But, for the present expedition, what reasonable motive can
possibly be suggested?"
Madame Pfeiffer remarks that in all this a great injustice is, or would
be, done to her; that she was a plain, inoffensive creature, and by no
means desirous of drawing upon herself the observation of the crowd. As
a matter of fact, she was but following the bent of her natural
disposition. From her earliest childhood she had yearned to go forth
into the wide world. She could never meet a travelling-carriage without
stopping to watch it, and envying the postilion who drove it or the
persons it conveyed. When she was ten or twelve years old, no reading
had such a charm for her as books of voyages and travels; and then she
began to repine at the happiness of every great navigator or discoverer,
whose boldness revealed to him the secrets of lands and seas before
unknown.
She travelled much with her parents, and afterwards with her husband, and
thus her natural bias was encouraged. It was not until her two sons were
of age to be educated that she remained stationary--on their account. As
the business concerns of her husband required his presence alternately in
Vienna and in Lemberg, he intrusted to his wife the responsible duty of
superintending their education--feeling assured that, with her
perseverance and affection, she could supply the place of both parents.
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