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ELIZABETH, PRINCESS PALATINE. 89
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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-* Paet I. Among The Lively Pictures Whi...
studies were losing- tlieir interest as she gradually became absorbed in scholastic theologyand with the once famous Coccejus ,
and his fanciful commentary , on Solomon's Song for her grade , _lunged into a labyrinth of dogmas where many a learned brain
p lost itself in those days . Well would it have . been for his _jDupil had Descartes been living to warn her , as he had been wont to do ,
against occupying her mind with theological abstractions ; as it was , these unchecked studies served to pave the way for the mysticism
of her later years . In 1657 , a marriage took place in the family which gave little
satisfaction to any of its members , the Elector excepted , who rejoiced in an opportunity of getting one of his sisters fairly off
his hands . This marriage was that of the Princess Sophia to the Duke of Brunswick . The prospects of the young couple were none
of the brightest , and the Queen of Bohemia , whose pride was unabated either by poverty or misfortune , varies her
beggingletters to her son with some very angry ones on occasion of this match . At that time there was full as little likelihood that this
unwelcome son-in-law would come to be Duke and Elector of Hanoveras that Sophia ' s eldest son would wear the crown of the
, Three Kingdoms . _s The twelve years Elizabeth spent at Heidelberg were rendered
extremely uncomfortable through the family bickerings to which the Elector ' s disposition constantly gave rise , and Ms shameful
treatment of his wife , Princess Charlotte of Hesse , to whom she was much attached . In 1668 , the Princess Charlotte , outraged to
the * last degree by her husband , who crowned his infidelities by going through a Lutheran marriage ceremony with one of her
ladies , fled to her brother the Landgrave , William VI ., at Cassel . Here Elizabeth followed her , and was gladly welcomed by her
cousin the Landgravine , the same Hedwig Sophia whose mental culture she had made a labor of love while at Krossen . Well had
her pains been repaid ! the blooming girl over whose opening life she had exercised so salutary an influence was now one of the
noblest matrons in Germany , beloved by her lmsband , and honored by his subjectswhoon the Landgrave ' s death in the year
following , called her , to the , regency . To the high qualities Hedwig Sophia displayed in that office during her son's long minority ,
history bears witness : among * her own people for long years after her deaththe memory of " our good Landgravine" as they
affecpassed tionatel at y called , Cassel her among , blossomed the friends from of the her dust youth . , The Elizabeth , five years always she
loved to recall as the happiest of her life , and applied to them a remark from a letter of Descartes , to the effect that "if it be a
shipwreck which casts us into harbor , we must not be worse contented than if we had arrived thither by happier means . " Her peaceful
existence at Cassel was an appropriate prelude to the honorable and affluent retreat which the Elector of Brandenburg had some years voi ,. jx . h
Elizabeth, Princess Palatine. 89
ELIZABETH , PRINCESS PALATINE . 89
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1862, page 89, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041862/page/17/
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