“Monrepos, 20th August 1864.
“Alas! you will not receive this letter on your birthday. But it was quite impossible for me to write to you, as papa’s grave was being finished. Yesterday the stone was put up on his favourite place. Both are quite beautiful. When the wall of papa’s grave was finished, I filled it up myself, and during all those days mamma and I were there from early morning to evening. I helped to carry the stones and to shovel the earth, so that my arms are quite tired to-day. The stone, which marks his favourite view, bears the inscription—
‘On all the hill-tops
Is rest,
In all the tree-tops
Thou perceivest
Hardly a breath;
The birds are silent in the wood.
Wait but a little; soon
Thou, too, wilt be at rest.’
It is of grey marble, and surrounded by great pieces of rock. We built up these rocks very artistically yesterday. I worked till I was nearly dead. We planted ivy between the rock, and a heavy rain came to the help of the young plants in the night, so that they are fresh and green.”
* * * * *
Since the death of her husband, the Princess of Wied had spent summer and winter at Monrepos. Here she had arranged a very cosy room for her daughter, who soon loved it on account of its quiet and retirement. Photographs and engravings from great masters and portraits of those dearest to her adorned the walls. From the windows she gazed upon the wide valley, encircled by its mountains, the shining Rhine, and many towns and villages. On leaving her room she gazed into the depths of the mighty forest of beech-trees, which resounded with the song of birds. She spread crumbs and seeds before her door and window, and flocks of feathered guests assembled around her. Lost in thought, she watched the happy, careless ways of the birds, and lived in the world her fancy created, becoming quite apathetic after the terrible shocks she had lately gone through. Her anxious mother gladly allowed Princess Elizabeth to accompany the Grand Duchess to Ouchy in the autumn. A great change came over her there. She writes: “Unknown to me, a different spirit came over me and aroused me from my melancholy, into which, however, I relapsed all the deeper afterwards.”
From the autumn of 1864 to the New Year a young Swiss girl spent many months at Monrepos. Maria von Sulzer was a very amiable girl, and the depth of her mind and her ideal tenderness had soon won her the heart of the young Princess. They were like two sisters together, and shared all their interests. The intercourse with her young friend had put fresh life into Princess Elizabeth. A stay at Arolsen varied the winter. There, after the birth of five daughters, the princely house of Waldeck had welcomed their first son. Princess Elizabeth had the pleasure of carrying her little cousin, the hereditary Prince of Waldeck, at his baptism.
To her Brother.
“Monrepos, 10th March 1865.
“The Castle of Neuwied is so melancholy that I do not like to look at it any more. Each closed window reminds me of some one that is dead. It will be a good thing when it again echoes with youthful steps and the voices of children who know nothing of the old sorrows and sufferings, and think that their little feet are the first to tread the ground, and that it never was otherwise than they know it. If only the old walls could tell their histories! Your children shall once listen astonished when Aunt Elsa tells them how she lived there—laughed and wept; and that she once was just as small and had just the same thoughts as they, or perhaps different ones, but they were very beautiful. How she thought that a maiden was something very wonderful till she became one herself, and yet remained exactly what she was before!