Tae 'Life and Letters' of Princess Alice is quite as interesting a book as the 'Leaves' and the 'More Leaves' of the Queen, although it is scarcely so amusing. The humour of the Queen's is always delightful, because Yaucouscious, Her carriage-accidents, her frequent drenchings, ber laced tea to counteract the chill, her lamentation over Royal deaths and the postponement of State concerts, ber fondness hi fa enp to go to dinner in—all for good Brown and her distress at not
these things are portrayed with inimit. able felicity, and present a living picture to the reader's eye. The Princess Alice seems to have been cast in a somewhat different mould. There is none of that element of slight comedy about. her that hangs inseparably about the Queen. In fact the only fault it is possible to find with the letters she addressed so constantly to ber mother is their somewhat over-fondness and axaguerated sensibility of expression. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that there ix just a dash of the Mutual Admiration Society about the Royal Family of England. Every member of the august Tittle circle is so dent, 4o sweet, ay hund. some, 80 excellent; one almost wennes of the dear Mama, beloved Mama, dear sweet precious Mamn, to say 11 beloved suinted Papa; nnd itis d repress a feeling of absolute impatience at finding the Into Prince Consort ocensionally referred to as ' He'—with capital. Lhe Royal Family are great on anniversaries, und every 14th December comes round, we have letters from the Princess to Her Majesty, couched in vein of anguish, and longing, and exhortation, and sympathy, and pious groans, for all the world a8 though the Prince had died the very day before instead of having been dead between ten and twenty years. There something morbid about thie, and it is very possible that the tendency is inherited by the Queen's children, But putting these defects aside, there can be no doubt as to the value and the excellence of the book. Yo begin with, the picture it presents of Princess Alice is a most pleasing one. Certainly there ug about her in any way suggestive of the princess who felt a parched pea through half-a-dean mat. tresses and featherbeds, or of that other legendary Indy who, on bearing that people were starving for want of bread, enquired why they didn't eat cake. Pring cess Alice was, to begin with, a hard.
worked, anxious, housekeeper. She lay anne bed of roses, It seems inexplicable enough that ina comparatively cheap place like Darmstadt, with her income of £6,000, her dowry of £30,000, and, we presume, something on the side of her husband, she should have found it se difficult to live; but so it was, The Princess had to economise rigorously, like many women in a lower rauk of life, and was not at all above accepting presents of linen, money, and turkey-pies from the Queen her mother, Besides this, she was a singularly active. minded woman; a great render, fond of thesuciety of the learned and intellectual, and ® musician of particularly severe taste, But it will be as a model of charity and good deeds that the Princess Alice will be most affectionately remembered. No one in all Germany, we suppose, worked harder or more indefatigably than she did in the hospitals during two wars. With her own hands she soothed many a dying pillow. The worst slams of more than one town, in Bugland as well og on the Continent, wore by her iv person and incog every respect she was just whata great lady should be—a pattern of all true womanly virtues to those brought under not help applying to her the words she used herself in speaking of the Queen's own i "For the frivolous higher classes," abe writes, "how valuable your book will be if read with real attention, as a record of a life spent in the highest alme, WILE Wie HObIeAL ConeEprion -of ~duty"AB a loading star." Certainly the lab ous, useful, unselfish life of the Prine cess herself presented " wonderful oon-trist Lo the uncousing round of selfish, heathenish plonsure which ap the career of what she culty the frivolous higher lasses, It is i possible to fancy euch m woman as Princess Alice spending her days in a whirl of idiotic balls, barbarous pigeon. matches, wud the vile excitement of the race-course, "I feel entirely us you do," she writes in a letter to the Queen, "on the difference of rank, and how all-in. portant it ly for princes and princesses to know that they are nothing better or above others, save through their own merit; and that they have only the double duty of living for others and of being an example—good and modest." Sentiments like this speak for them. selves, especially when we know that they were practically acted upon by the Princess in her own family.
By no means the least interesting part of the book is the thoroughly well-written Preface, which is from the peu of Princess Christinn, Its English is excellent, and the whole chapter is distinguished by perfectly good taste. The Concluding Remarks, too, contain some of the most valuable features in the bouk. At one time the Princess Alice, while under the influence of Strauss, wavered in ber religious cons
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.