ROMANCES OF A PRINCESS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10528, 9 August 1910, Page 6

ROMANCES OF A PRINCESS.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HELENE VON RACOWITZA.

Herein lies the great art of Life, to enjoy to the full the scent of roses and all other gifts of nature, while carefully avoiding the thorns.

Such is the frank philosophy of life of Princess Helenc von Racowitza, who, like another Helen, fired all hearts in the noonday of her brilliant beauty some forty years ago, and now, in the evening of her days, has taken the world into her confidence in a mere than usually candid autobiography. The Princess has had a career romantic and stormy. She has known both the charmed circle of the Court and the gay world of Bohemia from within, and one of her love stories has become historic. '-.."'

Few published reminiscenes of men or women who have "enjoyed to the full the scent of" the roses" are intended for the schoolroom, and those who find Princess von" Racowitza's defiance of the conventions 'a,': little startling will still enjoy her vivid-pen pictures of celebrities'who'helped" to make the last half of the nineteenth century famous. From her father, a brilliant Bavarian diplomat at the Court of' Max 11., she inherited the blood of the Vikings ; her mother, a beautifiil and fasciriat-. ing woman, belonged to one of the highly cultured Jewish families of .'Berlin, a family of poets and philosophers*, while the temperament of Helene herself was pure Greek in.its adoration of beauty. Her father's House in Munich was the rendezvous of \ politicians and men famous in literature, art 1 , and ■philosophy, and when but a child she' was admitted ' to this wonderful circle: — "It was on "these evenings that I made the acquaintance of many famous men, poets and artists, and learnt the art of conversation. If a stranger was present the evening was "devoted to him. On one occasion Hans Andersen told us his charming fairy tales; on ,, another Rubinstein let loose :t volume of sound under his magical fingers; or Hebbel, with his vast projecting forehead, read to us, as if volcanic power animated his glorious dramas."

One of her earliest playmates was the Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria, who afterwards became King Louis 11. Her parents belonged to the intimate circle of King Max 11., and Helene was chosen as the most fitting comrade for the young Prince. The childish friendship was broken by a quarrel in which the Crown Prince and little Helene fought like wild cats. When her father heard of the episode, iii spite of the complete forgiveness of the royal parents, the intimate intercourse' between the children was broken off. "One does not thrash one's future King. You arc not worthy of this privileged intercouse." was the father's stern remonstrance to his little , daughter. Years after, n-lion the Crown Prince was a King and the little girl the widowed Princess von Racowitza, he sent his former playmate some bonbons, with the words: "Greeting to my once wild little playmate." The Princess gives us another plcasin"- glimpse of her childhood days in her account of long, delightful hours spent with Hans Andersen, who was a guest at her father's house in Munich: — "Quite early in the mornings, while mamma was still asleep, I could torment him at my ease, and lie told storv after story. He turned everything into a fairy talc. It was even more fascinating when lie revealed himself p. 3 the 'Student of Littk Ida s Flowers ' ; that is to say, while he was telling stories he cut out the most fascinating things with scissors—castles, wardens, flowers, and butterflies, elves, and gnomes—in fact, all kinds of wonders." ~ „ ~ From Munich to Berlin, from Berlin to Turin, where her father was Minister to King Victor Emmanuch and from Turin to Nice went Helene, now a beautiful debutante in her early teens. Dnintv and winsome as a fairy, with sharpiv-cut profile, glorious golden hair, and wonderful eyes which were blue, o-rey and green bv turns, is the description ' Baron Vold'endorff gives of her beautv at this time. Celebrities from all over the world were gathered at Nice, and the future Princess von Kacowitza met many notable people — the Empress of Nicholas I. of Russia, the Grand Duchess Helene, Princess ot Wurtemberg. Buhver Lyttrm, Lord BroiiL'ham, Charles Dickens, and Meyerbeer."'to mention but a few among them. Buhver the author impressed her more than the man, Lord Lytton. Here is her girlish impression:— "Buhver was already past his first youth: his fame was at its zenith. He seemed to me antediluvian, with his long dyed curls and his old-fashioned dress. He dressed exactly as in the fashion of the twenties, with long coats reaching to the ankles, kneebreeches, and long, colored waistcoats. Also, he appeared.always with a young lady who adored him, and who was followed by a manservant carrying a. harp." While at Nice, the town gave a ball in honor of Napoleon 111. and the Empress Eugenie, and Helene was privileged to dance in the same quadrille as the Empress Eugenie, then at the zenith of her glory.

Back again in Berlin in 1862, the Princess devotes many chapters to what is known as the Lassalle* episode. It is a fervent chanter from the Book of Love, this tragic love-story or Ferdinand Lassalle, the brilliant and romantic father of German Socialism, and the beautiful Helene von Donniges, which furnished George Meredith with the motive-for his novel, "The Tragic Comedians." For her part in that romance of half n century ago and its unfortunate ending the Princess has been alternately hailed as an unhappy heroine and condemned as a .heartless jilt. Lassalle was fatally wounded in a duel by another <:f her lovers, a young Roumanian, prince, Yanko von Racowitza. Helene, who never regarded the Prince as the murderer" of her lover, became the Princess von Racowitza, her husband dying a year later from cpiv sumption. . ' Soon the glittering lights of Bohemia, which had always had a fascination for' the Princess, called her, and she began to study for the stage. She was in St. Petersburg when Serge von Schewitsch, a Russian revolutionary of good family, came into her life, and there sprang upbetween them "a mighty lowe, one that has defied every obstacle and has risen victorious over every sacrifice, which even to-day, after moire than thirty

years, is proof against dangers, storm, shipwreck, and and which every new misfortune only serves to rivet more firmly."