Elizabeth Von Arnim

Excerpt: PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN" "Oft habe ich die Welt durchwandert, und habe immer gesehen, wie das Grosse am Kleinlichen scheitert, und das Edle von dem ?tzenden Gift des Allt?glichen zerfressen wird." FRITZING, "Erlebtes und Erlittenes." 1905 CHAPTERS I , II , III , IV , V , VI , VII , VIII , IX , X , XI , XII , XIII , XIV , XV , XVI , XVII , XVIII , XIX , XX , XXI , XXII , XXIII , CONCLUSION THE PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT I Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was also of graceful and appropriate behaviour. She did what she was told; or, more valuable, she did what was expected of her without being told. Her father, in his youth and middle age a fiery man, now an irritable old gentleman who liked good food and insisted on strictest etiquette, was proud of her on those occasions when she happened to cross his mind. Her mother, by birth an English princess of an originality uncomfortable and unexpected in a royal lady that continued to the end of her life to crop up at disconcerting moments, died when Priscilla was sixteen. Her sisters, one older and one younger than herself, were both far less pleasing to look upon than she was, and much more difficult to manage; yet each married a suitable prince and each became a credit to her House, while as for Priscilla,well, as for Priscilla, I propose to describe her dreadful conduct. But first her appearance. She was well above the average height of woman; a desirable thing in a princess, who, before everything, must impress the public with her dignity. She had a long pointed chin, and a sweet mouth with full lips that looked most kind. Her nose was not quite straight, one side of it being the least bit different from the other,a slight crookedness that gave her face a charm absolutely...