The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v5

o death with reproaches, and I expected them on hearing his name pronounced at the door. I had forgotten the ways of the world. For some minutes I listened g

tter, and that, though he had sent the horse back to my stables, he fully believed in the fine qualities of the a

g Englishmen of to-day are sometimes rather overbearing in your assumption of a superior knowledge of horseflesh. We Germans in the Baltic provinces and in the Austrian cavalry think we have a right to a remark or two; and if we have not suborn

ly commonplace: we walked, as it were, arm-in-arm on thin ice, rivalling one another's gentlemanly composure. Satisfied with my discretion, t

the mine flour

ffairs, your father performs, on the whole, well. You smile-but I mean extraordinarily well. He has, with an accountant at his elbow, reall

btedly

sonifying my good ancestor! Are you acq

he is fortunate to enjoy the part

m. He is the reverse of Roy, whose advice I do not take, though I'm glad to set him running. Vo

began to feel lon

he simplest visits and observations of ruling princes signify more than lies on the s

lans at the age of seventeen; the marriage was quashed, the colonel vanished, the princess became the scandalous Duchess of Ilm-Ilm, and was surprised one infamous night in the outer court of the castle by a soldier on guard, who dragged her into the guard-room and unveiled her there, and would have been summarily shot for his pains but for the locket on his breast, which proved him to be his sovereign's son.-A perfect romance, Mr. Chancellor. We will say the soldier son loved a delicate young countess in attendance on the duchess. The countess spies the locket, takes it to the duchess, is reprimanded, when behold! the locket opens, and Colonel von Bein appears as in his blooming youth, in Lancer uniform.-Young sir, your piece of romance has exaggerated history to caricature. Romances are the dest

ng of his crossed leg, and set his bunch of seals and

desire as a guarantee for the judicious government of the territory to be bequeathed to her at his demise. But, as t

Mr. Chancellor, I am in

be as minute

hives of the Family, my good Mr. Richmond. The Princess Elizabeth thoughtlessly pled

y n

mpatient for romanc

hancellor. I do bu

uestion was dictat

e facts and

hat is. You wish me

er embrowned his nostrils with

why the princess could n

me honour of the splendid alliance, the fault was none of he

her inte

N

Fam

ous to arrest her

-what was

rma

ha

rank. She would have raised the poet to equal rank beside her had she possessed the power. She could and did defy the Family, and subdue her worshipping father, t

e D

anslucent flood down from the topmost founts of time. So we revere it. "Qua man and woman," the Diet says, by implication, "do as you like, marry in the ditches, spawn plentifully. Qua prince and princess, No! Your nuptials are nought. Or would you maintain them a legal ceremony, and be bound by them, you descend, you go forth; you are no reigning sovereign, you are a private person." H

aid I, thinking t

llect that he had warned me ther

during the remainde

e were furnished with food for amusement sufficient to sustain a year's blocka

ed at the existence of such a law. Yet why should he have done so? The word impossible, in which he had not been sparing when he deigned to speak distinctly, comprised everything. More profita

my in its might, he wore the trappings of an old princely House that nestled proudly in the bosom of its great jealous Fatherland. Previously in Sarkeld I had noticed members of the diminutive army to smile down on them. I saw the princely arms and colours on various houses and in the windows of sho

prince. In return, the hour of dinner was ceremoniously named to me: ceremony damped the air. I had been insensible to it before, or so I thought, the weight was now so crushing.

members of the Family was

I counted her but as one of them.

leasantly at t

French troupe,' sa

esigning them to

little woman they had

chwo

n know what to do with their brains

. Where is that man Roy? Good t

The man happened to be my father, I remembered. A

The strength of those Croats is prodigious, and well looked af

ou heard of that creature, the princess's tutor? Happily cut loose from us, though! He has published a book-

aid Ot

you have not r

ear aunt, with al

in the

in my

I don't wonder!' the

enemy has to say,' P

, papa, supposing t

of the poultry-yard, and the hound is th

noble old Professor is a resolute truth-seeker: he raises a light to show you the ground you walk on. How is it that you, adoring heroes as y

d nothing that the wr

said Ottilia, and

ess Turckems, sitting oppos

rying to convert you?' t

, madam. Re

you do not get yo

ss the princess w

t half of life, and then they impose their bad habits on their victims. Ottilia! Ernest! I do i

ordinary latitude for child

arce perceptible degr

st be held exempt from

. More than once the margravine informed

ertake this detestable coal-mine, a

as not his equal. She complimented me fo

plation of my bare self and actual condition. Had there been, I should have suffered from less measu

subsidence in England to one broad level of rank through the inte

k? It is powerful-he is a powerful man. It can do no damage to the minds of persons destined by birth to wield authority- none, therefore, to the princes

had made of Chanc

st dexterously and devilishly flattering her worldly good sense by letting it struggle and grow, instead of opposing her. His appreciation of her intellect was an idolatry; he really confided in it, I kne

t peu philosophe, a ce qu'on dit; a traveller. They say he has a South American complexion. I knew him a boy; and his passion is to put together what Nature has unpieced, bones of fishes and animals. Il faut passer le temps. He adores the Deluge. Anything antediluvian excites him. He can tell us the "modes" of those days; and, if I am not very much misinformed

s; honest, ready, interested eyes in conversation; parched lips; a rather tropically-coloured skin; and decidedly the manners of a gentleman t

he addressed the

books, now you have come to

ry occasion were theirs; the rest of us

shed after dinner, burning for tobacco and a couch for his length. Then he talked of the littleness of Europe and the greatness of Germany; logical postulates fell in collapse before him. America to America, North and South; India to Europe. India was for the land with the largest sea-board. Mistress of the Baltic, of the North Sea and the East, as eventually she must be, Germany would claim to take India as a matter of course, and find an outlet for the energies of the most prolific and the toughest of the races of mankind,-the purest, in fact, the only true race, properly so called, out of India, to which it would return as to its source, and there cre

his wine in speech, and peculiarly moderate on his ret

man heart, though he had spent the best years of his life abroad. Much court was paid to him by the men. Sarkeld visibly expressed satisfaction. One remark, 'We shall have his museum in the town!' left me no doubt upon th

ept in the manner of a boisterous wooer- a Harry the Fifth or lusty Petruchio. She pushed her horse on at a bound. Prince Hermann rode up head to head with her gallantly, having now both hands free of the reins, like an Indian spearing the buffa

er billows of forest, making the low noising of the leaves an intolerable whisper of secresy, and forward I rushed again to see them rounding a belt of firs or shadowed by rocks, solitary on shorn fields, once more dipping to the forest, and once more emerging, vanishing. When I had grown sure of their reappearance from some point of view or o

My way is prompt and blunt; I am sorry I gave you occasion to reflect on it. There! I have been deceived-deceived myself, let's say. Sharp methods play the devil with you now and then. To speak the truth,-perhaps you won't care to listen to it,-family arrangements are the best; take my word for it, they are the best. And in the case of princesses of the Blood!-Why, look you, I happen to be suitable. It 's a matter of chance, like your height, complexion, constitut

I had heard, without drawing warmth from it. The man's outrageously royal way of wooing, in conte

view with the princess at midnight in the library, where you are accustomed to read, as a student of books should, my boy at a touch of the bell, or mere opening of the door, I see that Peterborough comes to you. It will not be a ceremony, but a binding of you both by your word of honour before a ghostly gentleman.' He informed me that his foresight had enlisted and detained Peterborough for this particular moment and identical piece of duty, which seemed possible, and in a singular manner incited me to make use of Peterborough. For the princess still denied me the look of love's intelligence, she avoided me, she still kept to the

the plot to entrap a princess. I was somewhat influenced, too, by the consideration, which I regarded as a glimpse of practical wisdom, that Prince Ernest was guilty of cynical astuteness in retaining me as his guest under manifold disadvantages. Personal pride stood up in arms, and my father's exuberant

erent, he ejaculated, from this nest-this forest of heresy, where pamphlets and critical essays were issued without let or hindrance, and, as far as he could see, no general reprobation of the Press, such as would most undoubtedly, w

the chateau

untenance when we descended at the pal

her said. Peterborough remarked to me,-'We sh

the premises at Riversl

that he regarded tobacco as just one of

ou are a hero!' cried my father.

sion to subtle waggery, in itself very comical,-'permit me; no

between himself and tobacco that he may

n a studious forehead in the midst of his consenting laughter, observe

hat Ottilia now stood free to make appointments and receive communications, and moreover that I was too proud to condescend to subterfuge, except this minor one, in consideration for her, of mak

son spirit. One sees he has your blood

f your Highness will let it

in mock scorn to excite his sprightliness, and they

had the Court physician and his wife at table, Chancellor von Redwitz and his daughter, and General Happenwyll, chief of the prince's contingent, a Prussian at heart, s

e cause of my father's unexpected return.

h me to Engl

the presence of Mr. Peterborough that evening. There had al

baroness spoke of

stroy her complexion. Active exercise by day and pro

s placed on one side of her, 'will benefit, I am sure,

d for her-unwholesome,'

is d

aug

e my word for it. Now take you my word for it, they will again. She is not too strong in constitution, but in order to prescribe accurately one must find out whether there is seat

ncess-?'

has don

n I believe y

shuffle appeared in the

their roofing of t

her giant to protect her from violence. There you have a

rvant,' said I, thinking that she r

he master's whims you c

ess cough

oes Prince Erne

what a man idolizes he won't see flaw in. Re

uth shut up a smile, showing more of the door than the ray. The dinner, virtually a German supper, ended in general conversation on political affairs, preceded and supported by a discussion between the Prussian-hearted General and the Austrian-hea

cigar among guests. The General, the Chancellor, and the doctor, knew the signal for retirement, and rose simultaneously

itely assented to by me. I received Prince Ernest's proffer of his

axation of romance-reading. A door at this end led to the sleeping apartments of the West wing of the palace. Where I sat the student had ranges of classical volumes in prospect and classic heads; no other decoration to the walls. I paced to and fro and should have flung myself on the sofa but for a heap of books there covered from dust, perhaps concealed, that the yellow Parisian volumes, of which I caught sight of some new dozen, might not be an att

d not keep