o I copied them
neatly, and gave them to Billy, the dwarf, the prince's factotum. A short
time after, while I was walking with some friends in Branitz Park, the
prince summoned me, and greeted me with the exclamation, "You are a
poet!"

These four words haunted me a long while; nay, at times they even echo in
my memory now. I had heard a hundred anecdotes of this prince, which
could not fail to charm a youth of my disposition. When a young officer
of the Garde-du-Corps in Dresden, after having been intentionally omitted
from the invitations to a court-ball, he hired all the public conveyances
in the city, thus compelling most of the gentlemen and ladies who were
invited either to wade through the snow or forego the dance.

When the war of 1813 began he entered the service of "the liberators," as
the Russians were then called, and at the head of his regiment challenged
the colonel of a French one to a duel, and seriously wounded him.

It was apparently natural to Prince Puckler to live according to his own
pleasure, undisturbed by the opinions of his fellow-men, and this
pleasure urged him to pursue a different course in almost every phase of
life. I said "apparently," because, although he scorned the censure of
the people, he never lost sight of it. From a child his intense vanity
was almost a passion, and unfortunately this constant looking about him,
the necessity of being seen, prevented him from properly developing an
intellect capable of far higher things; yet there was nothing petty in
his character.

His highest merit, however, was the energy with which he understood how
to maintain his independence in the most difficult circumstances in which
life placed him. To one department of activity, especially, that of
gardening, he devoted his whole powers. His parks can vie with the finest
pleasure-grounds of all countries.

At the time I first met him he was sixty-nine years old, but looked much
younger, except when he sometimes appeared with his hair powdered until
it was snow-white. His figure was tall and finely proportioned, and
though a sarcastic smile sometimes hovered around his lips, the
expression of his face was very kindly. His eyes, which I remember as
blue, were somewhat peculiar. When he wished to please, they sparkled
with a warm--I might almost say tender-light, which must have made many a
young heart throb faster. Yet I think he loved himself too much to give
his whole affection to any one.

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