Marie Bashkirtseff - The Journal of a Young Artist 1860-1884 #266997

Here is the record of an extraordinary life - 'a book without a parallel,' as Gladstone has called it. In these pages, science, art, literature, social questions, love, are treated with all the cynicism of a Machiavelli and the naïvete of an ardent and enthusiastic girl. On a background solemn and somber as the steppes of her native land are traced pictures that reflect the vivid hues, the luminous atmosphere, the life, the movement, the variety, of France, Spain, Italy. With a nature that was profoundly religious, and a spirit that was essentially skeptical, with ambition to conquer the universe, and a heart that yearned with a passionate longing for affection, demanding all things for herself, yet capable of the most utter self-abnegation, "hoping all things," and fearing all things alternately, clinging to life with an eagerness that is pathetic in its intensity, wishing for death with an eagerness no less pathetic, regarding herself by turns as the superior kings, and as less than the least of created beings. Marie Bashkirtseff has left us as her contribution to the literature of humanity these confessions, which no one who has a mind to think or a heart to feel can read unmoved.