The professor goes on to express the opinion that no Englishman or Englishwoman, of whatever age, ever gives up his or her nationality and love of country, in whatever circumstances they may find themselves, "a contrast to so many Germans, who are far less faithful to their nationality. The Empress Frederick, as eldest child of Queen Victoria of England, had the title of Princess Royal, and she could not help feeling herself the first princess of a wonderful Empire of very old culture, and this proud feeling never left her."
This estimate and defence of the Empress is particularly valuable as coming from a man of shrewd intelligence and observation, who was himself a German.
On another occasion Nippold wrote of the Empress with clear insight: "One thing this distinguished woman never understood--to hide her feelings. She never posed; everything was sincere in her in the true sense of the word."
In her will the Empress left Professor Nippold a letter-weight, which she had used every day, as a souvenir of a conversation they had had one evening in her study. This letter-weight, which always lay on her table, was composed of an old Roman bronze--a broken Sphinx figure--on a marble slab. A ring bound this figure to the slab, and the inscription engraved was: "This stone was picked up by H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth on the walk of Frogmore, 1808."
Professor Nippold goes on to say that while the Empress was talking to him one evening a telegram arrived which obviously had to do with the crisis which led to the Greco-Turkish War. As Nippold saw that she was much preoccupied with the telegram and had to think of the answer, and yet did not want to send him away, he delicately asked to be allowed to wait and look at the pictures. When the Empress resumed the conversation, the professor asked about a picture which hung in the study. She named the different figures in the group, among them being that young Princess Elizabeth who had found the stone.
That she should have left Nippold the letter-weight showed, as he truly says, the wonderful memory and kindly attention in which consists _la politesse des Princes_.
The Princess Elizabeth married one of the last Counts of Hesse-Homburg. Since then a monument to that Royal house has been erected in Homburg, and in the Emperor's speech at the unveiling on August 17, 1906, occurred these words: "I commemorate the Landgräfin Elizabeth, a daughter of George III of England. She was a real mother to this country and worked and cared for her adopted fatherland. The Homburgers to this day think of her with real thankfulness and reverence."
