaped itself in an unexpected manner, it found her
prepared for it as to an object towards which the genius of her life
was tending. We have interwoven many extracts of Princess Elizabeth’s
letters in the course of our narrative, because a natural and unsought
for likeness of her is thus developed. Her words are a picture of her
inner and outer life according to the impression made upon her mind at
the time. She describes the effects of what she experienced more than
the causes, but these effects are not problematic states of mind, but
strong and lasting impressions, which take root in a nature rich in
refined feelings, and increase its wealth. And there is one theme which
traverses this inner life and shows itself even there, where it is not
openly mentioned--an all pervading principle, which has the strength
to avoid and to overcome the two dangers which beset the life of a
daughter of a Prince. One danger is that she may give herself up to the
enjoyment of her exalted rank; the other that intellectual pursuits are
undertaken in a dilettanti spirit and become superficial. There is only
one safeguard to these two dangers, and that is duty and labour. The
duty of a Prince is to rule--that is the highest form of education. Now
we read in the letters of Princess Elizabeth even there, where she does
not say so in so many words: “I wish to have a profession.” She meant
the profession of a teacher, and she received one of a Princess and a
Queen!
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