[Image not available: H. M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania]H. M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania
finephysiqueand sound constitution to be my foster-mother. In any case it must have been from her that I derived my simple tastes in matters gastronomic, and this has doubtless much contributed to my well-being my whole life long. As a young girl I exulted frankly in my health and strength, nor was I in the least ashamed of my rosy cheeks and plumpness, the pallid and enervated type of woman not being then proposed as a model, and no one having the slightest desire to look like a ghost. But I thought little enough of such matters—I was better employed, with my books, my work, my music, and whenever our own dear invalids did not demand my special care, in paying visits to the sick people on our estates.
A dull sad existence, some might say, for a growing girl, but it had its joys, and deeper and holier ones than can ever spring from the mere quest of happiness. Moments of depression and discouragement at times were mine, for who is there has not known such, but the natural buoyancy of youth prevailed, and already in the exercise of my pen, I had a source of comfort ever at hand.
And certainly the example of the good faithful souls around me, of their untiring devotion, contributed not a little to nerve and strengthen me whenever my own courage seemed like to fail. How weak and faint-hearted must I account myself, when I looked in Frau Baring’s face, to read there the tale of bygone suffering—of struggles valiantly fought out, despair triumphantly lived down. Little by little I won her confidence, and she told me thestory of her life—of the grim fight sustained with direst poverty, since the day when her husband, a government under-official, had lost his post through ill-health, and the task of providing for him as well as for their child had devolved on her alone. She could speak quite calmly of her bereavement, could take comfort in the thought that the husband and daughter she had loved so dearly and tended so well, were both at rest at last, and could suffer no more, but when she told of the privations they had endured, her lips quivered uncontrollably, and the tears trickled down her faded cheeks. No sermon preached me on the duty of resignation could have been half as effective as this living testimony to the severity of the hardships borne thus uncomplainingly. And this woman, herself so sorely tried, was full of sympathy for the troubles that pressed so heavily on my young life. Of these we never spoke, but I saw that she understood, and felt for me, and the knowledge made my burden lighter.
For several years we lived as if on an island, shut off from the rest of the world, and out of reach of even most intimate friends. It was better so. There seemed to be no leisure then for the pleasures of social intercourse. They only who themselves were suffering or in need of help, were encouraged to draw near. Besides the serious view of life which solitude thus engendered in us, it had another salutary effect, in preventing any comparison between our lot and that of others, in keeping far from us the faintest suspicion that there was aught unusualin our existence. From our parents’ example, as well as from their precepts, we learned a lesson of deep import, that of the absolute subordination of bodily to spiritual needs—we were taught to regard our bodies as mere servants and ministers to the nobler half of our nature, and to treat any mere physical suffering or inconvenience as a matter of but small moment. Any of the little ailments or accidents which weaker parents are inclined to bemoan as real misfortunes to their offspring, were put on one side by my mother as wholly unworthy of attention, with the remark that such things might happen to anyone, that few people had not something more to complain of! Her own fear was of being betrayed into any weakness, and I still remember the tone in which she murmured—“I must not give way!” when in watching by her side the protracted agony of poor Otto’s death-struggle, I had given vent to a cry of anguish and despair. So I learnt from her to smother my feelings, and I told myself how thankful I ought to be, in being blest with parents so exceptionally endowed, that I could but look up to them with reverence, and strive to follow in their steps.
Another lesson in contentment was constantly given us by our humble friends, by the poor folk round about, whom from my earliest years I was allowed to visit. One dear old woman I have spoken of elsewhere; the little sketch I entitled “German Happiness” is but a reproduction of a conversation held with her, for I felt that no better specimen could be given of that peculiar form of contentment with one’s lot in life that is typical of theGerman people. “Hans in Luck” is perhaps the truest piece of folk-lore that exists—the earliest form in which we find the national characteristic depicted. All happiness, it is well known, lies in ourselves, and to the cheerful temperament I speak of, it is to be found everywhere. In every misfortune such people as my dear old peasant-woman can see some cause for thankfulness; instead of shedding tears over a broken arm they rejoice in the one left sound, and comfort themselves in the direst straits by the thought that things might have been much worse still! The charm of my old friend’s simple words, so faithfully reproduced by me on a former occasion, lies chiefly in the raciness of the Rhenish dialect, and would not lend itself to translation. But I am glad to think that her last moments were brightened by the flowers I sent her, for faithful to the promise I had once given, I took care that these should surround her before she breathed her last, as an earnest that on the coffin and grave they should not be lacking. There were many others, men and women alike, in whom the habit of making the best of things had become a second nature, and the uncomplaining, even cheerful simplicity with which their load of misery was borne, can surely be accounted little less than heroic.
Much suffering was always caused by the inundations, which in certain years spread havoc throughout the whole region. Boats were sent out to carry food from house to house, and I remember going in one of these with Baron Bibra, steward of the domain, and one of our oldest friends, andothers of the gentlemen composing our little court, to assist in distributing coffee, bread, and soup, to the poor people in their flooded habitations. In one of these about forty human beings were crowded together in two tiny rooms in which they had taken refuge, and in their midst a corpse—for the churchyard was under water also, like the bakers’ shops and everything else. It was a terrible sight. And another year, somewhat later, much damage was done by a hurricane of exceptional violence that broke out at the same moment, devastating the beautiful park behind the castle. There was one avenue of magnificent linden-trees, which was almost entirely swept away during that terrible night, hardly one out of the scores of fine old trees of many hundred years’ growth being left standing next morning. For the moment my brother was too much occupied in bringing help to his poorer neighbours, many of whose lives were saved by his personal exertions, to have time to mourn the loss of his trees, but afterwards it was a grief to all of us to behold the destruction of our beloved park. An enormous quantity of wood, about eight thousand cubic feet in measurement, was carted away from the wreckage. I wept for my dear old trees. They had been planted by our forefathers in centuries gone by, and had looked on at the good and evil fortunes of our family for all those years. To me they were especially dear. They had been the confidants of my inmost thoughts. How often have I leant out from my window and talked to them! There was one white poplar to which I told all mysecrets, and I listened to its murmured replies, as its leaves rustled, gently stirred by the night breeze that came sighing across the rippling Rhine.
That was before the great storm, the one I have just told of, in the year 1876. But long before that, in my childhood and early youth, I had witnessed some only less terrible. The position of Neuwied exposed us to the full force of every gale that swept up the Rhine, each gust of wind being caught as it were in the bend of the river wherein the little town lies, and eddying round and round the castle with pitiless rage, seemed in a trap from which it sought to break away. With the howling of the wind, and the crashing sound of the tiles torn off the roof, we could often scarce hear ourselves speak in the rooms inside, and very often too it was hardly possible to open the doors, so great was the draught. On the river itself, with its waves lashed to fury, the spectacle was one of mingled terror and grandeur. And I was well situated to have a full view of it on each such occasion, my windows directly overlooking the Rhine. I used to watch the boats and rafts, could see them distinctly and hear the rowers sing out, as they dipped their oars in cadence. Those big rafts were most picturesque, and there was something poetic, in harmony with the scene, in the cry of the rowers:—“Hesseland, France!” instead of right and left. “Hesseland, France!”—the sound still rings in my ears.
But one day the wind was wilder than its wont, the sky was murky, the Rhine chocolate-brown, with breakers like the sea, and the rain beat against ourwindow-panes, down which it then streamed in torrents. Suddenly a fearful shriek went up from the river, and looking out I saw a very big raft going to pieces, having been dashed against the landing-stage. The crew shouted for help, as one by one they were washed off their planks and swallowed up by the waves, and boat after boat put off to their assistance, succeeding in rescuing many of their number. But some must have been drowned before my eyes. And I was alone to see it, for mine were the only rooms that looked out that way, and the whole terrible little drama took place so quickly, I had no time to summon anyone.
My beloved Rhine did not, however, always appear under this tragic aspect, nor are all my memories of the old home steeped in such melancholy hues. How beautiful it was, and the grounds how lovely in those old days, before the cyclone had laid low the tallest trees. Some of the finest specimens were quite near the house, and towered above it, white poplars whose silvery foliage contrasted strikingly with the ruddy hue of the copper-beeches, and the soft delicate verdure of the lindens. The world looked lovely and smiling indeed, as I gazed from my window and saw them bathed in sunshine, with the shadows of their waving branches dancing backwards and forwards on the grass. But there were other seasons;—sometimes of long duration,—when the gloom within doors was so great, it seemed as if the sun never shone at all, and I sat alone in my room over my books, listening to the roaring of the wind in the chimney, roaring as it only roars in old and halfempty houses, as if the Spirit of the Storm were imprisoned there! Something of this Paganini must surely have one day heard and have borne in mind when he composed those strange, weird variations for the violin, in which the strings sob and moan with more than mortal anguish. Quite recently, when that melody was played before me by our gifted young musician, George Enesco, so vividly did it recall the wailing sound, as of a soul in distress, by which my childhood had been haunted, that I leant over to my young niece, who happened to be present, and whispered, “Do you hear the voice of the wind in the chimneys of the old home?”—and she burst into tears. Ah! how often have I cried too in the old days, when that dismal sound rang in my ears, and all that I looked out upon was a sullen swollen flood carrying along huge blocks of ice, or else tossing its angry foaming waves aloft, beneath a sky that seemed itself weighted with lead and borne down to the earth, unmindful of its true mission to stand arched above our heads to cheer us! And I had no amusing books to distract my thoughts; nothing but grammars and histories! And the latter I abhorred, for they seemed to me to be but a record of human misery on a larger scale, of which I had only seen too much in my own small way, quite at close quarters. I did not want to hear of the wretched squabbles that had gone on all over the earth, of how men hated and vilified one another, how they quarrelled and fought. History is nothing but glorified misery after all! I knew of course that these were frightful heresies, and was verymuch ashamed of my own deficient powers of admiration, but it was perhaps not very much to be wondered at, considering the way in which historic facts had been rammed down my throat in my lesson-hours. It was natural enough that my thoughts should wander in any other direction, and that I should seize my pen, and try to give them form. These first products of my Muse were surely very poor stuff, but at least I had the good sense to consign the whole of my early verses to the flames. The same fate befell—a little later on—my first dramatic venture, a long play with six-and-twenty characters, and a highly sensational plot, involving murder and madness, arson and similar attractions. I did not destroy this at once, but coming across it a few years later, I enjoyed a good laugh over it, before I burnt it.
I must not forget to mention our town musicians, an institution that was a relic of olden times. Many of these had been in service in the castle, where, as in many another of the smaller German courts, they had formed a most excellent orchestra, trained under their master’s orders. Such an orchestra, composed entirely of servants,—footmen, lackeys, valets, grooms,—existed still when my father married, and both he and his young wife often played quartets and quintets with their own domestics. The service may perhaps sometimes have suffered a little in consequence; it has happened that the flute-player, standing behind my mother’s chair, would begin humming his part, forgettingthat he was waiting at table. But if the waiting was indifferent, the music, on the other hand, was very good! After the year 1848, when our whole establishment was so reduced, several of these old servants established themselves as musicians in the town, and not only my brother and I, but his children since, took lessons from some of them.
Connected with our hospital in Neuwied were a number of worthy, kind-hearted people—mostly ladies belonging to the town, who were themselves busy enough in their own households, but who yet found time to work for the poor, and to visit the families in greatest distress. And of all those charitable souls Frau Hachenberg, for nearly forty years president of the Ladies Nursing Union, was the most active and zealous. She was the very essence of Christian charity, and withal of such strong commonsense and so practical in all her methods, that every undertaking flourished in her hands. It was she who founded the hospital with but a thaler to commence building. Her confidence never wavered; she knew the funds would be forthcoming. And the faith and trust which were hers she managed to impart to others in turn; so that her work has continued growing, and has increased to three times its original size. The good deaconesses of Kaiserswerth have been attached to the hospital from the first, and to them also a large share of honour is due.
Immense capability of self-sacrifice must be theirs who would devote themselves to the service of sufferinghumanity. In Frau Hachenberg the spirit of self-sacrifice knew no bounds. And her talent for organisation was on the same scale. She was no sentimentalist, nor in the least given to the use of pious phraseology. Quiet, determined, straightforward, her simplicity and directness were more improving than the elegant manners of many a more fashionable woman, who would indeed have been at a loss to control the heterogeneous elements which Frau Hachenberg dealt with so skilfully. With a single glance she seemed to survey a whole situation, and grasp all its contingencies. I could never cease admiring her, and it was from her I learnt nearly all that in my youth I knew respecting the management of benevolent institutions. So strongly did she set the seal of her own remarkable personality on every department of our nursing home—for that modest appellation would better befit our little hospital at its start—that her spirit seems to preside and dominate it still, to this day. Whenever on one of my visits to my old home, I attend a meeting of the Union, I feel as if I must find Frau Hachenberg there, in her accustomed place, coming forward to receive me, and it is as if the fifty years had gone past like a single day, for there, at all events, everything seems unchanged.
Unchanged—but grown and developed. From those small beginnings great things have sprung, round that centre a whole wide scheme of benevolent institutions has grouped itself. On its fiftieth anniversary, at the jubilee of the hospital, my thoughtsflew back to its founders, and a quaint old rhyme that Baron Bibra, one of them, was fond of repeating, came into my head, telling how—“On each grey grimy town, as the angels look down,”—they weep over the blindness and folly of poor human beings, toiling and struggling to raise mighty monuments here on earth, where we are but passing guests,—“While we build not in Heaven, and scarce have a care for Eternity’s mansions, awaiting us there!” I know not whence he had the homely verses, but they always went to my heart. How few of us build for Eternity, and yet how easy it were to take a small piece of Heaven into the earthly habitations we are at such pains to construct!
Yet those earthly abodes are very dear to us at times, and rightly so, for the sake of all those who have lived in them. I love every corner, every stone of my dear Neuwied. And not merely the castle of my fathers, not merely the cradle of my race, but the little town itself, so bright, and clean and well-kept, the very model of the picturesque Rhenish town, whose simplicity I would not exchange for all the luxury of Cosmopolis, and whose modest dwellings, and narrow, old-fashioned streets may surely compare favourably at all events on æsthetic grounds with the sky-scrapers of the noisy, over-crowded cities of the New World! So dear was ever to me my childhood’s home, in weal and woe, even the inundations seemed something to be proud of, and I knew that I was not alone in this, but that many of the good townsfolk of Neuwied shared in the feelingthat made me wind up one of my Rhine-songs with the words:
If in our town the riverIs a more frequent guest,’Tis surely that he loves usBetter than all the rest!
If in our town the riverIs a more frequent guest,’Tis surely that he loves usBetter than all the rest!
If in our town the riverIs a more frequent guest,’Tis surely that he loves usBetter than all the rest!
Seriously enough, it will ever seem to me a favoured spot, and I would have it as it is, and tremble when I hear the schemes discussed—it may be half in jest—of throwing a big bridge across the Rhine and giving to the industries of the quiet little place such development as would soon convert it into an important commercial town. It were a thousand pities! There is little fear, I think, of our seeing such changes, and come what may, the Past is ours. I can still say my Rhine and my Neuwied, for my strong attachment to my birthplace and my native land will be with me to the last.
I usethe word advisedly, the direction of my studies, after my twelfth year, being almost entirely taken out of female hands, my mother feeling more confidence in the competence of persons of the other sex to impart to me the sound and thorough instruction she insisted on and which must moreover be in accordance with her own views, and not in the least on the pattern of the ordinary curriculum for girls. Religious instruction she had always been in the habit of giving us herself and she kept up the practice until within a few weeks of my confirmation, preparing over night with great pains the subject of the lesson which she gave us every morning at six o’clock, and which was sometimes a theological disquisition, sometimes a survey of ecclesiastical history. For these, as for all my other lessons, I had to write essays, rather for the purpose of obliging me to summarise and recapitulate systematically all that I had learnt, than as an encouragement to the expression of my own ideas; this exercise was, notwithstanding, probably of the greatest value to me as enabling me to acquire very early great facility with my pen. Already at quite an early age I had my own very decided views about style, and I remember as quite a child coming into conflict with the very first of my male teachers—one of the masters from the Neuwied Grammar-school, engaged to giveme German lessons—concerning an essay on “Springtime,” I had written for him. Inspired by so congenial a theme, I had simply let myself go, and the pages I handed to Herr Nohl were probably more remarkable for originality than for academic correctness of form. Whether he laid too much stress on negligencies of styles, which in my youthful impetuosity I was too little inclined to heed, I can no longer say; but I know that his unsparing criticism of my work struck me as unjust, and that the corrections he proposed did not seem to me to improve it at all.
Latin I was taught by my brother’s tutor, joining Wilhelm at his lessons, a plan adopted partly in order to give him the stimulant of emulation, but which became a source of unspeakable pleasure and profit to myself. I had such delight and displayed so much facility in the acquisition of a new language, that linguistic talent was supposed to be my special gift. No one understood, nor was I myself until long after aware, that it was language, and not languages, that was my real concern. Unconsciously, I was forging for my own use the weapon that was to serve me later on, and this peep into the beauties of the Latin tongue—for a mere peep it was, since I laboured under the disadvantage of having to plunge into its mysteries at the point at which my brother had arrived,—was yet of immense service to me, in enlarging my horizon, and affording me a cursory inspection of the treasures of another world. The grammar of that noble idiom I never rightly mastered, it is true, conscientiously as Ibattled with it. Many and many a night have I fallen asleep over my books, my head resting on the ponderous old dictionary in which I was seeking the key to some involved construction in the verse, whose majestic cadence enchanted my ear, even before I had fully apprehended its true significance. My brother’s tastes were very different from my own; it was not languages that interested him, but mathematics and the exact sciences. Inventions of all sorts were his special hobby, every new kind of machine had a special fascination for him, and he would have loved to be an engineer. The other course of lessons given us by Professor Preuner, on classic art, was perhaps of even greater efficiency in opening my eyes to the glories of the ancient world, since here there were no technical obscurities to interpose themselves between my vision and the masterpieces revealed. In a series of excellent drawings these were displayed to us, and their perfection pointed out and explained with so much enthusiasm by our professor, himself an ardent devotee of Grecian art, that we in turn learned to know and love these treasures of antiquity so thoroughly and well, my subsequent visits to the great European galleries containing the originals had nothing of strangeness or surprise,—it was but as if I were renewing acquaintance with old and well-loved friends, of whom I had lost sight for a while.
An equal meed of gratitude, though on other grounds, is due from me to the old mathematician, Henkel, who had been my father’s tutor in former days, and who now laboured hard, though with butpoor results, to introduce the rudiments of his to me most dismal science into my very refractory brain! What endless trouble the dear old man took, and what inexhaustible patience he displayed in the attempt to initiate me into the mysteries of progressions and equations, or even the simple extraction of a square root! Under his kindly tuition I filled many note-books, covered whole pages with figures supposed to calculate the logarithm of a number, without even knowing what a logarithm was! Euclid I never understood at all; I can just remember that in every right-angled triangle the square on the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides; but why? Ah! that is a very different matter! As for algebra, it was utterly incomprehensible to me, so I contented myself with learning a few of the formulæ by heart. Just as in a cousin of mine,—a man of great learning, considerable literary culture, and possessed of a fine taste in painting,—the musical sense is entirely wanting, so to me the properties pertaining to number and quality will forever remain a sealed book.
To my French governesses I owe thanks for having so thoroughly grounded me in their language, that I could employ it for my literary work as well as my mother-tongue, one of my books being written originally in French. They too were my guides on my first incursions in the glorious domain of French literature, whose vast treasure-house I ransacked greedily, dwelling with special delight on the matchless beauty of the great prose-writers, my ear, accustomed to the more marked cadence of German verse,having always, I confess, been slightly deaf to the melody of the Alexandrine couplet. To the earlier poets of course this restriction does not apply, and Villon and Clément Marot became each in his own way dear to me, as were Ronsard and the other illustrious members of the Pléïade.
Then came a moment, on which I can look back with a certain special satisfaction, during which I was left without either governess or preceptor of any sort to pursue my studies entirely on my own account, save for the advice given me for my reading by my parents. Those were the months which I devoured with avidity every book that came in my way—even history, I remember, and not only such works as Schiller’s “Thirty Years’ War” and “Revolt of the Netherlands,” rendered fascinating by their literary style, but, to please my mother, the drier pages of Becker’s great Universal History, in its fourteen volumes, were all waded through, rather more perfunctorily, I fear, than some of my lighter reading! Still, the hours spent thus were surely not altogether lost, and the habit of independent study, once acquired, never left me.
But this course of independent study could not of course be allowed to go on indefinitely, and with the professor on whom, after much deliberation, my parents’ choice ultimately fell, they, like myself, had every reason to be satisfied. This was a very youngsavant, named Sauerwein, a protégé of the Prince Consort’s friend, Baron Stockmar, by whom he was recommended to my parents, as being capable of undertaking the entire direction of my studies, fromthe stage at which I had now arrived. He was a man of quite remarkable attainments, his linguistic talent in particular having gained for him the reputation of a second Mezzofanti, with such apparent ease did he apply himself to acquiring each new language to add to his already goodly store—about thirty, it seems to me, he spoke quite fluently at the time when I knew him. To myself the charm of Sauerwein’s teaching lay in his having no cut and dried pedagogic method; not considering it the chief object of education to alter the direction towards which his pupil’s tastes and abilities naturally turned, he had no wish to force my mind into a groove into which it could never fit itself, but rather made it his aim to adapt himself to the exigencies of the situation. In after years my tutor owned to me how great his amazement had been, when in the place of the child of thirteen he believed his future pupil to be, he found a young girl, tall for her years and very self-composed, who in a few well-chosen words thanked him for the trouble he was about to give himself. And his surprise reached its height when the following morning he heard the “Prisoner of Chillon” very dramatically recited by the pupil who was to learn English from him!
It was well for me that I was so thoroughly prepared, as to be the better able to profit by the unusual and really admirable course of instruction Herr Sauerwein now entered on. Its range was wide and varied, history—and English constitutional history in particular—occupying a very considerable part of it, an exhaustive knowledge of thepolitical development of that country being deemed essential, at a moment when all other nations seemed bent on blindly copying English customs and institutions, however little compatible these might be with their own mind and character. Many a State has since had to learn to its cost, the mistake of transplanting growths of foreign culture upon their soil, and the impossibility of amalgamating these alien elements with the national life. But at that time, in Germany as elsewhere, the admiration for all things English made historians like Macaulay and Carlyle extremely popular, and also encouraged the study of English literature. That part of the programme was pure delight to me. Under my new preceptor’s guidance I obtained a comprehensive survey of the whole vast field, from Chaucer to modern times. The Scottish dialect was no bar to my appreciation of Burns; many of his poems I learnt by heart, and can remember still. But the literature of my own country was not neglected, and here also we started reviewing it from its origins, deciphering early Gothic fragments, continuing our quest through Eddas and Nibelungen, and lingering with joyful pride among the heroes sung of by Gottfried and by Wolfram, in the poems that are so glorious a national heritage. So well did I love them, the noble knights of King Arthur’s Court, and the doughty champions of the Holy Grail, that I can hardly forgive Wagner the liberties he has taken with these fine old stories, in order to suit them to the requirements of his music, glorious though that be. The versions of these sublime legends givenby Wagner came doubtless as a revelation to those to whom they were as yet unknown;—but to us, who had lived among them and loved them from our birth, his arbitrary mode of treatment was rather of the nature of a sacrilege. The term is perhaps too strong, but I cannot forget my keen disappointment at certain features of the representations at Bayreuth. It is on this account that I prefer theMeistersingerto all Wagner’s other works, since he had here no legend to alter or spoil, but simply a material which he could turn and twist as he pleased, and which could only gain by his skilful handling and by the musical atmosphere which his genius conjured up around the personages of his drama.
From the study of our old Germanic legends in their epic form, we passed on to the early poetic monuments of other lands, collections of primitive songs and ballads being ransacked for their best specimens, whilst the great national epics were made the object of more exhaustive scrutiny. Throughout the whole of this vast field of exploration, my tutor’s remarkable linguistic equipment made him the surest and best qualified of guides; Sanscrit and Russian were as familiar to him as the Neo-Latin tongues or Celtic idioms; snatches of Hungarian song alternated on his lips with verses of the Persian and Arabic poets; and his reading was as extensive as his literary taste was sound. Some of the fine old poems with which I then became acquainted—the “Kalerala” or “Ramayana” and “Mahalharata” for instance, in which the soul of a whole race has been enshrined and preserved, havesince by the talent and industry of translators, and increased facilities of publication, been made easily accessible to all; but in those days neither the Finnish, nor the great epics of Hindustan, were popularly known, and it was no mean privilege I enjoyed, in being led through these labyrinths of delight by one to whom every step of the way was familiar.
It was Sauerwein’s aim, to give me something more than a superficial acquaintance with all that is best in the literature of the whole world; our course of reading was in consequence strangely diversified; Ossian and the Minnesänger, Sakuntala and the “Gerusalemme Liberata,” these were but a few of the multitudinous and bewildering contrasts forced upon my youthful brain, to which some credit is perhaps due for having borne without ill results so unusual a strain. On my progress in Italian Herr Sauerwein laid special stress, and, as I afterwards learnt, from the very kindest motives. He was well aware both of my poetic proclivities and of the persistent attempts to stifle these, and, thinking it a pity that my imaginative powers should not have fair play, he quietly encouraged me under cover of the Italian essays set me and into which no one else looked, to give my fancy the reins and write as the spirit prompted. Long after, he showed me a whole pile of these compositions, and told me of the satisfaction he had felt in watching the dawn of a talent, of whose existence no one else, and I myself least of all, was really cognisant at that time. Little did he think, when he recited to me some of the old Welsh songs, that one day, in the assemblyof the bards, I should be acclaimed by them as one of their number. Nor could my mother foresee, in the infinite pains she bestowed on improving my handwriting, that the Gothic and ornamental letters she set before me as models would become to me as a simple running-hand, and that I should fill whole volumes with finely traced characters, imitating the missals illuminated with such care and reverence by pious monks of old.
I had as schoolroom a little room leading out of my mother’s, so that she could be present at all my lessons, in the next room, even when she was too ill to leave her bed. Few mothers I think can have taken their duties more seriously. Our religious instruction, as I said, she always gave us herself, assisted by my father. Her old clerical friend, Pastor Dilthey, came and stayed with us at Monrepos just a few weeks before my confirmation, to prepare me for it, but the real work of preparation had been accomplished by my mother beforehand. The examination that precedes the ceremony took place in Monrepos, in our own woods, in the presence of more than a hundred people, members of our family on both sides and many friends, and among the latter that most constant of friends, the Empress Augusta, who never missed an opportunity of showing her affection and regard. Never shall I forget that solemn moment of my life, and my dear little Otto’s touching words, which he wrote for me in the little volume of the “Imitation” he gave me in remembrance of the day. For some time before the confirmation, in order that I might give my wholethoughts to preparing for so serious an event, my music-lessons had been stopped; I had not been allowed to practise at all, so that it was with renewed energy that I returned to it afterwards. The riding-lessons which I now had from one of my uncle’s equerries, a most excellent riding-master, gave me less pleasure. This exercise, like dancing, seemed dull to me, from lack of intellectual stimulus.
But I should never have done if I tried to enumerate all those who contributed to my education, and from whom at some time or other I have learnt. It was not always from one’s regular professors that the most useful lessons came. We are forever learning, for Life itself is a school from which there is no playing truant, and whose teaching only stops at the grave. As for educational systems and theories, Nature, the greatest teacher of all, often laughs these to scorn. The best of them is but a bed of Procrustes, to fit which human limbs are ruthlessly lopped or stretched. Wiser were we to leave to Nature’s self the task of fashioning each individual in youth. She has not made all on one pattern, and diversity, not uniformity, is her aim.
Whenevermy lips pronounce the beloved name, I am choked with the tears that gather round my heart, and silently overflowing, suffuse my eyes. She was the sunshine of my youth, illuminating it with her own radiant brightness, with her affection, her irrepressible swiftness of perception and joyful play of fancy, with the unspeakable tenderness that was hers. As children we were always together, the three Bibras and we three. There was a perpetual interchange of letters and messages, little notes constantly making their way across the quadrangle that lay between the castle and their house, with some such whimsically worded invitation as the following: “The three little Widgeons request the pleasure of the three little Bearers’ company to tea.” Or, it might be, the other way round. We were all of about the same age, Marie being born in the same year as my brother Wilhelm, her brother Berthold and I the preceding year, whilst our poor Otto, had he lived, would be the same age as her sister, Louise, Countess Bernstorff, sole survivor of that trio. But death had already thinned the ranks of the Bibra family, two dear children having been laid quite early in the tomb. These were the baby Anna, who died in our house at Monrepos, and whose little waxen face and cold white hands I well remember, and the little Max, Marie’s darling,a fine manly little fellow, whose loss the elder sister never ceased to deplore. Her beautiful eyes, soft and limpid as those of a gazelle, ran over with tears at the mention of his name. Those tears seemed always ready to flow, as if her heart were overfull, and it needed but a word to stir the depths and bring them to the surface. How quietly they coursed down the fair young cheeks, never reddening them or distorting the delicate features, but giving her the appearance of a blossom refreshed by rain. And those lovely lustrous eyes looked only the more brilliant for the tears they had shed, lit up by a soft steady radiance that I have never seen elsewhere.... But how can I find words to tell of her sweetness, of all she was to me, my heart’s best friend, the dear companion of my youth!
Thrown together as we were by circumstances, and with so much that was sympathetic in our natures, we were drawn yet closer by the hand of Fate, by a certain similarity in the fortunes—or rather in the ill-fortune that befell our families. There is perhaps no stronger tie than that which springs from an affliction borne in common, and the friendship that united Marie von Bibra and myself, founded on the sorrows we had shared, but little resembled that which ordinarily exists between girls of our age. Young as she was, and naturally light-hearted, she had known much sorrow. After the baby-sister, and the little brother whom she loved so well, she was fated to see the only remaining one, Berthold, called away one springtime in the bloomand pride of youth. It was on a cold dull May day—how unlike the May mornings of poetry and legend!—that I stood with her beside the coffin in which her brother had just been laid, and together we afterwards wove the garlands that went with him to the grave. And in all the anguish of the years of Otto’s martyrdom it was she who supported and comforted me, when the load of sorrow would otherwise have seemed too heavy to be borne. These were no weak, no ordinary ties, that bound our souls together, and the fellowship of sorrow rests on a firmer basis than any other fraternity. But our joys were in common too, and how much increased, by being shared!
Thus we grew up together, in joy and sorrow, until the day when, coming from poor Otto’s deathbed, Baron Bibra said, as he wrung my father’s hand, “Before the year is out, another of my dear children will lie under the earth!”—“Yes, yes,” he continued, in answer to his friend’s look of horror and amazement, “she coughs just like Berthold,—it is only the beginning, but I know the tone,—she too must go!”
It was only too true. Marie, who was just sixteen, was taken away to the sea by her parents; but scarcely six months later, a message was brought me by a dear and trusted friend, to prepare me for the shock of seeing her again. Far from deriving any benefit from the sea-air, she had come back with inflammation of the lungs, and already all hope was given up. My one wish was to fly to her bedside; but even then I had to wait some days to see her, till she had rallied a little and had strength totalk to me. Ah! how sad was that meeting! Death was in her face, in the hectic flush on her cheeks, in the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, in the transparent whiteness of her hands, as she stretched them towards me, lying in bed, with the magnificent tresses of her fair silky hair, that usually crowned her head like an aureole, hanging in two heavy braids across the pillow. She could not raise her voice above a whisper as she told me: “I thought I should die, while we were away, at Scheveningen! Oh! Lisi,—I did not want to die!”
After that, she seemed to rally a little, and each day I paid her a visit, sitting beside her whilst with those skilful fingers of hers—fingers that always seemed with a touch to accomplish marvels—she executed a host of charming things, little cardboard objects that were as pretty in their way as the beautiful ivory carvings that had formerly been her delight, but for which her strength no longer sufficed. Feeble as they were, those slender diaphanous fingers had lost nothing of their dexterity, and her inventive faculty was still fertile as of yore. Never was there a daintier toy than the miniature fortress she cut out in cardboard,—a feudal castle, complete in every detail. But my heart grew heavier with each visit, for the apparent improvement in her health was but illusive,—the flicker of a dying candle ere it be extinguished.
When the last parting came, she was just seventeen, and so sweet and pure, she looked fit for Heaven indeed, as she waited patiently for the summons. Her eyes grew brighter every day, her nostrils,transparent as alabaster, dilated and quivered with every breath she drew, and the smile of unearthly sweetness on her lips was like a perpetual leave-taking. Earlier in that very year, my poor brother’s sufferings had at last ended, and now, with the knowledge that my father’s days were numbered also, I must lose my one, my best-beloved friend!
Could I but have been with her to the last! But it has so often been my lot to be condemned by circumstances to go from the side of those whom I loved best on earth, with the full consciousness that I should see them here no more. Then for the first time that bitter experience was mine. My father was ordered to a milder climate for his health, so in October we all set out for Baden-Baden, to pass the winter there. Once more, before we parted, Marie and I resolved to be photographed together. I held her fast by the hand, as if by so doing I could hold her back, for the whole time while the photograph was being taken, my eyes were fixed on her, and saw the ominous quivering of the nostrils, that betokened how great the effort. Quite exhausted by it, she lay down again, and I sat by her side for a while, until my mother fetched me. We said goodbye; and then—“You will turn round, will you not,” she said, “my Lisi, at the door, and look back at me once more!” And I did turn round, and look back at her smiling, though my heart was like to break, and once outside, I had to lean against the wall to steady myself, so shaken was I by choking sobs. And there stood her poor mother, and looked at me, with tearless eyes. Such silent misery I havenever seen in any other countenance. This was the fourth of her children whom Frau von Bibra must see pass away, and since the death of Max she had been an invalid herself. She might have been another Niobe, white as marble, with all the life and light spent in her big dark eyes, of a velvety softness, like rich brown pansies. Both parents were heroic, but whilst the unhappy mother bore each fresh blow in perfect silence, the father’s resignation even took the form of outer cheerfulness, that did not fail him now, when Marie, his darling, was being torn from him. “Death,” Herr von Bibra was accustomed to say, “should be a dear friend to me; he has been such a frequent visitor in my house!”
All through that winter I wrote each day to my dear Marie. Then towards the end of February came worse news, that she was suffering from frightful headaches, ending in delirium. This lasted a whole fortnight, during which she was always fancying she saw me, and calling me by name. “Ah! she was there, my Lisi!” she would cry; “if we could but die, all of us, together, and fly up to heaven where the others are waiting for us!” And the gates of Paradise seemed to be already open to her, for she told of all the wonders she saw, its undimmed glories, and the flowers that never fade—and these raptures were reflected in her face. The last thing I sent her was a little night-lamp in biscuit-china, like a tiny chapel, so delicate and fragile. And one night Baron Bibra wrote me these words:—“The little lamp, whose soft light seems to plunge our souls in an atmosphere of prayer and holiness, sheds its gentle rays over my child’s palestill face, as if whispering to her the loving thoughts of her who sent it!” The tears rise once more to my eyes, as I write this. As if the five-and-forty years that have passed since that day counted for nothing! It was a heartbreaking meeting with the poor father, when shortly after this he came to see us in Baden; and terrible again was the return to Neuwied, to find their house desolate, and the poor bereaved mother, more Niobe-like than ever, and her big velvety eyes still strained and tearless! Meantime—hardest ordeal of all I went through—during that winter of anxiety and anguish I had been obliged to go to my first ball, in order that my father should for once see me dance. It was with endless care and precautions that the short journey to Karlsruhe was undertaken, and once there, everything that friendship could do for him was done, by those truest and best of friends, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden. Notwithstanding all their care, he of course coughed for the rest of the night—but—he had had his wish—he had seen his daughter at her first ball! And my feet felt like lead—were as heavy as my heart, which ached so that I knew not how to smile and look well pleased, and enter fittingly into the amiable small-talk of my partners. How unhappy I was, and how the old unhappiness comes over me once more, as I write this! For grief and joy are both eternal, but grief so much more violent in its nature, that did we but rightly consider it, our one aim should be, to bring some joy into each other’s lives, to sweeten the bitterness that must needs be the portion of all. It was the very violence of my grief that helpedme through the next few months, for I plunged headlong into work—there was no other way for me—studying, practising—seven hours in the day sometimes—till I was tired out—anything so as not to have tothink! But now I can look back with gratitude on the sympathy shown me by so many friends, and remember the kind and feeling words of Monsieur de Bacourt, Talleyrand’s former secretary, when he learnt the death of the friend and companion of my youth:—“C’est bien dur de ne plus pouvoir dire—te rappelles-tu?”
Next year, death was again busy in our midst. This time it was my father who was called away. And now at last Baron Bibra’s fortitude gave way. He who had seen with almost stoical endurance his children go before him to the tomb, broke down completely after taking his last farewell of the friend of a lifetime. To that long unbroken friendship, a striking testimony was furnished in recent years by the simple perusal of all the documents signed by both during Bibra’s tenure of office in my father’s lifetime. From studying the contents of these dry deeds, my brother’s steward, Baron von der Recke, had been able to gather an intimate knowledge of his predecessor’s character, as also of my father’s, and of their mutual affection and regard for one another. I marvelled indeed when he imparted to me the result of his researches, and some of the conclusions he had drawn, so correct were they in many minutest particulars. I learnt from this, the truth that even archives may contain, with their record of dull dry facts, and of the poetry that may sometimes lurk in a stiffly worded deed!
Intelling the story of my brother’s short life, I cannot do better than employ in the first place the simple words of his faithful attendant, Mary Barnes, who for seven years watched over him devotedly night and day, by her untiring care doing much to alleviate the pain he suffered from his birth. Her notes begin thus:—
“Friday, 22nd November, 1850, the anxiously expected treasure entered this valley of sorrow. The event can be forgotten by none who were present on that day. For some time past but small hopes had been entertained of the child coming into the world alive, and we therefore rejoiced the more, when after many hours of pain and danger, a fine boy was born. New life, new hope sprang up; but the joy was of short duration, to be transformed only too soon into lasting sorrow. Very shortly after his birth, the poor infant’s laboured breathing showed that all was not well with him, and this led to the discovery of a serious organic defect. At first the doctors believed that this could be remedied by a slight operation, and an eminent surgeon was sent for. Unfortunately he arrived too late to operate that day, and the night that followed was a terrible one. I did not think it possible for the poor babe to last till morning; it was blue in the face, as I held it, all night long, upright in my arms, to prevent it being suffocated.At last morning came, and after due examination, the operation was fixed for eleven o’clock. We moistened the poor child’s lips with a few drops of milk, as it had not sufficient strength to take the breast. The malformation was more serious, and the operation in consequence attended with far greater difficulty, than the doctors had foreseen. It lasted so long, and left the tiny patient so exhausted, we hardly thought he would survive it many seconds. His whole appearance was changed; the skin had taken a dull yellowish hue, and the little limbs were so cold, we resorted to every possible means of restoring a little warmth. This state of utter exhaustion lasted for twenty-four hours, during which we kept moistening the lips with milk and with a few drops of a resuscitating medicine, it being the opinion of the doctors that could we but succeed in prolonging life for a few hours, all might be well in the end.
“When at last the feeble flame of life seemed to burn a little more steadily, I was indeed shocked to see, in performing the little sufferer’s toilet, the awful change wrought in his poor little tortured body. He seemed to have dwindled away, to have grown so small, so fragile, that one feared that the lightest touch must hurt him. He did succeed in getting a little sleep, but his sufferings were indescribable, and caused him, when awake, to scream incessantly night and day, till the little voice, worn out, became weak and hoarse, and the cry ended in a feeble moan, whilst the baby face twitched with pain. Early on the morning of the tenth day he