The Princess Priscilla's FortnightVon Arnim, Elizabeth
General
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight
Von Arnim, Elizabeth
Germans -- England -- Fiction; Princesses -- Fiction
Editorial note: We now know that "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" was
written by Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941). Born Mary
Annette Beauchamp in Australia, she grew up in England
and married a German, Count Henning August von
Arnim-Schlagenthin. After the couple moved to his country
estate she began writing children's books. Many of her
early books were published "By the Author of 'Elizabeth
and Her German Garden'," and later she published as
simply "Elizabeth."
THE PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT
BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN"
1905
"Oft habe ich die Welt durchwandert, und habe immer
gesehen, wie das Grosse am Kleinlichen scheitert, und das
Edle von dem ätzenden Gift des Alltäglichen zerfressen wird."
FRITZING, "Erlebtes und Erlittenes."
I
Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was
up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not
only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was
also of graceful and appropriate behaviour. She did what she was told;
or, more valuable, she did what was expected of her without being
told. Her father, in his youth and middle age a fiery man, now an
irritable old gentleman who liked good food and insisted on strictest
etiquette, was proud of her on those occasions when she happened to
cross his mind. Her mother, by birth an English princess of an
originality uncomfortable and unexpected in a royal lady that
continued to the end of her life to crop up at disconcerting moments,
died when Priscilla was sixteen. Her sisters, one older and one
younger than herself, were both far less pleasing to look upon than
she was, and much more difficult to manage; yet each married a
suitable prince and each became a credit to her House, while as for
Priscilla,--well, as for Priscilla, I propose to describe her dreadful
conduct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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