Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the fireworks—no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss about the compliment paid to them. To them—as if any man who has an appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumption of some females are just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please, but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.
LXXXVIII.
LET HIM GO.
DEAR SISTERS:—You know, or can guess, at the anxious state of mind in which a sensitive female-woman must have found her experiences since the great Grand Duke left this country. I am told that the Imperial Court of Russia is hard to please in the way of marrying its sons—that nobility is not considered enough, and nothing but the child of an emperor or of a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.
But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost crust of all the world.
When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.
Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens, whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her first-class husband.
That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?
A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this country—excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction—was a consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government, where can she go for it.