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Vienna, August 22, 1874
Dear Friend,
When, in your kind letter, you drew my attention to August 18 as the birthday of his Apostolic Majesty, the Emperor Franz Josef I, you probably did not realize that two days later the peoples of Austria would be celebrating the edifying occasion of the majority of our illustrious crown prince.1 That elevated chick is, his sixteen years notwithstanding, but sparsely covered with feathers and is anxiously being guarded against attempts to fly on his own; nevertheless such days are memorable for drawing attention to the generally overlooked phenomenon that crown princes, too, grow older by one year every 365 days. Some of the newspapers I have read on the occasion of the event have been struck so foolish with surprise that they give voice—whether gratis or for cash down, I know not—to unspeakable balderdash; thus one of them is sorry for him on the grounds that he will have henceforth to forfeit the illusions of golden youth to concentrate his every thought and care on the future reign over a great empire.
As if the most useless things in the world were not arranged in the following order: shirt collars, philosophers, and monarchs. For the rest, one must grant that a measure of surprise at the news under discussion is pardonable; all scions of the House of Hapsburg have the peculiarity of growing up in seclusion, suddenly to emerge in seasoned form. You have only to think of Princess Gisela,2 who was