rient, Dawison and Jenny Lind were among the
visitors whose conversation was greedily listened to by the little girl
while supposed to be immersed in her lessons or her plays. Under such
influences it would have been strange if even a less active brain had
not been fired with aspirations, which took the form of an irresistible
impulse when, at thirteen, Wilhelmine was allowed for the first time to
visit the theatre and witness the acting of Dawison in Hamlet and other
parts. Henceforth all opposition had to give way, and in her seventeenth
year she made her _debut_ as Juliet at the ducal theatre of Coburg. Two
qualities, we are told, distinguished her acting: a strong conception
worked out in the minutest details, and an intensity of passion which
knew no restraint, and at its culminating point overpowered even hostile
criticism. Subsequently careful training under Edward Devrient and
Madame Glossbrenner enabled her to bring her emotions under better
control, repressing all tendency to extravagance; and, greeted with the
assurance that she was destined to become the German Rachel, she entered
upon her career with a round of performances at the principal theatres
of Germany, including those of Frankfort, Hamburg and Berlin.

These triumphs were followed by the acceptance of a permanent engagement
at Mannheim, which, however, had hardly been concluded when it gave
place to one of a different kind, followed by her marriage and sudden
relinquishment of the vocation embraced with such ardor and pursued for
a short period with such brilliant promise. Dawison is said to have
remarked that by her retirement the German stage had lost its last
genuine tragic actress.

Since her marriage Madame von Hillern has resided at Freiburg, in the
grand duchy of Baden, where her husband holds a legal position analogous
to that of the judge of a superior court. Her social life is one of
great activity, though much of her time is given to superintending the
education of her two daughters. But the abounding energy of her nature
made it inevitable that her artistic instincts, repressed in one
direction, should seek their full development in another. Literature was
naturally her choice. Her first work, _Doppelleben_, appeared in 1865,
and though defective in construction, owing to a change of plan in the
process of composition, served to give assurance of her powers and to
inspire her with the requisite confidence. Three years later _Ein Arzt
d