Her occultism has been grossly exaggerated. Her superstitions were of the most trivial description: she thought that a bright day was propitious for a journey, that the gift of an ikon to her was not propitious, but her fancy for the sign of the Swastika was not for the Swastika as a _charm_, only as a symbol. She told me that the ancients believed in the Swastika as the source of motion, the emblem of Divinity. The significance of it as a “luck bringer” never crossed her mind. “Faith, Love and Hope are _all_ that matter,” she would say. I will readily admit that she possessed a strong element of mysticism which coloured much of her life; this was akin to the “dreaming” propensities of her grandfather, the Prince Consort, and environment, and the Faith of her adoption fostered this mystic sense. English writers condemn this trait. I have before me a book in which the author quoted the opinion of one of the most bitter enemies of the Empress. “Alexandra Feodorovna,” he says, “is an interesting type for future psychologists, historians and dramatic authors ... a German Princess educated in England, on the Russian Throne, a convert to a peasant’s religious sect, and an adept at occultism. She is made of the substance that those terrible, tyrannical Princesses of the XV-XVII centuries in the western countries of Europe were made of; those Princesses who united in their personality the despot Sovereign, bordering on the witch, and skirting the fanatical visionary, who were completely in the hands of their reactionary advisers, and their insinuating wily confessors.” I had read the book containing this extract before I began to write my memories of the real Tsaritsa. I read many passages with eyes half blinded with tears, sometimes I felt mine would be an impossible task. How could I, an unknown name in England, attempt to combat such statements? I am not assuming for one moment that the writer of the book was ill-disposed towards the Empress; he wrote for posterity, setting down his own opinion and that of others. But I am curious to know if he ever knew the Empress personally, and if he ever shared the intimate life of the Imperial Family. I did _both_--not only in the days before and during the war, but also in the days of despair, when murder and sudden death faced us at every turn. It was then no time for pretence--but the Empress never changed; she was the same unselfish soul, the same devoted mother and wife, the same loyal friend.