I read a great deal, chiefly history and deeper works; and I have one or two very learned acquaintances with whom to read or to have books recommended by.
My two committees always give me no end of work, and I have tried to have many improvements made in the girls’ schools of the different classes; and some of these things, by dint of a deal of trouble, are prospering, and I hope in time to come will prove their worth. There is a great deal to be done, and in the hospitals I have been able to get some very necessary changes made. I tell you all this, fancying it may perhaps interest you a little bit. * * *
July 2d.
How grieved I am for your sake, above all, and for the poor Clarks and ourselves, that dear kind Sir James, that true fatherly friend, is no more!! Many thanks for your last letter, which tells me of your last visit to him, which I am sure must be a great comfort to you. Oh! how sad to think how many are gone! And for you, dear Mama, this is quite dreadful. I can’t say how I feel it for you!
Lord Clarendon’s death grieves me much also; and it was so sudden. Alice Skelmersdale wrote to me in the greatest distress; he had been a most loving father.
In the midst of life we are in death; and in our quiet and solitary existence out here, where we see no one, all accords with sad and serious feelings, which, amidst the many people and worry you live in, must jar with such feelings and make you wish for solitude. The accounts you give touch me so much. Many thanks for having written so much about dear Sir James; it is of great value to me. Louis begs me to say, how he shares the grief you all and we must feel at such a loss.
What you say about the education of our girls I entirely agree with, and I strive to bring them up totally free from pride of their position, which is nothing save what their personal worth can make it. I read it to the governess—who quite enters into all my wishes on that subject—thinking how good it would be for her to hear your opinion. * * * I feel so entirely as you do on the difference of rank, and how all important it is for princes and princesses to know that they are nothing better or above others, save through their own merit; and that they have only the double duty of living for others and of being an example—good and modest. This I hope my children will grow up to.
July 26th.
When I returned home last night really heartbroken, after having parted from my good and tenderly-loved Louis, I found your dear sympathizing words, and I thank you a thousand times for them—they were a comfort and pleasure to me! I parted with dear Louis late in the evening, on the high road outside the village in which he was quartered for the night, and we looked back until nothing more was to be seen of each other. May the Almighty watch over his precious life, and bring him safe back again: all the pain and anxiety are forgotten and willingly borne if he is only left to me and to his children!
It is an awful time, and the provocation of a war such as this a crime that will have to be answered for, and for which there can be no justification. Everywhere troops and peasants are heard singing “Die Wacht am Rhein” and “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?” and there is a feeling of unity and standing by each other, forgetting all party quarrels, which makes one proud of the name of German. All women feel ashamed of complaining, when father, husband, or son goes, and so many as volunteers in the ranks. This war is felt to be national, and that the King had no other course left him to pursue with honor.