“You must have learned that the commonplace world always revenges itself on an unusual character by believing it mad. Doubtless you have been called mad yourself. It is only recently that people have resigned themselves to the sanity of the German Emperor. Elizabeth hated the footlights as much as he loves them, and publicity has readjusted him to the common estimate. The ever-increasing seclusion of her life deepened the mystery and the gossip, and both confirmed those who were not in a position to learn the truth, in the belief that an empress who spurned a throne must necessarily have lost her wits. At the other extreme are psychic enthusiasts--over here in Europe--who already have begun The Legend of Elizabeth. A legend of some sort was inevitable, for she was royal, beautiful, unhappy, mysterious, and died a violent death. These enthusiasts knew as little of her personally as the world in general, but their imaginations are of finer fibre, and there was much in this lovely and romantic figure to appeal to them. No doubt, a hundred years from now Elizabeth will be one of the most irresistible figures of the past to the poet and the romancer, for the legend that the members of this cult have set on foot will grow and strengthen daily. Their belief is that she was one of those rare beings who are too exalted for human contact, and that the development of her natural superiority was one of the most remarkable in the psychic history of mortals. Profoundly imbued, according to them, with the doctrine that a man should develop his personality at the expense of every duty, every affection, of kin or subject, she withdrew herself more and more, not only from the world, but from her husband and children, that she might devote her thoughts only to what was beautiful, live the inner life alone, and develop her personality in a manner possible to most people only after they have cast off the flesh; that her sensitiveness in time became so great that contact with common mortals was unbearable. That is the legend, and, mark my words, before a century has passed she will be painted with a halo about her head. It will be only the glamour of royalty, but the world will never suspect that.