Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/159

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS opportunity to fulfil her heart's wish, a wish upon which the future well-being of many others also depended, she held back, because she had not the heart to separate from a father who had given her love and care her whole life long and whose feeble health now demanded more than ever the care and affection which she alone could give.

Stella, I am a child, I am a daughter, not a woman alone, who can give herself wholly, and dedicate herself to a great and beautiful work. I am also a child bound by the bonds of tenderest love and gratitude to an old grey father, who has grown old and grey through care for his children. Of these children perhaps I am dearest.

Stella, you who know my great love for him, and next to that my love for what I regard as our calling, who know the strength of my affection for my sisters, will be able to understand what a hard conflict there is in store for me. I must be separated from my sisters, away from the work that I would do, or separated from Father, united with my sisters, and giving my all to our calling.

Father is weak now, needs care, and my first duty is to him. Oh Stella, I should never have a moment's peace if I carried on my own work far away from Father, knowing that he was suffering and needed me.

The work which we would do is noble. It will not be only for the present but for all time. Still I should never be able to answer to my own conscience if I should neglect my old, grey father for any cause whatever. He has the first right to me.

One of the precepts which I wish to inculcate is this: honour every living creature, respects their rights, their feelings; and even when it seems necessary, shrink from causing the least suffering to another. Should I be able to teach others what I myself neglected in practice? —137—