my
instinct and judgment which may be faulty but which in every special
instance seems the safest to me. To remind oneself constantly that
one's life is made up of days prevents one from taking most things
'au tragique' and makes existence passable enough."

Paris 1900.

"Life is so short. The only peace is in remembering how short life
is. I work so hard at my painting. My efforts alone deserve some
results, but it is slow in forthcoming. This week however there is
an improvement. I get up before seven every day and go to bed at
nine and drink eight glasses of milk a day. I hope you are pleased.
Some emotion, more extremeness, some craziness, some feeling, really
I think it is necessary. I do not see any satisfaction in anything
but intense feeling. Intense feeling which may come even in the
quietest of lives and which does not depend upon external events. It
is astonishing how easy it is to be tolerant of people's
personalities, however unsympathetic to one, and how very easy also
to be intolerant of their point of view."

"There is nothing so disastrous as to be fooled by the appreciation
where it is not deserved. How I wish I could do any one thing well."

Paris 1900.

"I hope it is a satisfaction to you to know how well pleased I am
here and that I am absolutely content. I think I will indulge myself
and get a jewel with your Xmas present. 'The Perfect One' loves to
deck out in gems! I have been reading an essay on Tolstoi and I am
took with an attack of asceticism, unequaled by any heretofore.
This, following my last sentence, is charmingly typical of my
character, is it not? There is one girl here who really might be
very nice. She is eyed as being somewhat emancipated by the
household I think, but I think it is only Youthful freshness of a
first departure and inexperience in calculating the impression she
makes on the style of her audience."

At the end of the same year Nelka went for four months to Sofia,
Bulgaria where she stayed with the Russian Minister Mr. Bakhmeteff,
my uncle and Madame Bakhmeteff who was an American and Nelka's
godmother.

She enjoyed very much that stay in Bulgaria and had a very
interesting and pleasant time and great success. From Sofia she
wrote a number of letters which reflect both the interest of her stay
there as well as the continued constant searching so typical of her
youth, and perhaps of her whole life.

Sofia 1900.

"How can I tell you how I feel at being here.