* * * I am sure you will have felt under many a circumstance in life, that if any momentary feeling was upon you, and you were writing to some one near and dear, it did you good to put down those feelings on paper, and that, even in the act of doing so, when the words were barely written, the feeling had begun to die away, and the intercourse had done you good.
[1868].
Although the winter season brought many social duties with it, the Princess’ active personal attention to all those good works and institutions which she had called into existence never flagged. No subject of interest or importance escaped her, and her time was always fully occupied. In April she met the Crown Prince at Gotha, where Prince Louis also came, on his return from Munich, to fetch her. She spent the months of June and July in England with her three little girls, either at Osborne, Windsor, or in London. The return journey to Darmstadt was made by water as far as Mayence. The autumn was spent at Kranichstein, in the neighborhood of which the manœuvres of the Hessian division took place, at some of which the Princess was present.
On the 25th of November, to the great joy of the parents and the country, a son and heir was born—“a splendid boy.” At his christening, on the 28th of December, he received, at the special desire of the Grand Duke, the names Ernst Ludwig—which had been borne by so many of the old Landgraves of Hesse. The sponsors were the Queen of England and the King of Prussia.
Darmstadt, January 24th.
* * * To-night I am going to act with two other persons in our dining-room a pretty little piece called “Am Klavier,” but I fear I shall be very nervous, and consequently act badly, which would be too tiresome.
I have never tried to act in any thing since “Rothkäppchen.”
February 14th.
What a fright the news of dear Leopold’s dangerous attack has given us! Mr. Sahl’s letter to Becker arrived yesterday afternoon containing the bad news, and he spoke of so little hope, that I was so upset and so dreadfully distressed for the dear darling, for you, poor Mama, and for us all, that I am quite unwell still to-day.