Nelka | Page 5

I shall have some more happy moments. This is to be supposed. But all this matters so very, very little."
"I don't think that out of what is anything better is going to be."
"The external situation in general is not bad and as far as I can see, the trouble lies in the natures of the individuals and is more or less beyond remedy. The tragedy arriving from trying to unite in action and purpose where in mind and heart and soul there is no union, no mutual illumination, no mutual comprehension of the point of view, will be everlasting. 'Constater et accepter' and the sooner to 'constater' correctly, the sooner futile struggle ends."
"Goodnight. I neither weep nor laugh and I am glad to go to bed; might be a good deal worse off, if I had no bed."
Ashantee 1899.
"I have lots of things to talk to you about but I don't know where to begin. I want to say one thing that I think, which is that I think it is very difficult to judge practically when a too analytical definition of a condition or state is substituted for the ordinary and worldly vernacular. I think one must often fall into error from too great an attempt of metaphysical accuracy (precision), for whatever the thing in essence, the reaction thereof upon the multitude is made more forcible and more lucid to the mind by the term applied to it at large. For instance a crank is not a person of peculiar fancies."
Ashantee 1899.
"Great griefs are beyond all expression, but the stillness of agonizing moments is worse. Why, oh, why anything?"
"I cannot feel anything. That makes variety but it is being alone in interests, the feeling unchanged, the purposes conceived and striven for singly that makes the struggle seem hard and the achievement futile."
A girl of twenty or twenty-one, she was always questioning, always, seeking, always disturbed.
Ashantee, December 1899.
"You see I am making use of the divine right of the individual which you are ever proclaiming and you must not mistake this for unniecelike freedom of speech. I can only live and learn and perhaps learn to see how often I am mistaken. I am still in that pitiful state of youthful consciousness and have with it the confidence to act upon what I think. And to me almost every general rule becomes transformed under the allowances one must make for the modifications of the issue at hand. I think that often all that is most vital in life may be lost be adhering to formulated precepts and I think that every occasion calls for special and particular consideration for its solution."
After staying a while in America, after her mother's death, Nelka decided to go to Europe in order to change her ideas and get away from memories. This was a wise move and gave her a great deal of comfort, and helped build up her morale. She first went to Paris where she once again went to the Convent of the Assumption and took up the study of painting in earnest at the Julien studios. From Paris she also went to visit her friends the Count Moltke and his wife in Denmark and then later went for four months to Bulgaria where she stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Bakhmeteff, my uncle who was Russian ambassador in Sofia and Madame Bahkmeteff who was Nelka's godmother. These two years in Europe were a very happy, steadying and pleasant time for Nelka and she regained a hold of herself. Especially she loved Paris as she always did. She told me once that when in Paris at the time she was so exhilarated that she felt like walking on air. But her observations of life and its questions continued as always, something that never left her. She wrote a great deal to her aunt Susie and there are many interesting observations made during that period.
Paris 1899.
"I don't believe there is any use trying to understand things until an issue comes up and I believe that anyone who has heretofore responded to the flagrant necessities and requirements of life will be able to solve and meet more readily, more justly and more normally any problem which may arise. More is there to be learned and more balance and judgment gained in attending to one's most minute duties than in hours of mental anticipation of possible events and questions, conjured up in necessary incompleteness. What beauty there is here! The intellectual and emotional stimulus would make a cow tingle, and yet not some people I know."
Paris 1899.
"I am disgusted with the ending of the century with two wars, it is a disgrace. I think the whole world is very horrible anyhow and I don't believe in worldly goods and possessions, or countries, or governments and I