One day there arrived from Europe a caller with a letter of introduction from Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania, better known as Carmen Sylva.  The visitor was Madam Hartwig, formerly an American girl, returning now, because of reduced fortunes, to find profitable employment in her own land.  Her husband, a man of high principle, had declined to take part in an “affair of honor,” as recognized by the Continental code; hence his ruin.  Elizabeth of Rumania was one of the most loved and respected of European queens and an author of distinction.  Mark Twain had known her in Vienna.  Her letter to him and his own letter to the public (perhaps a second one, for its date is two years later) follow herewith.

From Carmen Sylva to Mark Twain: 

Bucarest, May 9, 1902.  Honored master,—­If I venture to address you on behalf of a poor lady, who is stranded in Bucarest I hope not to be too disagreeable.

Mrs. Hartwig left America at the age of fourteen in order to learn to sing which she has done thoroughly.  Her husband had quite a brilliant situation here till he refused to partake ‘dans une afaire onereuse’, so it seems.  They haven’t a penny and each of them must try to find a living.  She is very nice and pleasant and her school is so good that she most certainly can give excellent singing lessons.

I beg your pardon for being a bore to one I so deeply love and admire, to whom I owe days and days of forgetfulness of self and troubles and the intensest of all joys:  Hero-worship!  People don’t always realize what a happiness that is!  God bless you for every beautiful thought you poured into my tired heart and for every smile on a weary way!

CarmenSylva.

From Mark Twain to the Public: 

Nov. 16, ’04.  To whom it may concern,—­I desire to recommend Madame Hartwig to my friends and the public as a teacher of singing and as a concert-vocalist.  She has lived for fifteen years at the court of Roumania, and she brought with her to America an autograph letter in which her Majesty the Queen of Roumania cordially certified her to me as being an accomplished and gifted singer and teacher of singing, and expressed a warm hope that her professional venture among us would meet with success; through absence in Europe I have had no opportunity to test the validity of the Queen’s judgment in the matter, but that judgment is the utterance of an entirely competent authority—­the best that occupies a throne, and as good as any that sits elsewhere, as the musical world well knows—­and therefore back it without hesitation, and endorse it with confidence.

I will explain that the reason her Majesty tried to do her friend a friendly office through me instead of through someone else was, not that I was particularly the right or best person for the office, but because I was not a stranger.  It is true that I am a stranger to some of the monarchs—­mainly through their neglect of their opportunities—­but such is not the case in the present instance.  The latter fact is a high compliment to me, and perhaps I ought to conceal it.  Some people would.