Part 6

Who else but Diaghileff could give those lovely Russians things the proper accent?

And accent -- if you know what I mean -- accent is everything!

Accent! Accent! What would art be without accent?

Accent is coming in -- if you get what I mean -- and what they call "punch" is going out. I always thought it was a frightfully vulgar sort of thing, anyhow -- punch!

The thing I love about the Russians is their Orientalism.

You know there's an old saying that if you find a Russian you catch a Tartar . . . or something like that.

I'm sure that is wrong. . . . I get so MIXED on quotations. But I always know where I can find them, if you know what I mean.

But the Russian verve isn't Oriental, is it?

Don't you just dote on verve?

That's what makes Bakst so fascinating, don't you think? -- his verve

Though they do say that the Russian operas don't analyze as well as the German or Italian ones -- if you get what I mean.

Though for that matter, who analyzes them?

One may not know how to analyze an operate, and yet one may know what one likes!

I suppose there will be a frightful lot of imitations of Russian music and ballet now. Don't you just hate imitators?

One finds it everywhere -- imitation! It's the sincerest flattery, they say. But that doesn't excuse it, do you think?

There's a girl -- one of my friends, she says she is -- who is trying to imitate me. My expressions, you know, and the way I walk and talk, and all that sort of thing.

She gets some of my superficial mannerisms . . . but she can't quite do my things as if they were her own, you know . . . there is where the accent comes in again!

HOW SUFFERING PURIFIES ONE!

Oh, to go through fire and come out purified! Suffering is wonderful, isn't it? Simply WONDERFUL!

The loveliest man talked to us the other night -- to our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- about social ideals and suffering.

The reason so many attempts to improve things fail, you know, is because the people who try them out haven't suffered personally.

He had the loveliest eyes, this man.

He made me thin. I said to myself, "After all, have I suffered? Have I been purified by fire?"

And I decided that I had -- that is spiritually, you know.

The suffering -- the spiritual suffering -- that I undergo through being misunderstood is something FRIGHTFUL!

Mamma discourages every Cause I take up. So does Papa.

I get no sympathy in my devotion to my ideals. Only opposition!

And from a child I have had such a high-strung, sensitive nervous organization that opposition of any sort has made me ill.