EMPEROR WILLIAM'S ROMANCE. Recalling the Love Affairs of His Early Youth.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 228, 12 November 1887, Page 11

EMPEROR WILLIAM'S ROMANCE. Recalling the Love Affairs of His Early Youth.

In a broad, leafy road on the south side of Wiesbaden, ju&fc where the sun strikes hottest and roses smell sweetest, there lives an old lady belonging to an ancient German family. In her charming salon, arranged in the queer, stiff fashion affected in the early part of this century, Fraulein yon Scherf has, oftener than she can count, received the great Kaiser William, who never fails, when he is at his palace in the market place, to pay daily visits to her in her villa in Nicolas Strasse. He sits on the cornflower - coloured, brocaded sofa and speaks of the time when all the world was young, when limbs did not ache and eyes were undimmed ; of the days when Elsa, Princess Raizville, was queen of his heart. The old maid listens and answers ; tells how she conveyed his love letters to her friend, and fondly recalls what Elsa said, how Elsa looked when reading those precious sheets. They live again each small event. They cherish every remembrance of the girl who has been dead these many years, whose face, never forgotten, comes so often before the monarch, and whose anguish at the knowledge that a more suitable marriage must be arranged for the young Prince still rings in the ears of her devoted foster-sister. These two— this old man and woman, this most puissant ruler and this maid of honour — are swayed by the emotions of sixty years back. No one living can charm the Emperor as does the quiet lady of Nicolas Strasse, with her allpowex'ful, "Yes; I remember." Loitering in the sunshine outside the flowerdecked house, passers-by try to catch a glimpse of their idol. ♦♦ What can he have to say?" they ask each other. "If he were taking coffee with Bismarck or Moltke now no one could understand, but to stay an hour chattering with an old woman !" In the shaded blue rooms, forgetful of time, see the pathetic figure of a victorious King, who, haUng all, has nothing ; who has cried out for over half a century for just that something which a cruel god-mother, showering all manner of other gifts at his christening, thought fit to withhold. The other side of the table, to balance his imperial Majesty, with doubtless an ache in her heart on her own account, the fraulein clicks her knitting pins and sighs "Ach" in sympathy. ... It is like a fairy story. Hans Anderson would have taken it as a motif for one of his inimitable sketches he " What the Moon Saw ;" only I think of would have exercised his magic and altered the end ; he could not have left his King complaining, unhappy to the last. But " which of us has his desire, or having it, is satisfied ?" Perhaps Empress Elsa after a time would have been more of a success than Empress Augusta ; who can tell ? By the way, in connection with the prophecy which all the world knows, that the Emperor will live till lie is 96 years old, they supplement it in Germany by declaring that the same sibyl predicted the Crown Prince will die of starvation. This is handicapping Morell Mackenzie with a vengeance. — ' • Toronto Week. "

William Black's "Life on a Houseboat" will appear serially in the "Illustrated London News" upon the conclusion of iuirjeon's " Miser Farebrother."