At the beginning of this time, Anton Rubinstein had undertaken her musical education. When the Princess was expecting him, a great excitement took possession of her, which almost took away her breath. She looked up to her master with such veneration that she lost all courage in the consciousness of her own small talent. She says about Rubinstein’s playing:—“It was as if the piano disappeared under his power; then again as if it were the music of the spheres, or a lovely fairy tale. His playing has a delicacy and a poetry which are really fascinating. His genius is displayed in the fact that the power and brilliancy of his playing seem but accessories, or are so grand that one is cowed before them as by a wonder of nature, and yet would like to sing in the intensity of joy. I never heard anything like it. His playing has a magic spell which seems to me like the bloom on a grape or the dew on the flowers. They render them twice as beautiful.”
Of all the enjoyments which were offered to her in St. Petersburg, the most deep and lasting impression was made upon her by the performance of the Court singers. She was quite overcome by the artistic rendering, and the wonderful harmony of their songs, in the celebrated concerts led by Livow, as well as during the service in the chapel of the Winter Palace.
Christmas-time brought unexpected happiness. Prince Nicholas of Nassau had arrived. He also lived in the Palais Michel as the guest of his aunt, the Grand Duchess Hélène. Part of her German home seemed to have arrived in St. Petersburg with the appearance of this beloved uncle, and in the daily intercourse with him, for he had often spent months in the house of her parents from her childhood upward.
Woodbury Compy.
ELIZABETH,
PRINCESS OF WIED.
She was proud of her German home on the German river. Because of these patriotic feelings she was always called “la petite Allemagne” in Ouchy by the octogenarian Count Kisseleff. In St. Petersburg also she openly and freely confessed her love for her Fatherland. Many a playful battle did she engage in with the young Grand Dukes. “For, you know,” she wrote to her mother, “my heart only glows for Germany!”
On the 25th of December 1863 she writes to her parents:—“When I thank you for the signs of your love, I really go much deeper and thank you for something else: something so high, so true, and so holy, that I cannot whisper it even, though it makes me so unboundedly happy. This beautiful feeling is that we love one another so much, so very much, that one can breathe peace to the other through his peace, joy through his joy.... It is the blessing of my life that God sends me so much love. My sympathies are ever widening, and my heart does not seem able to contain the fulness of the sunbeams! I can never requite you, but may perhaps impart my feelings to others, if God wills!”
The unwholesome climate of St. Petersburg and the over-straining of her nerves soon showed themselves to have a detrimental effect on the health of the till then so blooming Princess. She could take but little part in the festivities of Christmas-time, and on the 1st of January 1864 she became alarmingly ill of a nervous gastric fever. The Grand Duchess surrounded her with motherly love and care. The Grand Duchess Catherine and the lady-in-waiting, Baroness Edith von Rahden, nursed and watched her unceasingly. But weeks went by, and she still lay in bed. It was the first illness she had ever had. Till now, when she had reached her twentieth year, she had never tasted any medicine. As soon as she was released from pain and could occupy herself, she became absorbed in the book of “The Unconscious Life of the Soul,” which her father had sent her as a Christmas present. She writes from her bed:—“There is such great humility in the preface, combined with the power of assurance. Then I recognised my father in the first three pages by his manner of demonstrating his arguments. What a different sort of reading it is when the language is as familiar to us as our own, when we see the idea before us which we have absorbed as the very breath of our life! I am glad that papa has sent me the book just now. As I read, I see his face before me, and seem to be really talking to him.”
On the 16th of January 1864 she wrote to her father:—“How often a feeling of pride comes over me that I have my father’s writings in my hands, and then a glow of happiness, because every word has come from your pen and from your inmost heart! For your soul was prepared by the wonderful experiences of fifty years, and the mind could communicate to her unhindered, and tell her what it will about itself and its nature. It is such a beautiful idea, that the indwelling Spirit of God educates the soul and gives to it as much as it requires. Not a word more. It makes one very humble, and awakes in one a longing to keep the soul so pure (by withstanding its natural earthly temptations), that God may find it worthy of having many things revealed to it! But how is it with the mind and the soul of Christ? That is the mystery of His godly and yet human nature; His soul must have been so pure, so much above earthly things, that God could tell it all things.