Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/144

 XXIV

September 4, 1901.

E will not, we cannot believe that our lives will be only commonplace and monotonous like the lives of thousands of others before us, and as wall be those of thousands of those who come after us! and yet any other destiny seems so improbable. Only once the fulfilment of our nearest and dearest wishes seemed near; now it is unattainably far away.

There are hours when the tortured human heart, torn with doubt, cries, "My God, what is my duty?" Seeing two duties which directly oppose and antagonize one another. Yet how can two things that are diametrically opposed be called by the same name?

"Stay," says a voice behind me, "surrender your own wishes and longings to the will of him who is dear to you, and to whom you are dear; the struggle has been good, for it has served to strengthen and ennoble your own spirit. Stay!" And then again, I hear another voice ever loud and clear, which says: "Go, work for the realization of your ideals; work for the future; work for the good of thousands who are bent beneath the yoke of unjust laws, who have a false conception of good and evil. Go suffer and fight. Your work will be for all time!" Which is the higher duty, the first or the last?

There are not many people in the world, never mind how closely they may be bound together by ties of blood, who love and understand one —122—