On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    116 DOMESTIC LIFE OE GERMAN LADIES,

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    . Mam ^ The Roll Which The Muse Of Histo...

    where the liistoriaii finds much , light thrown on the important events of the century through free discussion and expression

    narrow of opinion domestic , the top world ics of in these which letters the writers seem lived all . furnished No token by do that we

    find here _tliat their eyes were ever opened to that great outer world so near them , with its deep interests and marvellous changes , its

    mighty hopes , its struggles , and its agonies . Even a raging pestilence onlseems to furnish occasion for more active preparations of

    amber and y elk-horn powders ; the frequent wars are named as terrible hinderances to the safe convoy of furs and velvets . Indeed ,

    to the public history of the age itself , no more striking contrast can be offered than this correspondence of the age , in which every

    great event is completely ignored ; these letters so tranquil , so trivial , so cold . Cold ! nayin reference to one subject we may well reclaim

    , that word ; only let the topic of the letter be , as not _^ infrequently it was , the hope of women , then the dust and ashes of three

    centuries do not suffice to quench those words of passionate desire , that outbreak of maternal joy . Almost "with melancholy we note the .

    eager hope of offspring , the matron ' s pride when a son is born , for the historian is at hand to show us all fclie disasters which the new life

    so fondly welcomed was doomed to experience . One instance among will suffice ; we choose it from the history of Duke Albert , as he

    many and his duchess have been perhaps our principal figures . For the head of the house of tlohenzollern an lieir had long been desired in

    vain , and when a prince was born at last lie was ushered into the world ¦ with , quite as much , if not more bonfires and rejoicings of every

    kind than recently welcomed our Queen ' s first grandson into life , that small descendant of this little prince born in the sixteenth

    century . Upon that joy no shadow fell from the dark hour to come , which was to see Duke Albert deserted by his friends , forced to

    disband his troops , and so completely in the power of a lawless faction , that when Hurst , his faithful adherent , clinging to his master ' s

    knees , besought protection , the duke , we are told , had nothing for him but his tearsand saw him led off to be beheaded .

    The duke and , duchess did not survive the indignities they had to suffer they died of grief on the same day , leaving their unhappy

    son Albert ; Frederick in the hands of his enemies , and he was finally driven into insanity through the treatment he received .

    We cannot help thinking that in spite of active household ways , embroideryshirt and mantua makingin spite of dog and parrot ,

    dwarfs and , foolsthese German dames , must have led a somewhat dull and monotonous , existence in those grim-looking castles by

    which flowed the Rhine , the Danube , or the Elbe , planted in a desert part of the countrygirt with frowning woods , or

    overworld looking of , from resources some opened rock , a for wide , their expanse descendants of sterile by soil book . , To pencil the ,

    and music , they were utter strangers . Karely did any twice-blessed

    work of mercy awake their sympathies for the peasants whom their

    116 Domestic Life Oe German Ladies,

    116 DOMESTIC LIFE OE GERMAN LADIES ,

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1860, page 116, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041860/page/44/