A Lovely Description of the Empress Frederick

I just received a wonderful gift of an original article from the Strand Magazine from 1895, which is an interview with Empress Frederick (Vicky) about her beautiful home at Kronberg (as in the previous post). Every one of the books on the library shelves, it says, was placed there only after the Empress had read it, and there is, too, a wonderful description not only of the many charitable works she carried out virtually unnoticed but also of her appearance and voice.

“Her Imperial Majesty’s appearance is not now so familiar in England as that of other members of the Royal Family; and, in my opinion, photographs do not do justice to her. She possesses a charming geniality of expression and a particularly kindly look about the eyes in which respect she resembles the Prince of Wales. When moved by the recital of some sorrow or trouble, sympathy imparts great pathos to her voice – at all times a pleasant tone.”

"Acts of God"

An interesting thought about how our thoughts affect our bodies...

Vicky's husband, Fritz - Emperor Frederick III - spent much of his young life being 'gagged' by his father. Every time he raised an opposing thought, he was silenced. At the same time, Vicky was urging him to speak out. He was in a very difficult position. As the time drew near for him to take up his position as emperor, he was diagnosed with throat cancer.

Vicky felt that she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders. She tried to balance so many things but the strain was so great that she couldn't bear it. Nor could she express it. She suffered greatly, too, over the way her children were raised and how the older ones seemed to reject her. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and spinal cancer.

Alice was never allowed to express her grief at the death of her father as she was too busy caring for her mother and helping to keep 'the firm' running. When her little daughter, May, died, she was compelled to keep that silent, too....she died of diphtheria, which affects the throat.

Serge lived with the horror of what had happened to his father. He also had - I think - some kind of loathing for his body, which was literally obliterated by the bomb that killed him.

There are many, many more examples and the deeper we go into our own thoughts, the more clear it is how we choose to destroy or re-create ourselves....Ho hum...It's a thought which offends many people because we all like to play victim at times. "It wasn't my fault I caught this or that...." It's not a question of 'fault' though, it's more a question of responsibility. Living in the 'image and likeness of God' , our thoughts have tremendous power - far greater than we choose to be aware of, I think. "Act of God" is a something assigned to nasty eventualities - as though a loving creator would be so petulant as to wipe out his/her people! Perhaps 'act of thought' would be more appropriate for many things. "Acts of God" - acting from our highest selves, would surely only mean life and health and freedom.

Moretta

Among all the grandchildren of Queen Victoria, Moretta of Prussia is somehow close to my heart. Perhaps it is because she seems to be one of the forgotten ones who has no place in history. Her life was - in the great scheme of how things are written in history - insignificant. She wasn't a saint, she wasn't a heroine, she was, from the start, an also-ran, I guess, and yet I feel for her.

There is a beautiful book of letters from a few brief months of her life, "Queen Victoria at Windsor and Balmoral", edited by James Pope-Hennessy, which gives such a picture into her thoughts, and her thoughts are so touching. The letters are taken from a time when she was - possibly suffering from some kind of anorexia - staying with her grandmother, Queen Victoria. Over the next few days, I would like to write more thoughts about her.

The forgotten people - like the children in the mills and mines, or the members of royal families who play 'bit parts' in history - always stike me as so interesting.