Henry W. Fischer

“ Prince George looked at the Grand-duke, but Ernest Ludwig said nothing.
"I am here as the King's representative. I represent the chief of the Royal House of Saxony."
"A fig for your Royal House of Saxony," said Melita, snapping her fingers in George's face. "Queen Victoria is my chief of family, and, that aside, Ludwig and I are sovereigns in Hesse and have no intention whatever to allow anyone——"
"Anyone?" repeated George aghast. "You refer to me as anyone?"
"In things matrimonial," said Melita, "only husband and wife count; all others are 'anyone.' You, too." ”

“ Indeed, the papers disdained to send their ‘own correspondents’ or reporters to such small-fry events as the taking of a man’s or, perchance, a woman’s life in public, and entrusted that part of the daily grind to a ‘flimsy man,’ who sent duplicate copies to all the papers, morning and evening. The ‘flimsy man,’ of course, got so used to the dope and to the eternal sameness of the thing, he could dictate a first-rate hanging yarn without leaving his office, or using the phone—beg pardon, there were no phones in those days. ”

“ And Frederick Augustus! He will miss me in his way.
Ten more minutes. I hear the distant clatter of a carriage. Richard driving to our rendezvous, two streets north of the palace gate.
Will my limbs carry me to him and liberty? I pace the room to test their strength.
"Louise," says the voice within,—"your last chance. Your good-natured husband, your darling children, your old parents, pomp and state and circumstance, indeed, a crown, you are going to abandon for—what?"
A man whose carnal side only you know, a poor man, an artist without fame, a professional without future. ”

“ They were talking lynch law in Professor Krafft-Ebing’s library in Vienna—some horrible nightmare that had come in the latest cable—and as a matter of course Clemens was asked his opinion as an American and observer of human nature.
“Lynch law means mob-lawlessness, doesn’t it?” he drawled. “Well, what does it argue? To my mind it argues that men in a crowd do not act as they would as individuals. In a crowd they don’t think for themselves, but become impregnated by the contagious sentiment uppermost in the minds of all who happen to be en masse. ”

“ Castle Wachwitz, March 10, 1893.
Queen Carola is a good soul though she doesn't dare call her soul her own. I never heard her say "peep" in the presence of his Majesty. She looks forlorn and frightened when King Albert is around.
I like her better since I am a mother, for she loves baby. Yes, though she is a Queen, I saw her actually smile at the child once or twice.
Poor woman, the point of her nose is always red, and, like Father-in-law George, she believes weeping willow the only fit emblem for royalty. The look of the whipped dog is always in her weak eyes. ”

“ Now, the English metropolis is reputed the healthiest city in the world, which proves that the legend about cleanliness being nearest to godliness is blooming rot, for London is ten times dirtier than Berlin, seven and a half times dirtier than New York and six times dirtier than the best parts of Paris. ”

“ And here I am thinking, thinking, thinking.
"The end of the Boulevard" is the beginning of Dresden's Bois. Does this madman really suppose that Her Imperial Highness, the Crown Princess of this kingdom, will lower herself and respond to his demand for a rendezvous?
Yet, how he must love me to risk saying what he did say to me. He is no ill-balanced youth; he is a man of ripe judgment. His passion got the better of him.
I adore passion.
I must go no more to the theatre. Impossible for me to see him nightly. ”

“ Some time in 1921, I met him on Broadway, New York. “Hello, Fisher,” says I, “where have you been, what are you doing, and where are those flowing whiskers you used to sport?”
“Hello, Johnson,” replied Fisher, peering at me through his thick glasses, “I am just back from London, the air raids scared off my whiskers, and my eyesight has become so bad, I am only fit to be a ‘dictator’ now.”
“Well,” says I, continuing our conversation of many years ago, “where are those Mark Twain yarns you promised me?” ”

“ Prince George's evil counsel wasn't powerful enough to procure me beatings, but my husband's military education, his love of discipline, backed by alcohol, thrusts a sword into his hand, and, if I refuse to comply with his atrocious demands, I am liable to be treated like so many "mere" civilians that are sabred in the public streets for refusing to do some spurred and epauletted blackguard's bidding, or entertain his insults.
If the Socialists, who are forever railing against these self-same army poltroons, only knew it! ”

“ The more I looked at the Vortänzer, the more he enchanted me. Taller than any other man present, elegant, blonde, clean-shaven. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh, I judged. Might be the reincarnation of the Duc de Richelieu, who seduced my three cousins d'Orleans.
His face is livid with white and carmine tints; his eyes glow with an irresistible charm. That figure of his! The elegance of the palm tree, both straight and flexible. And the infinity of grace as he waltzed that little Baroness around.
"Baron Bergen, of the Guards," breathed Lucretia into my ear. ”

“ One day in Berlin, speaking of General Grant, Mark said, “I did not admire him so much for winning the war as for ending the war. Peace—happiness—brotherhood—that is what we want in this world.”
“Here comes the Kaiser,” he continued, “and sends me tickets for his September review. Of course I will go. But I don’t care for military spectacles, or for militarism. Tolstoy was right in calling army life ‘a school for murder.’ In Germany to-day there are ten million men drilled to look upon the Kaiser as a god. ”

“ German or Austrian, as Mark called it—he sometimes dropped two or three memorable witticisms, but familiar intercourse in the long run left no doubt of the fact that a very serious vein bordering on melancholy underlay his mask of bonhomie. On the other hand a closer or more intelligent student of life never lived. He was as conscientious, as true, and as simple as Washington Irving. ”

“ Those Jews have actually the audacity to reprimand the King and the royal princes, to impute ignoble motives to us all! They talk of us as if we were Messieurs and Mesdames Jones or Browns, trying to enrich ourselves at the expense of a corpse!
They call us "inheritance-chasers," "purloiners of pupillary funds," "starvers of innocent children."
The Duke's kept-woman is "a lady of the highest character" and we are not; her children are of the blood royal—only better for the dash of plebeian. ”