From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

I cannot rightly remember any of my grandparents, for grandmamma, as we all called her, whom I learnt to know and love in my childhood, was in reality only my mother’s stepmothe...

It was in those days that there suddenly came wafted to us across the ocean the tidings of a wondrous discovery, a strange new pursuit for pastime,--I scarce know what to call i...

This angel in human form was a grand-niece of the celebrated Swiss philosopher and physiognomist, Johann Caspar Levater. She was one of a family of ten children, the father a me...

In telling the story of my brother’s short life, I cannot do better than employ in the first place the simple words of his faithful attendant, Mary Barnes, who for seven years w...

It was at the time when this learned and accomplished friend of the highly gifted King Frederick William IV. was the representative of Prussia at the Court of St. James, that I...

It is but fitting and natural that I should open with this revered name the series of my reminiscences, as my childish recollections hardly go further back than the date of the...

Another much valued friend of ours was the great scholar Bernays. He also was a constant visitor whilst we were living in Bonn, often sitting for hours beside my mother’s invali...

Of these there are so many--kind honest hearts, whose worth I learnt to recognise in bygone days, and whom it would be impossible for me to leave unnoticed here. I cannot name t...

In former days nurses and waiting-women in the princely families were themselves gentlewomen. It was rightly deemed all-essential for children, only to come in contact with peop...

Faithful servants are no less important in a household than the members of the family itself. Are we not every moment beholden to them for our ease and comfort, so much in the r...

Our stay in Bonn was, as I have already pointed out, enriched by the intercourse into which we were thrown with many clever and interesting people, some of whom became true and...

If ever a face on this earth may be said to have been irradiated and illumined by the light of genuine kindliness--of the pure goodness of heart that transcends all other human...

I use the word advisedly, the direction of my studies, after my twelfth year, being almost entirely taken out of female hands, my mother feeling more confidence in the competenc...

It was on my governess, Fräulein Josse, that devolved the pleasing task of bringing a little innocent amusement into our lives. She lent herself the more willingly to this, I fa...

A more fiery soul than that of Ernst Moritz Arndt can surely never have lived upon this earth. He must have been fully eighty years old at the time when I knew him, but age seem...

Whenever my lips pronounce the beloved name, I am choked with the tears that gather round my heart, and silently overflowing, suffuse my eyes. She was the sunshine of my youth,...

I see her still, in her plain black dress, coming towards the castle from the landing-stage of the steamer, and crossing the quadrangle with soft, noiseless tread, as gentle and...