_August 15th, 1902._
Hurrah for our native Art and Industry! They are well started now on the
road to a splendid future. I cannot tell you how pleased I am. We like
to admire our own people and it is so easy to make us proud of them!
The future of our Javanese artists is assured.
Heer Zimmerman was in ecstasies over the work that he saw here by the
despised brown race: Wood carving, the art of the gold smith, and
textile weaving have reached a high degree of excellence. Our artists
here have received a large order from _East and West_ for St. Nicholas.
We are delighted. Now the clever artist can bring out new ideas and
express his poetic thoughts in graceful undulating lines and in
ravishing, glowing, changing colours. Oh, it is splendid above
everything else to seek the beautiful--a spark of God is everywhere,
even when things outwardly appear most evil.
There was once a child who went to an old woman who asked her what she
would like to have, for the little one had neither sweets, nor
ornaments, nor clothes; but the child said "Oh Mother, give me a flower
that opens in the heart."
How do you like that? You must see it in the original--the answer of the
child sounds so sweet. There is a deep meaning in bloementaal.[2]
"Njoewoen sekar melati hingkang mekar hing poendjering ati." That is
what one hears all the time. We are now busy writing down everything
interesting that we hear from the mouths of the people. There is no word
for poetry in our language. We say "bloementaal," and is it not well
said.
We are learning songs. Not songs of rejoicing--have you ever heard one
of that kind from a Javanese? The gamelan never rejoices, even at the
most extravagant festivals, its tone is mournful. Perhaps that is well,
life is mournful; not a song of rejoicing.
These pages have been written under the influence of sweet and sad
singing. It is evening, windows and doors are open; the fragrant breath
of the blooming tjempaka beyond our chamber comes to greet us with the
cool breeze that rustles through its branches. I sat upon the floor,
just as I do now at a long low table, at my left was sister Roekmini
also writing. To the right of me was Annie Glazer, she too on the floor.
Before me was a woman who read from a book of songs. They were very
beautiful, and the pure, serene, sonorous tones seemed to carry our
souls far away, nearer to the realm of the blessed. How I wish that you
could be sitting there with us in that little circle. You would have
felt with us and dreamed with us. Dreams! Life is not a dream. It is
cold, sober reality, but even reality does not have to be ugly, unless
we make it so.
It is not ugly--it is beautiful. We always have beauty within us. This
is the reason that I wish that in education, emphasis were laid upon
character forming, and first of all upon the cultivation of strength of
will; it should be instilled into the child.
But I am wandering from my subject. This time I wanted to write to you
about our people, and not about education.
There is an old woman here from whom I have gathered many flowers that
spring from the heart. She has already given me much, and has still more
to give, and I wish for more; always more. She is willing, but first I
must earn her treasures, I must buy her flowers--why? Why must I pay?
Solemnly the words sounded from her lips; "Fast a day and a night, and
pass that time awake and in solitude."
"Door nacht tot licht,[3]
door storm tot rust,
door strijd tot eer
door leed tot lust."
sounds like a requiem in my ears.
The meaning behind the words of the old woman is: Fasting and waking are
symbolical; "Through abstinence and meditation, we go toward the light."
No light, where darkness has not gone before. Do you not think that a
beautiful thought? Fasting is the overcoming of the material by the
spirit; solitude is the school of meditation.
As a child I did everything mechanically without question, because
others around me did the same thing; then a time came when my mind began
to question, why do I do that, why is so and so? why--why----? It is
endless.
I would not do things mechanically without knowing the reason. I would
not learn any more lessons from the Koran, saying sentences in a strange
language, whose meaning I did not understand and which probably my
teachers themselves did not understand. "Tell me the meaning and I am
willing to learn everything." I was wrong, the Book of Books is too holy
to be comprehended by our poor intelligence.
We would not fast and do other things which seemed senseless to us.
Every one was in despair; we were in despair, no one could explain the
things which were incomprehensible to us. Our God was our conscience,
our Hell and our Heaven too was our own conscience; if we did wrong our
conscience punished us; if we did good, our conscience rewarded us.
The years came and went; we were called Mohammedans because we had
inherited that faith, and we were Mohammedans in name, no more.
God--Allah--was for us a name--a word--a sound without meaning.
Now we have found Him for whom unconsciously our souls had yearned
during the long years. We had sought so far and so long, we did not know
that it was near, that it was always with us, that it was in us.
It had been working in us unconsciously for a long time; but she who
opened the door for which we had sought, was Nellie Van Kol. And who
leads us now, and shows us the way toward Him? It is Mamma. We have been
so stupid all our lives; we have had a whole mountain of treasure under
our hands and we have not known it.
Foolish, headstrong, pedantic persons that we were, we reproach
ourselves now for our own conceit and self sufficiency. We say to
console ourselves: "It has pleased God to open your hearts at last, be
thankful for that."
God alone understands the riddle of the world. It is He that brings
together paths that were far asunder for the forming of new roads.
[1] To Dr. Abendanon.
[2] Flower tongue.
[3]
Through night to light, Through storm to rest Through strife to peace
Through sorrow into joy.