On Sunday, after breakfast, the three children of the Prince recited poems of their own choosing to their parents. When nine years old Princess Elizabeth declaimed Schiller’s “Battle with the Dragon.” Although her powers of memory were so good that she could immediately repeat a poem of four verses which the Prince had just read to her, she could never learn Alexandrines; they had for her neither rhyme nor chime, and were “a horror” to her. Later on she developed a taste for Béranger and Molière. When nine and ten years old she wrote verses. At twelve she tried to write a novel. As a girl of fourteen she arranged dramas and tragedies, and the more horrors were enacted in them the better was she pleased. Late of an evening and early in the morning she made up the most beautiful stories; her fancy only painted tragic horrors, and she lived in an atmosphere of powerful mental contrasts. From the highest spirits she fell into the lowest, and felt an entire want of self-confidence. Undue hilarity followed great depression and melancholy. Then she became possessed with the idea that she was disagreeable and unbearable to every one. “I could not help myself,” she confesses; “I could not be gentle, and was so passionately impulsive that I was heartily thankful to those who were patient with me. It became better, however, when a safety-valve opened for me,--that was writing poetry.” Princess Elizabeth was often so overcome by her imagination that she could not distinguish reality from the fictions of her fancy. Thus it happened in her twelfth year that the sight of a wild cat that her great-uncle Max brought home as a booty from the chase quite upset her. On going to sleep she was vividly impressed with the description of this terrible race of animals, which, bloodthirsty and cunning as they are, spring upon their unsuspecting prey. Full of the terrible impression of the day before, she wrapped herself in her little grey cloak next morning in order to go to the schoolroom. Whilst going upstairs she considered what she would do if she were now attacked by a beast of prey. In a moment she seemed to see the wild beast before her, tore off and threw away her cloak, and rushed up the stairs again. Her maid was watching her and laughed. This restored her to consciousness, and she resumed her walk to the schoolroom. To calm this unboundedly impetuous nature, her mother took her with her wherever the sorrows of this life could touch her nearly. She often stood at the side of sick and dying beds. The trials of her tenderly-loved little brother formed her character early, and made her acquainted with all the sad sufferings which an afflicted body entails. The first death-bed to which her mother led her was that of her grandmother, the Duchess of Nassau. Her death made a lasting impression on the child, but the sight of the corpse did not frighten her. Her thoughts carried her beyond death, and only peaceful visions arose in the mind of the highly