"THE INVISIBLE PRINCESS."

Kumara Times, Issue 897, 15 August 1879, Page 4

"THE INVISIBLE PRINCESS."

TWORID. Of the youngest daughter of the Royal House nothing has been known by, has scarcely a glimpse been permitted to, the great mass of the population of the kingdom. Her Royal Highness is now just twenty-two years of age, having been born on the 14th April, 1857. Yet, except that Bhe existß, that she ia at the present sojourning with her Royal mother by the side of an Italian lake, that in a few days' time she will return thence as mysteriously a 8 she departed, who is there, throughout the length and breadth of the land, who can be said to know anything ? The journey of Princess Beatrice from the capital to the picturesque place of her present sojurn contains the elements of enigmatic romance. The deserted dockyards into which she was taken, the empty railway stations where she was compelled to wait, the elaborate precautions that, while she was en route no common eye should gaze upon her—these things will long live in the minds of those who have read the record of that strange pilgrimage. Of the outer world she can only have such ideas as might be gained of the humors of the populace by one who should contemplate a crowd in the street from a drawing-room window hermetically sealed in Piccadilly. If ever she is beheld in the metropolis, it is only when, half concealed in the recesses of a carriage, she drives from a palace to a railway terminus. Garden parties, fetes, and balls—these things know her not, and, Bare for the expedition to the romantic lakeland on the frontiers of an interesting country, where she still lingers, she has seldom or never quitted the shadow of the Royal residences in Mudfog and its northern dependency- The larger portion of her time is spent at Machaggis Castle, where the chief occupation is the piling of stones on a memorial cairn; and the main amusement consists of endless drives to melancholy lochs and waterfalls set in the midst of purple leather. Some pastimes, indeed, in this savage region there are. At intervals wild men in uncouth dress perform grotesque processions by torchlight ; or with many howls and much music full of hideous dissonances, barbarous retainers celebrate the war-dances of their country, under the presidency of the Macburntumber, the favorite vassal of the Queen-mother. Even at those periods of the year when the Court is allowed leave of absence from the joyless seclusion of Machaggis, it cannot be said that her Royal Highness gains much experience of the amenities of life. From Roundtowers to Yacthland and from Yacthland back to Roundtowers must be a dull and monotonous routine to a Princess in the first flush of womanhood. The society, too, is as uninteresting as the career. It is eminenilyrespectable, eminently decorous, bnt it lacks variety end it wants life. The ladies-in-waiting are all that the matrons attached to the Sovereign, who ia a model of monarchß and of women, ought to be. The equrries have, partly from native strength of constitution, partly from much experience, an enormous power of supporting fatigue jn horseback, but do not show many signs of much flexibility of mind or the pyssession of a large store of mother-wit. Occasionally this staid circle receives expansion rather than relief by the addition to it of a few Teuton princes, who prove themselves more stiff and starchy thai ever, as if in honor of the event. What, it may be asked, is the object of thus educating a princess in the traditions and the atmosphere of dulness? Is this really the life which it is desirable or rational that a young woman twentytwo years of age Bhould be doomed to lead 1 What is to be gained by it ? Is it good for the Princess herself, or for the popularity of Royalty ? If the health of her Royal Highness prevents hef taking that part in the life of the nation which would be acceptable, why should not all Mudfog be informed of the melancholy ! fact? If that is happily a gratuitous hypothesis, why should the Princess remain persistently invisible to those who would rejoice in her presence 1 In addition to this there are the inclinations and interests of her Royal Highness herself to be considered. Is there any sufficient reason why she should be debarred from participating in the amusements proper to her age, her station, her sex ? In virtue of what inexorable decree of fate is her young life to be one unbroken round of solemn sombre dulness 1 In the nature of things, exile from the land of her birth, with all the unutterably depressing circumstances which follow in its train, will come soon enough, i The inevitable Teuton Prince will arrive | Borne fine morning,, and it will be announced that the Grand Duke of Seidlitztinkenheim is about to carry off the invisible princess to his residence close to the edge of some German forest, with its toy palace guarded by a terrific army of four soldiers in jpMelhaithes.