Women of the Teutonic Nations Part 17

For a while, Madame Neuber scored a brilliant success in Saxony. Then the public, following a corrupt court, grew tired of cla.s.sical poetry and virtue on the stage, and clamored for its old diet of buffoonery and immorality. Neuber refused to lower the standard of her plays. In 1733 her contract with the court theatre expired, and the king refused to renew it. He placed a Merry Andrew at the head of the court theatre. In Hamburg and Saint Petersburg, Madame Neuber received similar treatment.

But this true artist would not give up her fight for a pure stage. She wrote:

"We could earn a great deal of money if we would play only the tasteless, the obscene, the cheap blood-curdling or the silly, fas.h.i.+onable plays. But we have undertaken what is good. We will not forsake the path as long as we have a penny. Good must continue good."

Caroline Neuber and her husband were growing old. They were bitterly poor. They played subordinate, but never immoral, parts now in any troupe that would take them. They had broken with Gottsched, whose wife was dead. One good friend, Dr. Loeber, remained, however. Dr. Loeber gave the old couple a room, rent free, in Dresden. In the war of 1756, Prussian soldiers, quartered in Dresden, slept in the same room with the Neubers. But the soldiers treated the aged actress with the greatest respect. Not an indecent word was ever uttered by them in her presence.

Not a pipe was ever laid upon her poor little writing table. When her husband died in that over-crowded attic, Prussian soldiers bore him, tenderly and reverently, to his grave.

In 1760 the city was bombarded. A sh.e.l.l crashed through the roof of the room where old Madame Neuber lay ill. Dr. Loeber carried her for safety to a suburban village. But the owner of the house to which she was taken, when he found out who she was, refused to let an actress die under his roof; so she was moved again, this time to a room in a cottage nearby. From her bed she could see the vine-covered slopes of Pillnitz.

Dying, she folded her withered hands, and murmured: "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Her final exit from the troubled stage of earth was accomplished with difficulty. The village pastor, determined that no actress should be buried in the consecrated ground over which he held sway, locked the churchyard gates and refused to yield up the key. Madame Neuber's coffin was therefore hoisted over the wall and lowered into the grave by two or three old friends. No prayer was spoken; no hymn was sung. But Caroline Neuber's influence for good lives. She performed two great services: she purified the German drama, and she introduced Lessing to the world.

In every time and clime, belles have danced and flirted and laughed and chatted and been happy. Madame Johanna Schopenhauer, the famous mother of her more famous philosopher son, Arthur, has left a pleasing description of fas.h.i.+on's whimseys in the eighteenth century:

"We had no thin ball dresses, for the simple reason that thin varieties of woven material had not then been invented. And yet we danced in our c.u.mbrous company gowns made of heavy silk we were pa.s.sionately fond of dancing. We were courted, admired, nay, even as much admired as our granddaughters are now in their cloudlike, treacherously diaphanous garments. How it happened, in our hideous disguises, I cannot, at this distance of time, pretend to explain. How well I remember my first ball!

"At least an ell was added to my stature by a monstrous tower of hair which was built up on a wire and horsehair frame, and which was crowned with flowers, feathers, and ribbons. The high heels of my white ball slippers, which were adorned with golden ties, contributed to counterbalance the disproportion in my little person at the other extremity. Though my shoes fell far short of the preposterous height of my hair, they raised my heels so far from the ground as to pitch me on the tips of my toes. A pair of stays with whalebones close together, of a thickness sufficient to turn a musket ball, forced back the arms and shoulders and threw the chest forward. Down toward the hips the corset was laced so tightly as to make one's figure resemble that of a wasp.

These stays restricted all freedom of motion. They had only one sensible thing about them, and that was a rather stout iron which kept them from pressing on the breast.

"And now, the hooped petticoat over which was worn a silk skirt with flounces and all kinds of indescribable tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs up to the knees. Over this was worn a robe of the same material, with a long train. In front this robe was open, sloping on each side from the waist. The sides of the robe were ornamented with the same kind of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g as adorned the skirt. The neck and bosom were considerably exposed. The whole was completed with an immense bouquet of artificial flowers. The sleeves reached only to the elbows, and were richly trimmed with blond lace and ribbons to the shoulders.

"This, however, was the dress of young ladies only. Our mothers were splendid in stiff brocades and ruffles of blond or point lace. Long sleeves were not worn at all, even for everyday dresses, summer or winter. Hardened by habit, we did not suffer more than we do now. Our mothers dressed much more richly than we did. They were heavily loaded with jewels.

"The fas.h.i.+ons were obtained from Paris, but only when they had become rather obsolete there. Though disfigured by exaggeration, they were eagerly sought after. One exception only was made, in our part of the country at least: the French habit of using rouge was not adopted. The few ladies who dared be so heterodox as to paint themselves did it with fear and trembling and with the greatest secrecy, for they ran the risk of being publicly reprimanded from the pulpit. Our Lutheran shepherd was very strict with his flock.

"Another fas.h.i.+on, however, found universal favor with our elegant ladies. A fas.h.i.+on so senseless that I should, certainly, have doubted its existence if I had not, as a child, often played with my mother's mother-of-pearl box of patches. All ladies wore patches, and my mother always kept her box handy, its lid being provided with a small looking-gla.s.s, so that if a patch fell off she might at once replace it with another. These little ornaments, made of English court-plaster, were cut in the shape of full, half and crescent moons, stars, hearts, etc., and were stuck on the face with much forethought and ingenuity to heighten the charms of the wearer, and to add a graceful expression to the countenance. A row of tiny moons, gradually increasing in size from the crescent to the full, at the outer corner of the eye, was supposed to make that organ look larger, and to heighten its brightness. A couple of small stars at the corner of the mouth was thought to impart an enchantingly roguish expression to it. A patch on the cheek was thought to bring out a dimple to advantage. There were, besides, patches of larger size doves, cupids, suns, and others known by the general name of 'a.s.sa.s.sins,' probably because of their killing effect on masculine hearts."

In the last a.n.a.lysis, the position of woman in any given period depends upon the currently accepted philosophy underlying that period. The philosophy of the seventeenth century that of Descartes and Leibnitz maybe condensed in one word mechanism. Woman, with her emotional nature, her wayward, irregular fancies, her insistence upon personal love instead of rigid law, her lack of logic, and her perplexing, often keenly puncturing intuitions, had no place in the well-arranged system of Descartes and Leibnitz. It was even questioned, satirically in France, but seriously in Germany, whether or not woman was a human being. If not, said the learned divines who argued the question in their pulpits, she could not be eligible to salvation. The conclusion, not unanimous, however, finally reached was that women ought to be looked upon as human beings, lower, of course, than man, but a grade or two higher than the beasts of the field.

Of seventeenth century philosophers, Spinoza, "the G.o.d-intoxicated man,"

alone met any of the conscious higher needs of woman. Hence, women, by thousands, accepted the philosophy of Spinoza under the name of Quietism.

Seventeenth century philosophy made woman nothing. Eighteenth century philosophy, springing from the English utilitarians, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, made woman a mere adjunct, a tool of man. Above all things else, an Englishman loves his home. A good wife makes a man more comfortable in his home than a bad one. "Therefore," said eighteenth century philosophy, "'tis the part of worldly prudence to train women toward virtue." This thought is the substance of Locke's Treatise on Education, so far as it concerns women. "A husband of high social standing may be the reward of persistent virtue," added Samuel Richardson, the man through whom Locke's philosophy became potent over women of all ranks in all civilized countries.

For more than half a century Locke's philosophy, filtered through Richardson's novels, colored feminine ideals almost as deeply on the continent as in the author's own country. Rousseau was a third link in the chain a very strong, a mighty link.

Richardson's first novel was Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison soon followed. Each of these books, translated into German, pa.s.sed through many editions. French renderings of Richardson's novels also flooded German book stores. This author's books struck both new and old chords in the heart of German womanhood.

They dealt with heroines who moved in the humbler walks of life. Before Richardson and Rousseau wrote, the memoirs of highborn dames may be searched in vain for a single expression of sisterly feeling toward women in a lower rank of society than their own. Compa.s.sion and almsgiving were not lacking, but the "put yourself in her place" feeling seems never previously to have been awakened. Richardson emphasized chast.i.ty a virtue which the early eighteenth century world most sadly lacked. He made the hearthstone once more an altar.

Out of the sentimentalism of the Locke-Richardson-Rousseau school was evolved a type of womanhood which, during the second half of the eighteenth century, made the world purer and better.

CHAPTER X

THROUGH STORM AND STRESS TO CLa.s.sICISM AND HUMANISM

About the middle of the eighteenth century, after long and weary years of unfruitful struggle, disappointment and desolation, there begins faintly to glimmer, and then rapidly to s.h.i.+ne in broad illumination, a stupendous cultural movement the impelling force of which was the humanizing thought which sprang from the fertile brains of great literary and philosophical thinkers; preeminent among whom were Lessing, the greatest critical genius of the German nation, and Kant, Germany's greatest philosopher. Enlightenment mental liberation from the shackles of tradition and orthodoxy became the watch-word of the time. Through the dominating personality of Frederick the Great (1740-1786), even despotism was made to feel this influence, the scope of which was still further extended, though less successfully, by the reforms of Joseph II.

(1765-1790), Maria Theresa's son. The message sounded from beyond the seas in the American Declaration of Independence, and the Const.i.tution spread through the hearts of the nations of Europe, proclaiming the gospel of human rights and equality before G.o.d and the law. The French Revolution was its most direct fruit. In Germany, the liberation of thought, of science and art, the emanc.i.p.ation of man and woman alike, had to precede political freedom which, in its full development, could be evolved only by blood and iron.

It is true, however, that, though the idea of humanism then became the ideal of the present, there remained enough of the social and political vices and errors of the past to make this epoch perhaps the most complex and complicated in German history. Divine thought and mystic-sentimental-pseudo-science, the grossest l.u.s.t and the highest idealism, the most abject servility and the most liberal political views, cynical scepticism and childlike faith, true patriotism and nationalism on the one hand, national treason and anti-national cosmopolitanism on the other, meet and conflict at every step.

But whatever were the conditions of the time, woman was the _causa movens_, the underlying force of the cultural life of the nation and of all its leaders. Women contributed to the progress of the storm and stress evolution toward cla.s.sicism and emanc.i.p.ation; women inspired the bloom of literature; women gave Germany a stage and adorned it with their genius as actresses; women fostered the arts; women on the throne ruled Germany; a German woman, withal the greatest and vilest, Katharine the Great, raised Russia to the rank of a world power; women dominated the n.o.bility and the courts; women elevated the bourgeoisie to higher standards of living and thinking; women strove to emanc.i.p.ate themselves and their peasant husbands from servitude.

The movements of the women of the burgher cla.s.ses were much more restricted than are those of the women of to-day. They might not walk abroad, or visit theatres, concerts, or public places, without their natural male companions; their chambermaids accompanied them even to church and to stores. Their natural field of activity, their world, was the house. The reading of novels was held in low esteem. Book learning was of a rather elementary kind, but there was plenty of good sense and home happiness, and sensible rearing of large families. It is a painful fact that from Bavaria, a country which was under the fullest sway of the Church, quite different testimony comes to us. We may realize, however, from the base tone of characteristic sermons, communicated to us in Nicolai's works, how low must have been the standard of the clergy of that time. The author and traveller Risbeck describes the degradation of the burgher cla.s.ses in Bavaria, "where all vie in drinking and immorality, where next to every church stands a tavern and a base house.

There a priest touches a fair maiden's bosom, which is half-covered with a 'scapulier.' There one inquires whether you are of her religion, for she will have nothing to do with a heretic. Another discusses during her debauch her spiritual sodalities, her pilgrimages and absolutions, etc., etc."

Owing to their gradual enfranchis.e.m.e.nt by Frederick the Great and Joseph II., the peasantry had mightily progressed from the brutal feudal oppression. The French Revolution also had some beneficent results for the German peasantry. After the terrible downfall of Prussia and Austria because of Napoleon's onslaughts, a great step forward was taken through the reforms of the statesman Stein, and the Revolution of 1848 accomplished the rest. Therewith the elevation of the women of the peasantry went hand in hand. The many and varied popular festivals of the German peasantry, with their peculiar customs and gaieties, reveal the fact that there was no lack of those harmless social pleasures which are the delight of woman, inasmuch as they give scope to characteristics peculiarly feminine. The festivals of singers, riflemen, and gymnasts, which were then and are to-day observed in nearly every little German town and village, also contributed to the enrichment of the life of the lower cla.s.ses.

The chapter of wealth and poverty, of overwork and enforced idleness, belongs but incidentally to our theme, in so far as it affects the life and morality of German womanhood. While the record is, on the whole, favorable for the time, yet we cannot conceal the fact that with the pauperism of certain sections of Germany, due to wars, drought, princely maladministration, and unjust taxation, the female vices and crimes which are instigated by poverty attained terrible proportions. The great romantic auth.o.r.ess Bettina von Arnim has given us painful insight into the lives of the poor women in the "family-houses" of Berlin, a sad antic.i.p.ation of our tenement houses. The female youth of the G.o.d-forsaken proletariat then, as to-day, fell almost irretrievable victims to the blasting, soul-consuming vice of prost.i.tution. The numberless examples of the brave, courageous, n.o.ble self-sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of pure women of the poorest cla.s.ses, who through overwork staggered into an early grave, are not statistically reported; but the statistics of prost.i.tution of German cities, which are conscientiously recorded, reveal a terrible state of affairs, not worse than that of other great civilized nations, yet painful enough for the historian of culture.

But let us return to the shadow of the thrones of the second half of the eighteenth century. Under Maria Theresa's father, Charles VI.

(1711-1740), the last Habsburger, French morals had been domesticated in Vienna. The monarch officially kept a mistress, maitresse en Hire. Lady Montague, a distinguished British peeress, reported that "every lady of rank in Vienna had two men, one who gave her his name, the other, who fulfilled the duties of the husband." These alliances were so general that it would have been a grievous offence not to invite the two men with the lady to a feast. It is true that with Maria Theresa's ascent to the throne a different morality was forced upon the unwilling court circles. The empress was virtuous and religious in the extreme, an admirable wife and mother, and maintained toward vice an unrelenting att.i.tude.

The political greatness of Empress Maria Theresa does not belong to our theme. To characterize her, however, in a nutsh.e.l.l, we cannot forgo quoting her famous note to Prime Minister Kaunitz, with which she accompanied the treaty of the first part.i.tion of Poland in 1772: "When all my States were a.s.sailed and I did not know where to bear my child, I insisted upon my right and the help of G.o.d. But in this affair, in which not only manifest justice cries to heaven against us, but also right and common reason is against us, I must confess that I have never in my life felt such an anguish and such a shame to allow myself to be seen.

Consider, Prince, what an example we give to all the world when, for a miserable piece of Poland or of Moldavia and Wallachia, we throw to the dogs our honor and reputation! I notice well that I stand alone and am no Longer _en vigueur_, therefore I let things take their course, though not without my greatest grief."

The moral example of Maria Theresa did not, however, in any great degree affect her gallant husband, Francis of Lorraine. His mistress, Princess Auersperg-Neipperg, had all the n.o.ble vices of her exalted position. The prime minister, Kaunitz, was utterly immoral, and even dared to take with him in his equipage his mistresses, who waited till his audience with the empress was over. When the latter once ventured to remonstrate with him, he replied: "Madam, I have come here to speak with you about your affairs, not about my own." The so-called chast.i.ty commission established by the empress to supervise the morals of Vienna succeeded in compelling those who persistently indulged in vices at least to exercise more caution and discretion; for she remained inexorable against scandalous debauch and inflicted ignominious chastis.e.m.e.nt upon the offenders, according to the Draconic code of the time. The result was that Vienna had its "Messalinas in toned down colors," as the British traveller Wraxall says, and that "the superst.i.tion of Austrian women, though it be traditional and immense, is by no means an obstacle to excesses; they sin, pray, confess, and begin anew."

The brilliant court at Vienna found its counterpart in the frugal, economical bourgeois court of Berlin, while that of Dresden, as mentioned in the foregoing chapters, was sunk in a mire of moral corruption. The memoirs of Marquise Sophie Wilhelmine of Baireuth, sister of Frederick the Great, describe, with humor and sometimes with ingenuous malice, the condition of the court at Dresden. The wife and children of the coa.r.s.e soldier-king were treated with great harshness and almost deprived of the necessities of life. The marquise tells of a visit to Dresden in 1738, where Frederick fell in love with Countess Orzelska, a natural daughter and mistress of August the Strong. The pen refuses to record the history of the incest practised at that court with and among the three hundred and fifty-four "natural" children of August.

August was jealous of the Crown Prince of Prussia, and therefore subst.i.tuted for Countess Orzelska the beautiful Italian Formera, who became Frederick's first mistress. Later, however, at the return visit of the Saxon court to Berlin, as Scherr reports, Frederick again met the Countess Orzelska, a meeting which did not remain without consequences.

Other details of the court life of the time cannot be put on paper: we must refer the reader to Scherr's discussion of Eighteenth Century Court Society, to Lessing's Emilia Galotti, in which in Italian disguise the great cla.s.sicist chastises German princely rape, and to Schiller's drama, Cabal and Love, which proves that, unfortunately, the victims of princely l.u.s.t were not always the willing courtesans; but frequently victims chosen from the people.

The court of Berlin is said by some to have a.s.sumed a higher standard of morality when Frederick ascended the throne. His consort, Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, though a n.o.ble and pure woman, had never won his love, for he had been forced into the marriage by his father; she did not reside with her royal husband, whose life was now filled with his world-stirring military and political deeds and, for recreation, with music, history, and philosophy. On the other hand, from the report of the British amba.s.sador, Lord Malmesbury (1772), it seems that the great king had not succeeded in raising the standard of morality among the inhabitants of his residence, as the amba.s.sador, perhaps owing to splenetic exaggeration, writes that "there is in that capital neither an honest man nor a chaste woman. An absolute moral corruption prevails among both s.e.xes of all cla.s.ses, to which must be added a general impoverishment due to the fiscal oppressions of the actual king, Frederick the Great, and their love of luxury since the times of the king's grandfather. The men are constantly occupied with limited means in leading an immoral life. The women are harpies who have sunk so low more from want of modesty than anything else. They sell themselves to him who pays best, and delicacy or true love are to them unknown things." The great traveller and naturalist George Foster confirms that statement at least as regards women, whom he describes as "generally corrupted."

Though Frederick of Prussia and Joseph II. of Austria lived purely, at least after their respective accessions, and were, politically, epoch makers in history, they were both succeeded by rulers who were morally and politically decadent. Leopold of Austria (1790-1792) died after a reign of but two years, his death being caused by s.e.xual excesses and debauchery with his German and Italian concubines. His private cabinet was, after his death, found to be a true "a.r.s.enal of l.u.s.t."

Still more disastrous to Prussia proved the sovereignty of Frederick William II., nephew of the great Frederick; for during his calamitous reign of eleven years (1786-1797) this monarch disorganized the solid forces of the realm to such an extent that, a few years later, at the battle of Jena (1806), Napoleon succeeded, as it were with one blow, in overturning the proud structure of Frederick's state.

His court was the abode of an indescribable dissoluteness. As crown prince, he had been married to Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, who, though not of good moral repute herself, nevertheless declined intercourse with her dissolute consort. We must waive the responsibility for the following report given by Scherr upon the authority of Dampmartin, the well-informed courtier. "Frederick the Great, desiring the succession to the throne to be ensured before his death, ordered an old chamberlain to communicate to the princess that he, the king, wished she should admit to intimate intercourse the lieutenant of the royal guard N. N. (Von Schmettau), who had impressed the king by the beauty of his form, his conduct, and his bravery. But no eloquence prevailed upon the princess to yield to the shameless demand, whereupon the king resolved upon the divorce of his nephew." Frederick William II. later married Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, who bore him an heir to the throne, the pure and honest Frederick William III. (1797-1840).

It must be said, however, that lawful marriage was but an episode in the life of the immoral king Frederick William II., while favorite after favorite divided his affections. Wilhelmina Encke, nominal wife of the chamberlain Rietz, later raised to the rank of Countess of Lichtenau, maintained her position with the king during his whole life, not only through the influence of her own charms, but by means of immoral services in connection with other beautiful women. Other ladies of n.o.ble birth, Julie von Voss and Countess Sophie von Donhoff, exacted almost a formal marriage from the king while the queen was actually alive, and the Evangelical Consistory was compelled submissively to sanction the royal bigamy. Rich payments to the families of the royal pseudo-wives are on record, and prove the acc.u.mulation of a debt of forty-nine million thalers at the death of the king, who had had at his disposal the treasure of Frederick the Great.

It is with relief that we leave the pages stained with the depravity and moral bankruptcy of the era of Countess Lichtenau.

One royal woman, s.h.i.+ning in the l.u.s.tre of purity, genuine n.o.bility, and self-sacrificing patriotism, dispels the moral darkness around her as the sun purifies and warms the atmosphere of the world. Princess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of Frederick William III., mother of Emperor William I., great-grandmother of the actual German emperor, William II., is one of the purest and n.o.blest of women of all times, and is rightly sanctified in the hearts, not only of all Germans, but of all, whether friend or foe, who have ever contemplated her life, her motherhood, her martyrdom, and her early death. From her pure bosom sprang, to a large extent, the present greatness of Germany.

Truly, were not the age too far advanced, Queen Louise deserved to be canonized. As if fate dared no relapse, no unworthy woman has succeeded her in the house of Hohenzollern. To offset the instances of the degradation of womanhood related for the sake of historical truth, let us twine a wreath of the laurel of fame, the myrtle of chast.i.ty, and the lilies of purity for her n.o.ble and beautiful brow.

A biographer well says of Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia, the fair, blue-eyed princess who was born on March 10, 1776, and baptized in the Church of the Holy Ghost, that the child was as sweet and fair as a lily unfolding in the genial suns.h.i.+ne of early spring. When the summer season of her life had run its course, when autumn's winds began to whisper that all bright things on earth must die to be renewed, the lily was gathered and taken away to bloom on in the Paradise above. Many eulogies were written in honor of Queen Louisa; one of the most pleasing is Jean Paul Richter's poetical allegory: "Before she was born, her Genius stood and questioned Fate. 'I have many wreaths for the child,' he said; 'the flower garland of beauty, the myrtle-wreath of marriage, the oak and laurel wreath of the love for the German Fatherland, and a crown of thorns; which of all may I give the child?' 'Give her all thy wreaths and crowns,' said Fate; 'but there still remains one which is worth all the others.' On the day when the death-wreath was placed on that n.o.ble forehead the Genius again appeared, but he questioned only by his tears.

Then answered a voice 'Look up!' and the G.o.d of Christians appeared."

As a maiden of fourteen, Princess Louisa, through a providential circ.u.mstance, became with her sister Friederika the guest of Frau Rath Goethe in Frankfort on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Leopold. Goethe's famous mother considered herself highly honored in being chosen as hostess to entertain the princesses. The occasion furnishes some very interesting glimpses of the character of both those famous women. Frau Goethe found the highborn sisters so simple-minded, so unaffected in their manners, that she was delighted with them. Frau Goethe, young with the young to the end of her days, entered into their enjoyment of scenes and circ.u.mstances invested with the charm of novelty for the light-hearted princesses. She never forgot the meeting with the future Queen of Prussia, and often used to tell a story about the pump in the rear of Goethe's house. When Louisa once espied the pump from the back room, she exclaimed roguishly: "I wonder if we could make the water rush out; how I should like to try." Upon a consenting wink, they rushed to the back yard and pumped to their hearts' content. The highborn lady-in-waiting was shocked and objected to their plebeian occupation, but Goethe's mother threatened to turn the door key rather than permit interference with the sport of her princely guests.

Bettina von Arnim, who was on terms of great intimacy with Goethe's mother, amusingly described in a letter to Goethe a meeting with the brother of the princesses, who had invited himself to eat bacon, salad, and pancake at Frau Goethe's house.

After the unfortunate campaign of the allies, Prussia and Austria against France in 1792, while the princes of Mecklenburg were with the army, Louisa and her three sisters were with their grandmother at Hildburghausen, comforting and cheering one another in those days of political desolation. Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, the poet, enjoyed the distinction of the friends.h.i.+p of the princesses of Mecklenburg. Louisa, at the age of sixteen, is thus described. She was like her sister Charlotte, had "the same loving blue eyes," but their expression changed more quickly with the feeling or thought of the moment. Her soft brown hair still retained a gleam of the golden tints of childhood; her fair transparent complexion was in the bloom of its exquisite beauty, painted by nature as softly as were the roses she gathered and enjoyed. The princess was tall and slight, and graceful in all her movements. This grace was not merely external; it rose from the inner depths of a pure and n.o.ble mind, and therefore was full of soul.