I also remember a Lucullus dinner which the proprietor of the Berliner Tageblatt, Rudolf Mosse, and his wife gave us in their splendid new palais. Frau Mosse, who was engaged in all sorts of philanthropic undertakings, often had the opportunity of talking with the Empress Frederick. She knew that the Empress would have been glad to hear me. The Empress had now returned from the funeral of the Grand Duke of Hesse, and on the next day Frau Mosse was to meet her at some kind of a function. She intended to ask her if she wished me to be presented to her. This would have been a great pleasure for me, because I cherished a deep respect for the widow of Frederick “the Noble.” But the following day I received a note from Frau Mosse stating that her plan had fallen through; her Majesty thought best to forego the pleasure—“from motives of prudence.”

Professor Wilhelm Meyer also invited us to inspect his “Urania,” and he did us the honors of all the sections, explaining the whole series of wonders in his poetically clear manner. “Those are the churches of the future,” I wrote in my diary at that time.

From Berlin we made an excursion to Hamburg. Hans Land accompanied us. My diary mentions drives among marvelously beautiful country establishments; a trip on the Elbe to Blankenese; meals in the famous Restaurant Pfordte; a performance of Der Vogelhändler in St. Paul’s Theater; and an evening tea at our rooms in the hotel. This made a vivid impression in my memory, for we had a very interesting little circle and the conversation was highly stimulating. Our guests, besides Hans Land and his sister and brother-in-law, were Dr. Löwenberg, Otto Ernst, and Detlev von Liliencron. Otto Ernst was not as yet the celebrated dramatist, but a simple school-teacher; yet he had with his Offenes Visier written himself on our hearts. Detlev von Liliencron was already at the height of his celebrity—the king of German lyric poets at that time. Certainly no pacifist; on the contrary, a strenuous, mettlesome advocate of war—but none the less admired by me. I welcomed the chance of making his acquaintance. His conversational talent was brilliant. I had corresponded with him some years before, expressing my admiration and sending him some of my husband’s writings. I insert his reply here:

Kellinghusen (Holstein), April 27, 1889

Gracious Baroness:

How gracious and kind of you—hearty thanks! Twice already I have been eager to write to you; first after reading Es Löwos, which I find so incomparable, and then after reading the Inventarium einer Seele. I did not do so especially because I thought you would not care to pile up still more correspondence. Now I have the privilege of offering you my sincerest thanks for both,—and how touching, heart-quickening and lovely is Es Löwos!

You, most gracious Baroness, and your husband are fighting together with us, the little band that there is of us, against the absolute bogging, the absolute collapse, of our literature. We who are living shall have no laurels,—scorn and ridicule are too strong,—but we have smoothed the way for our successors.

I have already heard so much about you from my friend Hermann Friedrichs, whom I honor so highly—if only he were not so gloomy. In political matters—I am very conservative, and am growing more so every day if possible—Friedrichs and I are antipodes. But in other respects we have many views in common.

You must be in the midst of springtime in your beautiful Lower Austria; in my cloudy and ever-damp home and in the loneliness in which I am compelled to live like a deaf-mute, scarcely a leaf is on its way.

I beg you most humbly to remember me most cordially to your husband. Daredjan[[36]]—wonderful.