Various

“ In order to moderate the exuberance of her feelings, her mother took her at every opportunity to scenes where she might be deeply impressed by the realities of life. She was present at many a sick and death bed. Her brother’s case familiarised her with the sufferings that many have to endure. The first deathbed at which she was present was her grandmother’s, the Duchess of Nassau’s. It made an ineffaceable impression upon her. The sight of the body excited no terror in her mind. ”

“ Elizabeth, the subject of our sketch, now the Queen of Roumania, was born on the 29th of December, 1843. As a child, she was impetuous in temper, reserved and resolute in disposition, and unbending in will. Her imagination was very lively. In her fourth year she was placed under the charge of a governess to receive regular instruction. Up to that time her mother had been her sole teacher. She was so lively that she suffered physical torture if she had to sit quite quiet. ”

“ What has the shepherd’s Fairy to do with him, I should like to know? But there don’t appear to be any scarcity of half-crowns with him; seems made up of them. A queer customer—a mighty queer customer; I wonder where he hails from.” And so saying, the blacksmith went to his door to look after the young Frenchman.
The stranger walked up the High-street to the Crown, where he had left his horse, and when it was brought to him, innocently asked the ostler if he could get back to Oafham, where he was staying, by Bournemer. ”

“ In this way, you will have done far more good than if you sat straightway down to the piano when you were excited and heated after your first lesson, when you might have been tempted to try over your songs, to settle which to take the next time, and have gone from one thing to another, till, to your great surprise, it is lunch time, and, it may chance, instead of your usual good appetite you have none. An artistic temperament is often very excitable, and if this is your case you will perceive how much you would have taken out of yourself in that one morning. ”

“ Ah! he is a queer customer.” And muttering to himself all the way down the street, the blacksmith returned to his forge.
Meanwhile the French gentleman rode slowly off in the direction indicated by the ostler, keeping his horse to a walking pace for fear he should overtake Fairy, who, after a little while, he discerned as a little speck of white some way in front of him. He paid no heed to the ostler’s directions now; where that speck of white led he would follow, but at a safe distance, lest he should frighten or annoy her if discovered. ”

“ Her mother wisely concluded that the best thing to do was to let her take her own way. The Prince used to say, when she was determined to have her own way, “We must not compel people for their own happiness; we must allow them to attain to insight.” ”

“ Hardly had she done so for five minutes before she suddenly fell off her chair in a fainting fit. Her mother’s former governess, Fraülein Lavater, who came to Mon Repos for some months every year, was the only one who could tranquilise her.
Very early Princess Elizabeth displayed a charitable and sympathetic disposition. She used to accompany her mother on visits to the poor, and thus she became acquainted with their needs. She would give away whatever she could dispense with; yet she was not destitute of sound practical sense. One day her mother gave her a large piece of woollen stuff. ”

“ If you tire the vocal chords and the surrounding parts, you weaken instead of strengthening them, and injure the purity of tone.
We will suppose you have had your first lesson, say, of forty-five minutes; and on reaching home feel inclined to practise, to impress on your mind your teacher’s corrections. Yet you must not do so; as you have already sung enough. By all means, look over the music you have used and mark anything you may be likely to forget ”

“ Meanwhile the greatest consternation was felt at the Castle on account of the disappearance of the Princess Elizabeth. Servants were sent out in all directions. For a long time they searched the neighbouring beechwoods and surrounding villages in vain. At last they found the little Princess, full of delight with her exploit, in the village school of Rodenbach. The missing child was carried back to the Castle, and confinement to her room for the rest of the day was the issue of the morning’s exploit.
She was a born ruler of others. ”

“ She resolved to devote herself to the work of education, and be the teacher of a school. Her mother consented, on the condition that she should go through a regular course of preparatory training for the purpose, and pass an examination. But “man proposes and God disposes.” During the spring of 1869, while she was with her mother in Bonn, they received an invitation from the Prince of Hohenzollern to pay a visit to Düsseldorf. The mother divined the purpose of the proposed visit, but the daughter had no suspicion of it. ”

“ In 1860 she was confirmed, after being prepared for the rite by the Ecclesiastical Councillor Dilthey, in presence of all her sponsors, the nearest relatives of the houses of Wied and Nassau, and the present Empress of Germany, at that time Princess of Prussia.
Times of sore trial came to her. Her father was always ill. The sufferings of her little invalid brother increased, and her mother was absorbed by anxious duties. During her brother’s illness, to whom her mother wholly devoted herself, the Princess was thrown much into the society of her father. ”

“ From entries in her diary it would appear that she had offers of marriage at this time. There are some lines in which she writes of the kind of love that alone brings happiness, and she adds that a maiden rejects anyone who does not really love her. ”