pearance of
erudition.

"Man cannot be God," he wrote--I am quoting from a letter received the
day after his visit--"yet 'to be like unto God' need not remain a mere
theological phrase to the aspirant. Omniscience is certainly one of the
noblest attributes of the Most High, and the nearer man approaches it the
more surely he gains at least the shadow of a quality to which he cannot
aspire."

Finally he discussed his gardening work in the park at Branitz, and I
regret having noted only the main outlines of what he said, for it was as
interesting as it was admirable. I can only cite the following sentence
from a letter addressed to Blasewitz: "What was I to do? A prince without
a country, like myself, wishes at least to be ruler in one domain, and
that I am, as creator of a park. The subjects over whom I reign obey me
better than the Russians, who still retain a trace of free will, submit
to their Czar. My trees and bushes obey only me and the eternal laws
implanted in their nature, and which I know. Should they swerve from them
even a finger's breadth they would no longer be themselves. It is
pleasant to reign over such subjects, and I would rather be a despot over
vegetable organisms than a constitutional king and executor of the will
of the 'images of God,' as men call the sovereign people."

He talked most delightfully of the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, and
described the plan which he had laid before this brilliant ruler of
arranging a park around the temple on the island of Philae, and creating
on the eastern bank of the hill beneath shady trees, opposite to the
beautiful island of Isis, a sanitarium especially for consumptives; and
whoever has seen this lovely spot will feel tempted to predict great
prosperity for such an enterprise. My mother had heard the prince indulge
in paradoxical assertions in gay society, and the earnestness which he
now showed led her to remark that she had never seen two natures so
radically unlike united in one individual. Had she been able to follow
his career in life she would have recovered a third, fourth, and fifth.

These visits brought life and change into our quiet existence, and when
four weeks later my brother Ludo joined us he was delighted with the
improvement in my appearance, and I myself felt the benefit which my
paralyzed muscles had received from the baths and the seclusion.

The second season at Wildbad, thanks to the increased intimacy with the
friends whose ac