r 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