“Perhaps it may seem strange that I should doubt your self-knowledge. But, to my mind, you are, first of all, a very good woman, and have been so from your birth up. You honour what is good because the aspiration towards the right, as well as the hatred of lies and evil, is innate in you. You are clever, and consequently sceptical. An intelligent man cannot help being a sceptic; at least he must at some period of his life experience the most agonising scepticism. When your innate scepticism led you to the negation of tradition and dogma you naturally began to seek some way of escape from your doubts. You found it _partly_ in the pantheistic point of view, and _partly_ in music; but you discovered no perfect reconcilement with faith. Hating all evil and falsehood, you enclose yourself in your narrow family circle in order to shut out the consciousness of human wickedness. You have done much good, because, like your innate love of nature and art, this doing good is an invincible craving of your soul. You help others, not in order to purchase that eternal happiness which you neither quite believe in nor quite deny, but because you are so made that you cannot help doing good.” _To N. F. Von Meck._ “VIENNA, _November_ 23_rd_ (_December_ 5_th_), 1877. “The continuation of my letter:-- “My feeling about the Church is quite different to yours. For me it still possesses much poetical charm. I very often attend the services. I consider the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom one of the greatest productions of art. If we follow the service very carefully, and enter into the meaning of every ceremony, it is impossible not to be profoundly moved by the liturgy of our own Orthodox Church. I also love vespers. To stand on a Saturday evening in the twilight in some little old country church, filled with the smoke of incense; to lose oneself in the eternal questions, _whence_, _why_, and _whither_; to be startled from one’s trance by a burst from the choir; to be carried away by the poetry of this music; to be thrilled with quiet rapture when the Golden Gates of the Iconostasis are flung open and the words ring out, ‘Praise the name of the Lord!’--all this is infinitely precious to me! One of my deepest joys!