Like the bees too, who are not content each to gather honey for itself alone, but bring it all to the common store, the treasures culled by Fräulein Lavater from her reading were not intended solely for her own pleasure and profit, but were ever destined to more unselfish purposes. She could enliven the dullest society, revive the most languishing conversation with some apposite remark, some reference to a topic so well chosen that even the most listless felt their interest aroused. And best of all, her soft low voice was like a charm for mental fatigue or overstrung nerves. It was as if she could wile away headache or worry with her gentle tones, she brought comfort to every sick-bed, and in the long weary day of convalescence, when the work of taking up again the burden of existence is perchance almost too great an effort for the weakened frame, who was there could ever, like Fräulchen, cheer and rouse one from one’s apathy, who else possessed such an inexhaustible fund of delightful stories, or could relate them as she did? How often, in later days, in the long slow recovery from illness, have I not sighed for her presence, feeling that she could beguile my pain and weariness with one of the stories or legends she told so well. She it was who first encouraged in me the taste for literature, the love of poetry, in which others saw only a weakness and a danger. It was her guiding hand that directed my youthful talent into the right path, treating it as a plant worthy of cultivation, and not as a dangerous or perhaps even poisonous weed, to be rooted up or trodden under foot! For it was to many quite a shocking idea, that a princess should not merely have the misfortune to be born a poet, but that she should actually take no pains to conceal so terrible a fact! That sort of talent really could not be considered suitable to one’s station, and where there was no possibility of extirpating, it must at least be hidden away out of sight! But Fräulein Lavater, in her quiet unobtrusive way, saying no word to hurt prevailing prejudices and thereby expose me to still greater disapprobation, found the means of lending just the aid and sheltering care so requisite to my first timid attempts at giving poetic form to the emotional and intellectual chaos over which I brooded. The sure and refined taste of the elder woman rendered invaluable service to the somewhat headlong and indiscriminating enthusiasm of youth, in pointing out to me, at the same time with the best models for admiration and imitation, errors to be avoided, excesses and weaknesses to be condemned. Then, as later, it was the certainty that one’s efforts and aspirations, one’s failures and mistakes would meet in her, not merely with justice, but with that indulgence which is perhaps the highest form of human justice, this it was which inspired one with confidence in seeking her verdict, and spared one the excessive discouragement some criticisms invariably leave behind.