Part 23
Dear Fannie Baillie has been a few days here, and goes to England to-day. I shall miss her so much. I am so very fond of her. I hope you will see her; she will bring you many messages from us.
SEEHEIM, August 13th.
* * * After endless difficulties it has been settled that we can go to the Mainau. I am so far from strong and well that a change is necessary, and we shall go on the 15th, as Louise of Baden proposed, and I have written this to her.
How you will enjoy the rest at Balmoral! After so much going on you must require it.
Hélène Reuter is coming here for a fortnight with her boy--Ernest’s age. Poor boy, he longs for a playfellow.
SEEHEIM, August 16th.
* * * Louis joins with me in saying that we shall gratefully accept your wish that we should come to Windsor, and he trusts there will be no difficulties for leave then. * * *
SEEHEIM, September 7th.
* * * You ask if I can play yet? I feel as if I could not, and I have not yet done so. In my own house it seems to me as if I never could play again on that piano, where little hands were nearly always thrust when I wanted to play. Away from home--in England--much sooner. I had played so often lately that splendid, touching funeral march of Chopin’s, and I remember it is the last thing I played, and then the boys were running in the room.
Mary Teck came to see me and remained two nights, so warm-hearted and sympathizing. I like to talk of him to those who love children, and can understand how great the gap, how intense the pain, the ending of a little bright existence causes.
Soon I shall have my Louis back. I long for him very much; but the change of air, the active out-door life, and being quite thrown into men’s society and occupations, must refresh body and mind. Here he has only me, the governess and children as _Umgang_. But he is what the Germans call _ein Haushammel_--it is what he likes best.
We shall do nothing for his birthday. The children will recite their poems and write little things, and his parents will come to our five o’clock tea.
HEIDEN, APPENZELL, October 7th.
How kind of you to remember our darling’s birthday; we both thank you for this. Sad and many are our thoughts. I think of my loneliness and anxiety when he was born, with Louis far away in the midst of danger--a sad and awful time to come into the world; but sweet Frittie was my comfort and occupation, a second son, a pleasure to us both! Now all this is wiped out, and our parents’ hearts are sore, and asking for the dear bright face we miss so much from amongst our circle of children! He ended his fight very soon. May we all follow in a way as peaceful, with as little struggle and pain, and leave an image of as much love and brightness behind, to be a blessed remembrance for the rest of our lives!
I can’t write on any other subject to-day, therefore close these short lines with much love from your devoted child,
ALICE.
DARMSTADT, November 14th.
* * * It is very kind of you to ask about the rooms. I should prefer living in the tapestry rooms this time. It won’t be like the last time--though after our house here, so full of happy and heart-rending recollections, I go through continual pangs, which it will take many a year to soften down, as you can understand.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, December 20th.
BELOVED MAMA:--How much I thank you for your dear precious letter, and for all the true love and considerate sympathy you showed me during our visit! It has soothed and comforted me, I assure you, and will be a pleasure and satisfaction for me to look back to the many pleasant talks we had together.
Louis, who has always been so devoted to you, was touched to tears, as I was, by your expressions of love to us and to our children.
Thank you also for all advice, which is so precious to me, and in following it I shall like to think that I am doing something that you told me.
How much I felt in parting from you I cannot say. Neither did I like to speak of it, for it was too much, and the harder things in life are better borne in silence, as none can bear them for one, and they must be fought out by one’s self.
Ernie and Irène send endless loves to you, to Uncle and Auntie. Sunny’s hand is better.
Tilla came to see me yesterday, and we both drove with her to the Memorial.[120]
* * * There is so much I would run on about, now the dear habit of intercourse together has once more become so natural to me. Writing is at best a poor _remplaçant_.
Once more from both of us warm and tender thanks for so much love and kindness! Love to Leopold and Beatrice; kind remembrances to all who surround you! From your grateful and devoted child,
ALICE.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, December 21st.
* * * It is fine and warm and still. I hope it will be so early to-morrow when we cross over. I shall telegraph how the passage has been.
Please thank Brown for his kind wishes. I am so sorry that I missed saying good-bye to several. To say the truth, I dreaded it. It is always so painful. The old Baron’s[121] way of disappearing was almost the best.
1874.
During the first months of this year the Princess had the comfort of seeing many of her relations. The year was chiefly spent in retirement, and devoted to many sad memories. On the 24th of May she gave birth to a daughter, whose christening took place on the 11th of July at Jugenheim, near Darmstadt, in the presence of the Empress of Russia and the Duke of Edinburgh. The child received the names of Marie Victoria Feodora Leopoldine.
The hottest part of the summer was spent at Blankenberghe for the use of sea-baths. In September the great manœuvres of the Eleventh Army Corps took place in Upper Hesse, where the Princess met the Emperor of Germany.
The Princess’ charitable institutions were all prospering, and assuming larger and larger proportions; amongst them the Princess’ own hospital was by degrees slowly approaching completion. It was the institution she had the most at heart. It was intended to be a training-school for those who intended to become nurses, and a home for probationers whose training was at an end. It was also to serve as a model of those reforms in sanitary arrangements which the Princess had so much at heart.
When the provisional English hospital at Darmstadt (already mentioned during the war in 1870) had been taken over by the Hessian authorities, all its furniture, appointments, etc., were left to the “Alice Ladies’ Union” for the small hospital which it had started, aided by a small body of doctors in Darmstadt. This was the origin of the “Alice Hospital,” begun in a very small humble way in a cramped little house in the Mauer-Strasse. The Frauen-Verein had undertaken, when the English National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded had made over their hospital to them, either to build quite a new one or thoroughly to reorganize the existing one on the Mauer-Strasse. There were no funds to build a new hospital; therefore the “Alice Ladies’ Union,” could only resort to the other alternative, and this was carried out to the letter, by additional buildings and a totally new arrangement of its interior. As time went on, it was found advisable to give the hospital a distinct administration, and to separate it from the “Alice Ladies’ Union,” placing special funds at its disposal. This never would have come to pass, nor would the hospital have proved the success it did, had it not been for the untiring zeal, perseverance, economy, and practical knowledge of the lady directing it. During the summer months of 1874, a lady well acquainted with German and English hospitals--a trained nurse herself--became Lady Superintendent of the training-school for nurses, and of the hospital generally, which gradually, but surely, was gaining in importance.
The Alice Union for the Employment of Women made a further step in advance during this year, and established itself on a firm broad basis under the name of “The Alice Society for the Education and Employment of Women of all Classes.” Of this the Princess was the President, whilst Fräulein Louise Büchner directed the whole. The gentlemen and ladies who formed the committee were chosen by the Princess. All worked most harmoniously together; and the Princess was as anxious to receive advice from others in matters concerning the society as she was glad to give it herself.
DARMSTADT, January 12th.
* * * _How_ low and miserable I am at times in these rooms,
## particularly when I go to bed, I cannot tell you! The impression of
_all_ is so vivid and heart-rending. I could cry out for pain sometimes.
Till the first year is round this will often return, I know, and must be borne as part of the sorrow!
January 16th.
* * * I know well what your grief and your bereavement were compared to mine; but they are such different sorrows, I don’t think one can well compare them. Your life was broken--upset: altered from the very roots, through the one you lost; my life is unchanged, save in the mother’s heart the blank, the pain which thousands of little things awaken--which by the world, even by the family, are scarcely felt; and this ofttimes loneliness of sentiment clouds one’s life over with a quiet sorrow which is felt in _every thing_. * * *
DARMSTADT, January 23d.
On our dear Affie’s [Prince Alfred’s] wedding-day, a few tender words. It must seem so strange to you not to be near him. My thoughts are constantly with them all, and we have only the _Times’_ account, for no one writes here--they are all too busy, and of course all news comes to you. What has Augusta [Lady Augusta Stanley] written, and Vicky and Bertie? Any extracts or other newspaper accounts but what we see would be most welcome.
We give a dinner to-night to the family and _entourage_, and Russian and English legations. * * *
Louis sends you his love and warmest wishes for yourself and the happiness of the dear pair, in which I most earnestly join. God bless and protect them, and may all turn out well!
DARMSTADT, January 28th.
* * * Dear Marie [the Duchess of Edinburgh] seems to make the same impression on _all_. How glad I am she is so quite what I thought and hoped. Such a wife must make Affie happy, and do him good, and be a great pleasure to yourself, which I always like to think. I shall read to my mother-in-law the letters, and show them to Bäuerlein. Both will be very grateful for being allowed to see them.
We are going from Saturday to Monday to Carlsruhe. The eldest girls and Bäuerlein, who is going to take charge of them for a week, are going with us.
* * * One day we have six degrees of heat, the next two or four of cold; it is very unwholesome.
CARLSRUHE, February 2d.
I have a little time before breakfast to thank you so very much for the enclosures, also the Dean’s [Stanley] letter through dear Beatrice. We are most grateful for being allowed to hear these most interesting reports! It brings every thing so much nearer. How pleasant it is to receive only satisfactory reports! I fear Aunt Marie is far from well. I should be very anxious, for she is like a fading flower.
All the family, Hohenlohes and Holsteins, send their duty. All their respective children and ours were together yesterday afternoon. I hope not to seem vain, if it strikes me that amongst all the children my girls usually carry away the palm. Victoria is in such good looks at present; they are both natural and real children, and as such I hope to be able to retain them long.
Sophie Weiss[122] came to see me yesterday. I was very glad to be able to give her so good an account of you, and how young you looked when I had that great happiness of those few short days at Windsor, which did me good in _every_ respect. Old Frau von Bunsen, now eighty-three, I went to see--such a charming old lady, fresh in her mind, with snow-white hair. You and Papa were the topic she enjoyed speaking about, and our brothers and sisters.
DARMSTADT, March 2d.
* * * My nice Miss Graves I could so well have taken when Kitty left, but I was so anxious for a German, though I was much inclined toward her; I thought a German more important than it really is. Not the nationality but the individuality is the first thing; and here I think I have succeeded in finding the right person. * * *
DARMSTADT, March 11th.
* * * I hope you were not the worst for all your exertions. The _Times’_ accounts are charming. Such a warm reception must have touched Marie, and shown how the English cling to their Sovereign and her house.
We have cold, snow, and dust, after quite warm weather. I trust you will have sunshine to-morrow.
This last fortnight the news from Ashantee has so absorbed our thoughts. It has been an arduous undertaking, and one’s heart warms to our dear troops, who under all difficulties sustain their old name for bravery and endurance. The poor 42d [Regiment] lost many through illness, too; and I see they entered Coomassie playing the bagpipes!
Louis is just reading to me Sir Hope Grant’s book on the Indian Mutiny, which he kindly sent me, and which is interesting and pleasant to read.
I am taking the first snowdrops to sweet Frittie’s grave. _How_ the first flowers he so dearly loved bring tears to my eyes, and recollections which wring my heart anew! I dread these two next months with their flowers and their birds. Good bye, darling Mama.
DARMSTADT, April 7th.
* * * Surely Marie must feel it very deeply, for to leave so delicate and loving a mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature always seems--leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.
April 11th.
* * * The children are too much an object here; they have too little to compare with; they would be benefited by a change, seeing other things and people, else they get into a groove, which I know is not good. They are very unspoilt in their tastes, and simple and quiet children, which I think of the greatest importance.
Louis Battenberg has passed a first-rate examination. The parents are so happy, and the influence the good conduct and steady work of the elder brother has on the younger is of the greatest use, as they wish to follow him, and be as well spoken of, and please their parents, as he does. * * *
April 15th.
My best thanks for your dear letter of the 13th. You say rightly, what a fault it is of parents to bring up their daughters with the main object of marrying them. This is said to be a too prominent feature in the modern English education of the higher classes. * * * I want to strive to bring up the girls without _seeking_ this as the sole object for the future--to feel they can fill up their lives so well otherwise. * * * A marriage for the _sake_ of marriage is surely the greatest mistake a woman can make. * * * I know what an absorbing feeling that of devotion to one’s parent is. When I was at home, it filled my whole soul. It does still, in a great degree, and _Heimweh_ [homesickness] does not cease after ever so long an absence. * * *
DARMSTADT, April 23d.
* * * I thought so much of your remarks about daughters, etc., and do think it _so_ natural and dutiful to remain with one’s parent as long as one is wanted. Is it not a duty when no one else can take one’s place? I should feel it so.
April 26th.
I thank you most tenderly for your loving wishes for my birthday, received on getting up yesterday morning. You can understand that the day was inexpressibly sad, that the fair head missing in our circle was painfully felt, and that all these recollections caused me endless tears and heartache--though not for him, sweet precious child.
As you say, life at best is a struggle; happy those who can lie down to rest, having fought their battle well; or those who have been spared fighting it at all, and have remained pure and untouched, barely touching this earth, so mixed up with grief and sin!
Let me thank you for the charming photographs, and for the present toward the layette--a most kind assistance.
* * * We went to the Mausoleum. The children had made me wreaths to take there, and we all went together. How often and tenderly Ernie speaks of Frittie! It is very touching, and speaks of his deep and warm heart. He said the other day--for the recollection of death has left such a deep impression, and he cannot reconcile it with life, it pains him,--“When I die, you must die too, and all the others; why can’t all die together? I don’t like to die alone, like Frittie.” Poor child! the wish that _all_ have, who love their own, so early expressed. * * *
May 4th.
Many thanks for your last dear letter written on dear Arthur’s birthday, of which, though late, I wish you joy. Such a good, steady, excellent boy as he is! What a comfort it must be to you, never to have had any cause of uneasiness or annoyance in his conduct! He is so much respected, which for one so young is doubly praiseworthy. From St. Petersburg, as from Vienna, we heard the same account of the steady line he holds to, in spite of all chaffing, etc., from others; which shows character.
My mother-in-law tells me that since Miechen has been allowed to retain her religion, this right will of course be conceded to all Princesses in future. What a good thing, for the changing I always thought too bad, and nowadays so intolerant and narrow. * * * To think of Mr. Van de Weyer also leaving this world! To you he will be a loss, and to all who knew him. Old friends are precious landmarks in the history of one’s life, and not to be replaced by new ones; and it is sad, how time reduces the number as one gets on in life. How deeply you must feel this with each fresh loss! I feel much for you. * * *
DARMSTADT, May 18th.
* * * Since 1867 the Emperor’s [of Russia] face shrank so, and he became so thin. When I first saw him, in 1864, he was much stouter and fresher looking. He has many cares, and one sees they weigh upon him, for he is so kind and so well-meaning, and has done so much to advance liberty and culture in his own country.
DARMSTADT, June 5th.
BELOVED MAMA:--* * * The day (Whitsunday, and dear Frittie’s burial-day) of baby’s birth would have been too sad, had not the fact of its being your birthday given a double significance; but when I heard those bells, and became conscious again of every thing, my feelings were deep and mingled beyond expression. * * * With repeated tender thanks, your most loving child,
ALICE.
June 11th.
* * * Having no cow, or country place to keep one, in this tremendous heat where one can’t keep milk, and dysentery carries off so many babies, it would not be fair to deprive the poor little thing of its natural and safest nourishment till the hot months are over. These, darling Mama, are my reasons, and though I do it with such pleasure, yet it is not without sacrifices of comfort and convenience, etc.; but it seems to me the best course to take for our children, and as we are situated.
Many thanks for being baby’s godmother! It gives us great pleasure.
Do thank all our good people for their kind interest. * * *
I am driving out this afternoon if cool enough. You must not tell one of the heavenly Scotch air, when one is breathing heated stove air; it makes one too envious.
July 13th.
The christening went off very well. Baby looked really pretty for so young an individual. It was in a large room. Marie [Duchess of Edinburgh], quite in pink, held her godchild; and my mother-in-law, with her best love, begs me to tell you, it had pleased her so much that you had asked her to represent you. My three older girls looked very nice, I thought, in lavender silk (your Christmas present). I had the same color, and “Sunny” in pink, was immensely admired. She is still improving in looks since you saw her.
I was glad it was another place, in different circumstances from the last christening. As it was, it moved me much. The last time I heard these words, darling Frittie was with us, and now the chain has a gap!
* * * We can get nothing at Scheveningen except at exorbitant prices, so we go to that dreadful Blankenberghe--without tree or bush, nothing but a beach and sand banks.
BLANKENBERGHE, July 24th.
The sea air is doing all good, the children especially, the heat had pulled them so.
I have bathed once, and hope it will agree. * * * My cough and relaxed throat are getting better.
The rooms are small and few, but clean, and the cooking good, and we are quite satisfied. There is not a soul one knows.
BLANKENBERGHE, August 16th.
This day makes me think of our dear kind Grandmama, whose image still dwells amongst us! None who ever knew her can forget how truly lovable she was; and we grandchildren will ever retain such a bright recollection of her. So many little attentions, small souvenirs, kind letters, all tokens of affection _so_ pleasing to the receivers.
Yesterday Louis saved a lady from drowning. He was bathing. The waves were high, and he heard a cry for help, and saw a bather struggling. She had lost her footing. Her husband tried to help her, but was exhausted and let her go; equally so the brother-in-law, and Louis felt he was losing his strength, but she kept her presence of mind and floated. He let her go once till a wave brought her near him again, and he caught her hand and brought her in, feeling quite done himself. I was not in the sea at the time, for the waves were so tremendous that I lost my footing several times, and had come out, fearing an accident. The lady is a Mrs. T. Sligo, a Scotchwoman, and she has just written to me to thank Louis. He is a good swimmer, and very strong. The gentlemen are two grey-haired Scotchmen.