The winter queen [antikvár]

B PKEFACE ECAUSE the Stviart charm, working through the long-dead years, enchained me; and then, because personality is deathless, 1 fell into a true love for her Majesty of Bohemia. But how it began ? Well—a strange thing, and yet, if personality is deathless, not so strange. Wandering through Bohemia, curious to see and perchance to learn, Ave came to Prague late at night and weary. The next morning I awoke with a sentence ringing in my ears: " The Winter Queen—a sorry history—but so brave—the Winter Queen !" I marvelled, for Prague had held no message for me before, yet had I always felt I needs must journey back to the Czechish city; and now this sentence, "The Winter Queen," haunted me, and seemed a command to me, who, then, knew little of Elizabeth Stuart. Perhaps her spirit, hovering over Bohemia, had come to order me to tell of her sad life. Had some vestige of her charm lingered in Prague ? I know not; yet right humbly 1 set myself to learn the history of my " well-beloved, sweet, undaunted lady," learned it with a new thought of the bravery of cheerfulness through failure and sorrow. And here I have written of what I found in many pilgrimages through Germany, Bohemia, Holland, and our own dear England. There has been no lack of writings to teach me her Majesty's story; there have been both printed books and a mass of MS. letters; and though I have cast my history in the form of a romance, I here crave my readers' kindness to believe that I have given as much study to my subject as though I had written a biography. And, because I know out of my own curiosity in such matters, how when Ave read, we desire to know if this or that is actual vil