From the character of her mind we may well imagine that she had little relish for her new duties. To any one of a high order of intellect, and consequent intellectual aspirations, the mean, material duties of arranging a wardrobe, sorting dresses, seeing them set out in their respective turns, and changed with every changing fashion—in a word, being a mere waiting-maid to any one, no matter of what rank, must necessarily be irksome and distasteful. And though we will not draw the exaggerated sarcastic picture that Lord Macaulay gives of Frances Burney's life at the court of England, yet the fact that the young countess stole many an hour from her irksome post and still more wearying ceremonious court-pleasures to enjoy the instructive conversation of elderly men of known literary tastes and acquirements, gives us full ground for at least compassionating her in a position so evidently unbefitting her gifted and aspiring mind.
In her twentieth year she accompanied the princess on a summer trip to the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa. It was during their residence at the former place she first met and received the addresses of the Prince Dmitri Galitzin. The story of their love does not seem to possess anything above the ordinary interest, and even extended over a much shorter period than is usual before marriage. All we learn about it is, that the match seemed very advantageous in the eyes of her protectress the princess and her brother, General Count de Schmettau (her mother, long extremely delicate, having died during her residence at the court), and that the marriage ceremony was performed with great éclat in August of the same year in which the proposal had been made and accepted.
Almost immediately after her marriage she had to set out with her husband for the court of St. Petersburg, of which he was an attaché. Her sojourn, however, in the Russian capital was very brief, for soon after his arrival the prince was sent as ambassador to the Hague, in Holland. Five years previously he had filled the same post at Paris, where he became the intimate friend of Voltaire and Helvetius. For the latter he paid the expenses of the publication of his famously infamous work, De l'Esprit. He himself seems to have been quite a littérateur. He contributed, while in Paris, to the Journal des Savants, and published two or three works of a scientific and political character. But to return.
A new life now opened for Amelia at the Hague. She became the star of the brilliant society that daily filled the halls of the palace of the Prince Ambassador of Russia; she lived in courtly splendor, and received the flattery of homage that queens might have coveted.
She had now resided two years in Holland, and had given birth to two children, a daughter and a son. It may be naturally expected that now the duties of a mother would bring her life and her mind to the level of ordinary interest. Not so. The routine duties of her station had all along been tasteless to her. The constant round of pleasures which engaged her, the flatteries she received, in which meaner minds would have loved to live and revel, had for her no soothing or beguiling influence; not even the total change of existence and occupation which married life induces wrought any change upon her spirit. An aching void was still within her heart, and, seeing nothing around her with which to fill it, she began to pine away. At length a strong inclination seized her, one of those yearnings for some one project which swallows all our thoughts and to which all else must yield; we may call it a humor precisely in Ben Jonson's sense:
"When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers
In their confluxions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humor."
This humor was nothing less than entire abandonment of the world and its cares. Notwithstanding the obligations of her married life or those of her position in society, she determined to retire to some solitary spot, and there engage her mind in hard study of difficult and dry subjects.
Alarmed for her health, and probably deriving little comfort from such a moody consort, her husband consented to her retiring to live in a small country villa a few miles from the Hague. She engaged a distinguished professor of the city, named Hemsterhuys, to give her lessons in Greek, with a view to following under his guidance, too, a course of Greek philosophy.
Strange to say, the moment she entered with ardor on this uninviting task, her mind became completely calmed, and she felt a peace and contentment which for years she had not known.
Besides the seeking of her own peace of mind, the resting the weariness of her heart, she had another object in view—to prepare herself to be doubly the mother of her children by imparting to them herself a thorough education. In the six years that she toiled in this seclusion, this was the great sustaining motive of her labors.