atter to the sea if the process lasts
a thousand years or more--it may even last for ages, who can tell?

"But one day, quite suddenly, the sea begins to wander. Once there was
sea everywhere, and all continents are born from the sea. One day land
arose out of the sea. The birth was of a revolutionary nature, there
were earthquakes, volcanic craters, falling cities and dying men--but
new land was there. Or else it moves slowly, invisibly, a metre or two
in a century, and returns to the land it used to possess. Thus it
restores the soil it stole from it, but cleaner, refined and full of
vitality to live and to create. Such is the sea and its work."

These are the words of the old half-blind Queen, who can never look
upon the beloved picture again, but she told me how she always
idolised the sea, and how her grand nephews and nieces shared her
feelings, and how she grew young again with them when she told them
tales of olden times.

One could listen to her for hours without growing weary, and always
there was some beautiful thought or word to carry away and think over.

Doubtless such knowledge would be more correct were it taken from some
geological work. But Carmen Sylva's words invariably seemed to strike
some poetic chord; that is what made her so attractive.

She loved to discourse on politics, which for her meant King Carol. He
was her all in all. After his death, when it was said that all states
in the world were losing in the terrible war, she remarked: "Roumania
has already lost her most precious possession." She never spoke of her
own poems and writings. In politics her one thought besides King Carol
was Albania. She was deeply attached to the Princess of Wied, and
showed her strong interest in the country where she lived. Talking
about the Wieds one day afforded me an opportunity of seeing the King
vexed with his wife; it was the only time I ever noticed it. It was
when we were at Sinaia, and I was, as often occurred, sitting with the
King. The Queen came into the room, which she was otherwise not in the
habit of entering, bringing with her a telegram from the Princess of
Wied in which she asked for something--I cannot now remember what--for
Albania. The King refused, but the Queen insisted, until he at last
told her very crossly to leave him in peace, as he had other things to
think of than Albania.

After King Carol's death she lost all her vital energy, and the change
in the political situation trouble