Victoria, Princess Royal

I used as a child to stand listening as if entranced, and when I read Marika's wonderful poem or heard it sung, the plaintive notes of the old Aeolian harp of Heiligenberg wake again in my heart.

A few paces distant from the ruins stood and still stands the primeval scent footnote this might be Kent but the scent gericht or court of the hundred was held here in the time of Charlemagne the primeval scent linden tree of Charlemagne's time whose gnarled branches branches supported by poles still bear leaves and blossoms I'll see if I can get you a photograph of all this and pop it on the website since our father's death in 1888 the wonderful old linden tree has been enclosed in the Kreuzgarten the final resting place of our parents immediately behind the golden cross which flashes out over the plain four great scotch firs overshadow this simple white stone that marks the common grave of those two united in time and in eternity who so dearly loved Heiligenberg and whom Jugenheim has to thank for so much loving and faithful care the tombstone with the added cross above was designed in 1901 by the dying Empress Frederick the painful memories of the five years during which Sandro Prince Alexander of Bulgaria was engaged to her daughter Victoria formed a link between her and my parents and also myself Bismarck and the Emperor William prevented the marriage because it would have been unacceptable to Russia and long after my brother had renounced the Bulgarian throne the engagement ratified at the deathbed of the Kaiser Frederick was broken off this is only one of many untoward happenings concerning which I shall be silent in the little memorial chapel which we erected to my father's memory after his death there is among the communion vessels a golden chalice in which the Empress Frederick had set all the jewels which my brother in the course of his engagement had given his intended bride the Princess Victoria retained only one a sapphire ring and in the hour of his death in 1893 this stone sustained a crack this occurrence impelled her under the conviction that something had happened to visit my mother from whom she learned of the death of her former lover in the chapel are two bronze reliefs in memory of the two brothers who died and are buried far away Alexander of Bulgaria resting with the emblems of war in his coffin and Henry who died in the Ashanti war sleeping in a skiff guided homewards by angels the reliefs are the work of Professor Phil Otto Schaefer the stained glass windows in the chapel contain the images of SS George and Alexander as well as those of SS Perpetua oh so saints silly me saints George and Alexander as well as those of saints Perpetua and Felicitas at the entrance to the village stands a large imposing villa and a magnificent garden the residence of Baron van der Hoop and his family a dear old couple with their children and grandchildren in a wonderful situation at the Alsbach end of the village surrounded by lovely flowers and trees beckoned friendly and warm the villa power or poor warm and sunny as their house were its inmates the well-known pianist and composer Professor Ernst Power and his family he was one of those people who live in memory as though still present such an unforgettable childlike warmth of affection radiated from his gigantic person his wife by birth an Andrea Andrea from Frankfurt matched him both in height and character perfectly she was a glorious singer Ernst Power was a Viennese by birth a grandson of strikers and lived in London the family spent only the summer months in their Jugenheim home which was delightful in its comfortable simplicity It was one of the happiest of my experiences when we were now and then allowed to spend an evening with our parents at the Power's, accompanied there and back by a servant carrying a lantern, which in itself had a very special charm.

It was always a treat for us when Professor Power came to us to play duets with Papa, and so too was their lively talk, which bristled with wit and humor.

I still keep up a close friendship with the eldest daughter, Tina.

Now, as soon as Willie hears about that, he will have my hands, my innards, or anything else he craves of my anatomy." Of course everybody roared and Mr.

Phelps had to explain that at dinner the night before, one of the guests, the nobleman mentioned who was the favorite of the Empress Frederick had boasted a lot of his ancestry Grandfathers and uncles of his had been present at every great battle the world over and had, of course always fought on the winning side Later, when the company was looking at some engravings Mr. Phelps, in a joke, pointed to the figure of a Puritan saying with a merry twinkle in his eye, "Ancestor of mine" The picture happened to illustrate the trial of Charles I of England Now, not to be outdone, Twain pointed to the Lord Judge on the woolsack and matched Phelps' lie "My ancestor, if you please" He made the statement at the very moment when Count Seckendorff looked at the picture hence Mark's awful apprehensions "Regicide," he told us, "is never outlawed by the lapse of time When Charles I's son was restored to the throne hundreds of dead regicides were pulled out of their graves by the ears and hanged and quartered As to the living, well, they were treated as I described And I am afraid that if Seckendorff reports me, Willie being half-English I will be punished just as if I had made Charles a head shorter myself yesterday afternoon" End of Mark Regicide Section five of Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field by H. W. Fisher This LibriVox recording is in the public domain The funniest speech Mark ever heard "The funniest thing I ever heard was chirped right here in this neighborhood," said Mark Twain snuggling down in his big armchair before the fire, which wasn't blazing and, "Didn't mean to without kerosene," he told the maid, warning her not to let the missus know The neighborhood was Tedworth Square, London quite the other side of Mayfair and leading to some queer streetlets and lanes "London's Fifth Avenues," mused Mark, "remind me of a sable coat such as Pauline Bonaparte used to wear edged with cat skin There are always hell kitchens within hailing distance Well, at that time, my girls had a friend living in Clapham And nightly she walked me 10 or more blocks to her bus through one of those hell kitchens lined with fried fish shops and other ill-smelling emporiums for acquisition lucre" He turned to an English friend "Maybe lined isn't correct, for the fish shops were all on one side of the lane And naturally, I ambled along the other I thought I was safe there But of course I wasn't, for the smells zigzagged across the pavement and followed me like a rotten conscience My haven of safety or comparative safety from the rancid oil compost was an undertaker's shop at the lane's extreme end And when I got there, I used to hoist up my coattails and skip across the street right into the public house opposite for a scotch Naturally, I took more or less interest in that cemetery correspondence school From a notice posted, I learned that it was under new management I call that an ingenious appeal for corpses, don't you? Well, it wasn't merely an office.

The carpentry was right at the tail of the roll topper There, night after night, an old sad-faced man sat looking for customers 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 10 times dirtier than Berlin, seven and a half times dirtier than New York, and six times dirtier than the best parts of Paris Anyhow, that man, hyena hungry for worm food, didn't enjoy the low rate of mortality one single bit I could see that every time I eyed him And I lamped him regularly before I waltzed into the gin mill to drown the fried fish smell" "And did one scotch suffice for the operation?" asked Mr.

Bill Mark looked at Mrs. Clemens and lied brazenly "Well, yes, of course" But as she had risen to go out and was walking toward the door, he added in an undertone, "One scotch was like taking a bottle of perfume from the 10-cent store into a glue factory to paralyze the cologne smell of a four-acre establishment of that sort "To resume," resumed Mark, "seeing each other nightly for a week or a week and a half, that undertaker chap and this here yellow journalist of literature got on famously, and our acquaintance, though by eyesight only, gradually blossomed into real brotherhood.

Some who are near and dear to me have said that they have well nigh forgotten the old life and the comforts they deemed indispensable only a little while ago.

I think it may be claimed for them that they have played a good part and that in helping others they have not sought to draw an attention to themselves or minimise the credit due to the trained sisterhood of love and pity that cheers the wounded and comforts the dying as the lady with the lamp taught them to do in the far-off days of the great Crimean struggle.

They have made many friends and no enemies.

The hero of the trenches and the assaulting party has not given more to his country, for both have given their all, the man his strength, the woman her practical sympathy, and both a high degree of physical and moral courage.

They asked no more than to be left alone to do their best, but they knew how hard it is to make an effective protest, and they had little or no time to do so.

They recognized by reason of their training the full motive of the excursion into the region of suffering, that craving for excitement, or in bad cases, erotomania was the motive power.

They found their work impeded by the sisterhood of imposters that respond so readily to a fashion of its own making, and their chief hope was that this sensation might pass as so many others have passed, and that the brainless, chattering, thoughtless, empty company, tired of blood and wounds, would find some paramount attraction nearer home.

If there are any who are prepared to think I have overstated the case, or have traduced the young women who were lately somewhere in France, let them find out from their particular heroine how much time she gave to training, how she received her appointment, and how much real hard work she did day by day.

Everybody respected the old Emperor William, and everybody admired the Crown Prince Frederick.

When he married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who became, after the death of Princess Alice, King Edward's favorite sister, the relations between the two courts could hardly have been more amicable.

Queen Victoria loved Germany and the Germans.

She adored her grandson.

She went so far to hold him up to her eldest son as a model.

On the other hand, the Princess of Wales, being a Dane, could not forget or forgive the theft of Schleswig-Holstein.

Her sister, the Russian Empress, shared her suspicions of German intentions.

But I never heard of one or the other originating or encouraging anti-German intrigues.

Everybody respected the old Emperor William, and everybody admired the Crown Prince Frederick.

When he married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who became, after the death of Princess Alice, King Edward's favorite sister, the relations between the two courts could hardly have been more amicable.

Queen Victoria loved Germany and the Germans.

She adored her grandson.

She went so far to hold him up to her eldest son as a model.

On the other hand, the Princess of Wales, being a Dane, could not forget or forgive the theft of Schleswig-Holstein.

Her sister, the Russian Empress, shared her suspicions of German intentions, but I never heard of one or the other originating or encouraging anti-German intrigues.

As the Kaiser grew up towards manhood, his personality was hardly known.

Everybody respected the old Emperor William, and everybody admired the Crown Prince Frederick.

When he married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who became, after the death of Princess Alice, King Edward's favorite sister, the relations between the two courts could hardly have been more amicable.

Queen Victoria loved Germany and the Germans.

She adored her grandson.

She went so far to hold him up to her eldest son as a model.

On the other hand, the Princess of Wales, being a Dane, could not forget or forgive the theft of Schleswig-Holstein.

Her sister, the Russian Empress, shared her suspicions of German intentions.

But I never heard of one or the other originating or encouraging anti-German intrigues.

Some who are near and dear to me have said that they have well nigh forgotten the old life and the comforts they deemed indispensable only a little while ago.

I think it may be claimed for them that they have played a good part and that in helping others they have not sought to draw an attention to themselves or minimise the credit due to the trained sisterhood of love and pity that cheers the wounded and comforts the dying as the lady with the lamp taught them to do in the far-off days of the great Crimean struggle.

They have made many friends and no enemies.

The hero of the trenches and the assaulting party has not given more to his country, for both have given their all, the man his strength, the woman her practical sympathy, and both a high degree of physical and moral courage.

They asked no more than to be left alone to do their best, but they knew how hard it is to make an effective protest, and they had little or no time to do so.

They recognized by reason of their training the full motive of the excursion into the region of suffering, that craving for excitement, or in bad cases, erotomania was the motive power.

They found their work impeded by the sisterhood of imposters that respond so readily to a fashion of its own making, and their chief hope was that this sensation might pass as so many others have passed, and that the brainless, chattering, thoughtless, empty company, tired of blood and wounds, would find some paramount attraction nearer home.

If there are any who are prepared to think I have overstated the case or have traduced the young women who were lately somewhere in France, let them find out from their particular heroine how much time she gave to training, how she received her appointment, and how much real hard work she did day by day.

Now as soon as Willy hears about that, he will have my hands, my innards, or anything else he craves of my anatomy.

Of course, everybody roared and Mr. Phelps had to explain that at dinner the night before, one of the guests, the nobleman mentioned, who was the favorite of the Empress Frederick, had boasted a lot of his ancestry.

Grandfathers and uncles of his had been present at every great battle the world over and had, of course, always fought on the winning side.

Later, when the company was looking at some engravings, Mr. Phelps, in a joke, pointed to the figure of a Puritan, saying with a merry twinkle in his eye, "Ancestor of mine." The picture happened to illustrate the trial of Charles I of England.