The Princess Aline by Richard Harding Davis, 1895. Morton Carlton, portrait-painter international reputation, is unlucky in love. It's not that he never meets the right women. When the right "one" comes along, he changes his mind. Indeed, it seems he is destined to forever wander like a lost votary through Venus's domains. But one day a change appears on the horizon. He sees a portrait of the Princess Aline of Hohenwald in an illustrated newspaper, and falls madly in love with his artist's conception of her. Throwing all to the winds, he resolves to go to Europe and look her up. The quest begins. Boarding the steamer at New York he meets up with some old friends-- Mrs. Downs and her niece Miss Morris. The three of them cruise across to Europe, landing in London. Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) was a journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and the First World War.