and cookery. To him I owed the insight I obtained into the duties and true position of my sex; and it was he who transformed me from a romp and a hoyden into a modest quiet girl.”
Already a great longing for travel had entered into her mind. She longed to see new scenes, new peoples, new manners and customs. She read eagerly every book of travel that fell into her hands; followed with profound interest the career of every adventurous explorer, and blamed her sex that prevented her from following their heroic examples. For a while a change was effected in the current of her thoughts by a strong attachment which sprung up between her and her teacher, who by this time had given up his former profession, and had obtained an honourable position in the civil service. It was natural enough that in the close intimacy which existed between them such an affection should be developed. Ida’s mother, however, regarded it with grave disapproval, and exacted from the unfortunate girl a promise that she would neither see nor write to her humble suitor again. The result was a dangerous illness: on her recovery from which her mother insisted on her accepting for a husband Dr. Pfeiffer, a widower, with a grown-up son, but an opulent and
distinguished advocate in Lemberg, who was then on a visit to Vienna. Though twenty-four years older than Ida, he was attracted by her grace and simplicity, and offered his hand. Weary of home persecutions, Ida accepted it, and the marriage took place on May 1st, 1820.
If she did not love her husband, she respected him, and their married life was not unhappy. In a few months, however, her husband’s integrity led to a sad change of fortune. He had fully and fearlessly exposed the corruption of the Austrian officials in Galicia, and had thus made many enemies. He was compelled to give up his office as councillor, and, deprived of his lucrative practice, to remove to Vienna in search of employment. Through the treachery of a friend, Ida’s fortune was lost, and the ill-fated couple found themselves reduced to the most painful exigencies. Vienna, Lemberg, Vienna again, Switzerland, everywhere Dr. Pfeiffer sought work, and everywhere found himself baffled by some malignant influence. “Heaven only knows,” says Madame Pfeiffer in her autobiography, “what I suffered during eighteen years of my married life; not, indeed, from any ill-treatment on my husband’s part, but from poverty and want. I came of a
wealthy family, and had been accustomed from my earliest youth to order and comfort; and now I frequently knew not where I should lay my head, or find a little money to buy the commonest necessaries. I performed household drudgery, and endured cold and hunger; I worked secretly for money, and gave lessons in drawing and music; and yet, in spite of all my exertions, there were many days when I could hardly put anything but dry bread before my poor children for their dinner.” These children were two sons, whose education their mother entirely undertook, until, after old Madame Reyer’s death in 1837, she succeeded to an inheritance, which lifted the little family out of the slough of poverty, and enabled her to provide her sons with good teachers.
As they grew up and engaged successfully in professional pursuits, Madame Pfeiffer, who had lost her husband in 1838, found herself once more under the spell of her old passion for travel, and in a position to gratify her adventurous inclinations. Her means were somewhat limited, it is true, for she had done much for her husband and her children; but economy was natural to her, and she retained the simple habits she had acquired in her childhood.
She was strong, healthy, courageous, and accomplished; and at length, after maturing her plans with anxious consideration, she took up her pilgrim’s staff, and sallied forth alone.
Her first object was to visit the Holy Land, and tread in the hallowed footsteps of our Lord. For this purpose she left Vienna on the 22nd of March 1842, and embarked on board the steamer that was to convey her down the Danube to the Black Sea and the city of Constantinople. Thence she repaired to Broussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo; and travelled across the sandy Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. From Egypt the adventurous lady returned home by way of Sicily and Italy, visiting Naples, Rome, and Florence, and arriving in Vienna in December 1842. In the following year she published the record of her experiences under the title of a “Journey of a Viennese Lady to the Holy Land.” It met with a very favourable reception, to which the simplicity of its style and the faithfulness of its descriptions fully entitled it.
With the profits of this book to swell her funds, Madame Pfeiffer felt emboldened to undertake a new