Marie Bashkirtseff,[27] who may be taken as one of the best types of exaggerated adolescent confessionalists, was rich and of noble birth, and began in 1873, at the age of twelve, to write a journal that should be absolutely true and frank, with no pretense, affectation, or concealment. The journal continues until her death, October, 1884, at the age of twenty-three. It may be described as in some sense a feminine counterpart of Rousseau's confessions, but is in some respects a more precious psychological document than any other for the elucidation of the adolescent ferment in an unusually vigorous and gifted soul. Twice I have read it from cover to cover and with growing interest.
At twelve she is passionately in love with a duke, whom she sometimes saw pass, but who had no knowledge of her existence, and builds many air castles about his throwing himself at her feet and of their life together. She prays passionately to see him again, would dazzle him on the stage, would lead a perfect life, develop her voice, and would be an ideal wife. She agonizes before the glass on whether or not she is pretty, and resolves to ask some young man, but prefers to think well of herself even if it is an illusion; constantly modulates over into passionate prayer to God to grant all her wishes; is oppressed with despair; gay and melancholy by turn; believes in God because she prayed Him for a set of croquet and to help her to learn English, both of which He granted. At church some prayers and services seem directly aimed at her; Paris now seems a frightful desert, and she has no motive to avoid carelessness in her appearance. She has freaky and very changeable ideas of arranging the things in her room. When she hears of the duke's marriage she almost throws herself over a bridge, prays God for pardon of her sins, and thinks all is ended; finds it horrible to dissemble her feelings in public; goes through the torture of altering her prayer about the duke. She is disgusted with common people, harrowed by jealousy, envy, deceit and every hideous feeling, yet feels herself frozen in the depth, and moving only on the surface. When her voice improves she welcomes it with tears and feels an all-powerful queen. The man she loves should never speak to another. Her journal she resolves to make the most instructive book that ever was or ever will be written. She esteems herself so great a treasure that no one is worthy of her; pities those who think they can please her; thinks herself a real divinity; prays to the moon to show her in dreams her future husband, and quarrels with her photographs.