Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/114

 XIV

9th January, 1901.

EW conditions will come into the Javanese world, if not through us, through others who will come after us. Emancipation is in the air; it has been foreordained. And she whose destiny it is to be the spiritual mother of the new age must suffer. It is the eternal law of nature: those who bear, must feel the pain of bearing; but the child has all our love, though its very existence, above that of all others living, has harassed us. Though it has been received through suffering, it is eternally precious to us.

Nothing is more miserable than to feel the power to work within one, and yet to be condemned to idleness. Thank God, this curse has been taken from me.

A short while ago, a professor from Jena, Dr. Anton, with his wife, was here with us; he was travelling in pursuance of his studies. They came here to make our acquaintance.

I am afraid that people see too much in me. I am certain that they allow themselves to be misled through the charm of novelty and perhaps also through sympathy. We are a novelty to many people, especially to those from a distance, to whom everything that is new is more or less attractive. The professor expected us to be half savage, and found us quite like ordinary people. The strangeness was all in —92—