Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-25
THE MODERN soHRHERAzADE.
Some Account of the Romantic Life o
 ROumanfass Poet queen.

Some Account of the Romantic Life of
 ROunanfa's Poet queen.
 Scheherazade-ifs she ever existed at all and is not solar myth-is dead and em- balmed; but the modern "Queen Bee" of story-tellers is yet alive among us. and we have heard news of her. Far away on the sands by the North Sea watering place, Wes- terland, she has been holding a iuveline court. Every day she plants her campstool by the edge of the nipples that furrow the "ribbed sea sand, 1" and the children call 1t her throne, decorate it with wild flowers and dig entrencnments round it with their little wooden spades to keep off the kraeken and the sea serpents, who are, of course, singu- larly active and dangerous at this season of the year. They build up 8 huge fork of sand, probably nearly full yard high, and defantly plant their small toy flags captured at the point of the fork from the sugar bass warning to the great powers not to interfere. Then they sit in circle and listen to the royal s'Maerchentante"-the fairy-tale aunt -as she weaves them legends of elves, gnomes, pixies, sprites, water babies and s'good people" generally. Who is the ar- tist queen who tells stories on the sandsa Well, it is story in itself, says the London Daily Telegraph. She was the daughter of Prince Herman of Wied and the Princess Marie of Nassau, and in her girlish days at Bonn, when she used to wander into the village school and sing with the children, her ''sweet yet sometimes wild and turbu- lent temper" says 8 recent writer on her life, gained for her from her parents the name of s'Waldroeschen"-littl wild rose. The story of her education brings her close to us, for we know that "Ivanhoe" and that pathetic American tale, s'The Wide, Wide World" and the works of Shakespeare and Dickens, were among her favorite books. She wrote, as she still writes. touching and graceful poems, even when wandering through European courts. As became 6 princess of her rank, she mastered many languages, and when she went with her mother to Sweden in 1868 to visit her royal relatives she was soon able to read the fairy legends of Friesland in the original. She was born story, teller, hereditary inter- preter of fairy lore to morals. Then she sang of willow trees, of birds of mystical not as princess, but as 8 sweet singer called sfSylva Carmen" Now, long before this, when she was quite girl at the court of Berlin; she had made the acquaintance of Prince Charles of Roumania in 6 rather TO- mantle manner, for her foot slipped as she was rushing downstairs, and 'fthe gallant young lieutenant caught her in his arms and saved her''-so says Mrs. Mawer in the interesting sketch we quote from the Wo- mans World-"from an ugly fall" And now that young lieutenant is King of Rou- mania and Sylvia Carmen" is his Queen. Poems, tales, the ibretto of an opera, "Neaja," performed with distinct success in Stockholm, and many works of art, such as painted missals for the cathedral, she gave to the world, but her strongest hold on the hearts of the Roumanian people dates from the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-S, when she devoted herself to the sick and wounded, meeting each train as 1t came from the front nd efxy food and oInfbiprr and yurmirry tr, the invalids on their arrival These deeds earned for her poet Majesty the title of "Muma Ranitilor'-the "Mother of the Wounded"-and at the coronation of their Majesties, when Roumania became a king dom in 1881, we learn from this author that the words ''Muma Ranitilor'' were seen in glittering letters over many a triumphal arch, and at the end of the war the officers of the Roumanian army offered their Queen 8 statuette in silver, where she is repre- scented as giving cup of drink to wounded soldier.