Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/73
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1 July 1896
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 286-7

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 1 July 1896, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  The Homestead
2:  July 1st 1896
3: 
4:  Dear Mr Smuts
5: 
6:  Thankyou heartily for the letter I got just now. I respond sincerely
7:  to its sympathetic attitude. With regard to the native the four later
8:  articles of the series will explain it as they all deal more or less
9:  with it. All I would ask now, is, why you should think it a necessary
10:  corollary that, if the dark & light races do not cross in blood there
11:  must of necessity be hatred & bitterness between them? I hold (of
12:  course I may be mistaken) that so unlike are the black dark & white
13:  races in this country, that were they equals in education & in social
14:  rights, & were they absolutely mingled together politically, in the
15:  matter of marriage the white would still prefer the white & the black
16:  the black, & fusion would go on very slowly. It is exactly because of
17:  the terrible chasm which in the minds of many men divides them from
18:  the dark races that the mixture of bloods in its least desirable form
19:  goes on. It was not when the native races were free & richly endowed
20:  with social and political rights, that the great fusion took place, &
21:  I believe that exactly in proportion as we raise & educate the native
22:  races ^& endow them with social and political rights^ such fusion will
23:  become rare. Where it does occur, it will be as the result of a vast
24:  affection and sympathy, & will so lose its worst features. llllll
25: 
26:  No, my papers are not the result of marrying a political husband!
27:  These articles were all written exactly as they now stand four years
28:  before I met him for the first time!!!
29: 
30:  He sends friendly greetings to you. He went to hear your lecture, &
31:  his remark when he came back, was; (I unfortunately unable to go!) –
32:  "He is very earnest & sincere, but he doesn’t know Rhodes!" I will
33:  also allow that when the first news of the raid reached us, one of his
34:  first remarks was, -"What will Smuts say now!!!" To me, the forefront
35:  of all Mr Rhodes’s offences, has been his attitude towards the Dutch
36:  who loved & trusted him. Many men are devoted to the winning of money
37:  & fame for themselves; but few have deliberately stabbed to the heart
38:  a whole people who trusted in, & followed them. The position of the
39:  Dutchmen who have changed their attitude towards Mr Rhodes during the
40:  last few months is a matter for anything but ridicule to me. It is a
41:  matter of profound shame that the action of an Englishman should have
42:  made it necessary for them so to change.
43: 
44:  Both my husband & myself will be delighted to see you if ever you
45:  should visit Kimberley; let us know if ever you come up, please.
46: 
47:  Yours very sincerely
48:  Olive Schreiner
49: 
50: 
51: 

Notation
The articles Schreiner refers to are those originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Smuts's lecture was on behalf of his then employer De Beers and given in response to Schreiner's The Political Situation, read by Cronwright-Schreiner in Kimberley Town Hall in August 1895. His lecture was reported verbatim in the Diamond Fields Advertiser on 30 October 1895 and is reprinted in (eds) W.K. Hancock and Jean van der Poel (1966) Selections From the Smuts Papers vol 1 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.80-100. Rive's (1987) version of Schreiner's letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/74
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	8 August 1896
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 288

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 8 August 1896, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898, with visits, sometimes extended, elsewhere over this period.

1:  Aug 8 / 96
2: 
3:  Dear Mr Smuts
4: 
5:  I have been in bed almost the whole month or would long ago have
6:  written to thank you for your kind letter. I’m glad you liked my
7:  husbands speech I didn’t like your leader in the Telegraph at all as
8:  you will have expected: but I like an open enemy (politically) as you
9:  have always been, & it will give me great pleasure if ever I have the
10:  chance of meeting you. ^(We can have a political fight!)^ I will
11: 
12:  I am just starting off for the sea air at the Kowie, which I hope will
13:  pull me together & fit me for work.
14: 
15:  Yours very sincerely
16:  Olive Schreiner
17: 
18:  I thought it was perfectly right for you as my political opponent to
19:  turn my article about as you did; but not quite right ^generous^ of the
20:  Editor to give it you to write on after what had passed between us. I
21:  hope you didn’t mistake the distinction!
22: 
23:  ^I still regard the Telegraph as the best paper in South Africa &
24:  should do anything I could to aid its circulation. I don’t think one
25:  should ever allow any personal pains to touch ones impersonal
26:  judgement.^
27: 
28: 
29: 

Notation
The leaders in the South African Telegraph at this time are unsigned. However, the leader in its Thursday 2 July (p.4) issue is headed 'THE HALF-CASTE PROBLEM' and says about the third instalment of Schreiner's 'Stray Thoughts on South Arica' being reprinted from the Fortnightly Review in the same issue that '... her voice, if not the wisest that speaks to South Africa today, is certainly the most gifted. ...'. It goes on to comment on the newspaper's earlier reprint of a related instalment providing a 'remarkable delineation of Boer character'. While it disagrees with what she says about the Boers and some of her argument, it twists what she actually wrote in the essay by adding 'we yet endorse most fully and unreservedly her severe judgement on the half-caste, and look upon the intermixture of black and white in South Africa as in every way the darkest spot of our civilization...'. Schreiner's actual argument was the very different one that people of 'mixed race' were shunned by both whites and Africans and were consequently 'de-culturated', adding that this might change over time. As Schreiner elsewhere criticises Smuts for twisting her words, this is certainly the leader she is referring to.

The article being referred to is one of those originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War (1899-1902) prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in various respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/75
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 January 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 344-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 23 January 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date of this letter has been written on in an unknown hand.

1:  Primrose Terrace
2:  Berea
3:  Johannesburg
4: 
5:  Dear Mr Smuts
6: 
7:  Some time ago my husband told me that Mr Rous had mentioned to him
8:  that you regretted he had entered the a lawyer’s office here as you
9:  would have liked to see him in the public service, & if he were
10:  willing would be glad if he would now enter it.
11: 
12:  I may tell you that I had one of the bitterest struggles within myself
13:  that I have ever had before I could feel that it could be right that
14:  my husband should enter the Transvaal service, whatever use I believed
15:  he might be of to South Africa by doing so. Of all the lies Rhodes &
16:  his followers have spread about me none has cut me so deeply as the
17:  lie circulated in England that I had received £4,000 from the
18:  Transvaal Government for writing Peter Halket. It cut straight at the
19:  use & value of what I have written & of what I may yet write. Further
20:  the idea that an artist should for money set pen to paper & prostitute
21:  their intuitions by writing to order at all, is an accusation in my
22:  eyes, far worse even than murder. It is a moral & spiritual murder on
23:  one’s own soul which one would commit. I knew if my husband accepted
24:  your offer though at the greatest sacrifice to himself (& thought I
25:  should never have touched one farthing of his salary as I support
26:  myself by my own work) that yet, the Rhodes party would have made it
27:  an excuse for repeating their unholy lie & injuring the usefulness of
28:  what I may write in the future, yet further. It was only after a very
29:  stiff struggle with myself that I came to the conclusion, that if my
30:  husband felt he could be of any use in the anti-capitalist fight here,
31:  nothing ought to stand in his way.
32: 
33:  Yesterday my husband showed me a letter he had received from you in
34:  which you spoke of the wish of the Transvaal Government to help us! My
35:  idea has always been to help the Transvaal, & not that it should help
36:  me! I feel that in the history of the world no nobler or more gallant
37:  fight has been fought than that of this little Republic with the
38:  powers which seek on every side to engulf it. But the freedom &
39:  independence of the Transvaal has for me a much more serious meaning.
40:  I look upon the Free State & the Transvaal as the two last little
41:  sluice-gates we have left keeping out the flood of Capitalism which
42:  would otherwise sweep in & overwhelm South Africa. The little fight of
43:  Doornkop is to me the most memorable, not only in the history of South
44:  Africa, but of this century: there for the first time in the history
45:  of the world, troops armed, fed, paid, & led (or rather misled!) by
46:  the capitalist horde, met the simple citizens of a state & were
47:  defeated. The average Boer fighting at Doornkop no doubt only thought
48:  he was fighting for his little state, just at the Dutch of Holland
49:  when in the 16th century they fought Philip, no doubt believed they
50:  were fighting merely to free their country from a tyrant, & had no
51:  idea they were leading in humanity’s great fight for freedom of
52:  thought and enlightenment! God’s soldiers sometimes fight on larger
53:  battlefields than they dream of. To me the Transvaal is now engaged in
54:  leading in a very small way in that vast battle which will during the
55:  twentieth century be fought out - probably most bitterly &
56:  successfully in America & Germany - between engorged capitalists & the
57:  citizens of different races.
58: 
59:  It is this that makes our little struggle here something almost sacred,
60:  & of world-wide importance. Doornkop was a stab in the vitals of the
61:  international capitalist horde, from Roths-child & Rosebery to Rhodes
62:  & Harris. No doubt for the present they may beat us; but there are
63:  more Doornkops coming in other lands, & another fifty years will see
64:  the battle won. Feeling as I do on this matter you will understand how
65:  intense is my desire to see this independence & complete autonomy of
66:  the Transvaal; (the day when federation maybe is desirable may come,
67:  but I hope it is yet far distant) - & who glad I should be to assist
68:  the Transvaal government in the fight; but under no circumstances & no
69:  condition could I ever consent to accept the least consideration from
70:  it. The only thing the Transvaal Government could do for me, would be
71:  to enfranchise all the wives & daughters of the Burgers, & who
72:  constitute the real back-bone of the country. But that they are not
73:  likely to do!
74: 
75:  Please give my kind regards to your wife whom I should very much like
76:  to meet. I am sure I should sympathize with her from what I have heard
77:  of her. I am sorry my health does not allow of my going over to
78:  Pretoria.
79: 
80:  Yours faithfully
81:  Olive Schreiner
82: 
83: 
84: 

Notation
Schreiner is referring to her allegorical novella Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in various respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/76
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday 19 May 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 353

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 19 May 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Friday
2: 
3:  Dear Mr Smuts
4: 
5:  I don’t think I shall be able to go to Bloemfontein as I’m too
6:  busy writing. I am writing an article on the situation which I hope
7:  will may open the eyes of the English public to the true condition of
8:  affairs a little. I will be able to say in it all I would have said to
9:  Milner if I had met him personally, & will send him a copy. If it is
10:  too long for the ^news^ papers here, I shall have to print it in
11:  pamphlet form, but I hope it will appear in the paper on Monday.
12: 
13:  Yours sincerely
14:  Olive Schreiner.
15: 
16: 
17: 

Notation
The 'article on the situation' referred to is Schreiner's An English South African's View of the Situation, originally published in the South African News over three successive days; see 'Words in Season. An English South African's View of the Situation' South African News 1 June 1899 (p.8), 2 June 1899 (p.8) and 3 June 1899 (also p.8). It was also reprinted in a number of other newspapers. It then was published as a pamphlet, then as a book. A second edition of the book was ready but withdrawn from publication by Schreiner when the South African War started in October 1899, so as not to profit from this. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/77
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 29 May 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 353-4

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 29 May 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Tuesday
2: 
3:  Dear Mrs Smuts
4: 
5:  Thank you so much for your letter. Mr Esselen has asked us to come
6:  over & stay with them from Saturday to Monday Morning, but if I
7:  can’t sleep at Mr Esselens owing to the house being too low can we
8:  come up & sleep with at your house? ^I don’t know where his house is,
9:  & it may be in the damp part of the town.^ We will come over some other
10:  week to stay with you.
11: 
12:  I am anxious for tomorrow’s news that I shall find it difficult to
13:  sleep tonight. The plotters here are in great hope that war will come.
14: 
15:  Give little Goosie a kiss from me. I hope he is quite well again.
16: 
17:  Yours lovingly.
18:  Olive Schreiner
19: 
20: 
21: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/78
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	June 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 352-3

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Strictly Private
2: 
3:  Dear Mr Smuts,
4: 
5:  1) Do you think there would be any use in my going to see Sir Alfred
6:  Milner? I have letters of introduction to him, & many of my dearest
7:  friends in England are his. & In a letter of his, which I saw
8:  the other day he said that one of the things he had most looked
9:  forward to in coming to South Africa was seeing me, &c. If I could
10:  have an hours conversation alone with him I feel there are one or two
11:  points I might make clear to him. I should especially dwell on the
12:  nature of the resistance England has to expect if she tries to crush
13:  South Africa. I could also explain to him that the mass of
14:  Johannesburgers are increasingly against war. There are many English
15:  men here who five years ago would have fought the Transvaal Government
16:  who would now like to shoot the Leaguers for making trouble. Even in
17:  the last six months the tone here has changed very much. If I do go of
18:  course if I do go to Bloemfontein to meet him, I shall be most careful,
19:  not to mention to anyone that I am going there with the intention of
20:  meeting him, as those about him would prevent my doing so. If you
21:  think there might be use in my trying to see him at Bloemfontein,
22:  could you give me a free railway pass for the journey? If you think
23:  there would be no advantage in my going let me know.
24: 
25:  2) If the anniversary of Gladstone’s birthday or death day is near,
26:  would it not be well for the president to grant any concessions he has
27:  to make on that day, connecting them with Gladstones memory, sending
28:  home wires to Mrs Gladstone & the family, & if possible, making the
29:  day a public holiday in Pretoria & Johannesburg? This would be felt
30:  very deeply by the Liberal party at home, which is not dead though out
31:  of power for the moment. What we have to convince England of is that
32:  we are not to be coerced, but that we are not unmindful of any
33:  sympathy & justice which she has shown or can show us. I do not know
34:  whether this idea is work-able: the effect would be exceedingly good
35:  if it were. We cannot win the capitalists to our side; we can win the
36:  mass the thinking English people in England & Johannesburg.
37: 
38:  3) Doubtless you know that the Leaguers boast that they have bought
39:  traitors in the Johannesburg fort, who will betray it to them in time
40:  of war. If war should break out would it not be well at the last
41:  moment to send new men there who cannot have been bribed. There were
42:  twelve apostles; but one sold his master for thirty pieces of silver.
43: 
44:  Don’t trouble to answer this unless you think there would be any use
45:  in my going to Bloemfontein to see Milner. I know how busy you are.
46: 
47:  Yours sincerely
48:  Olive Schreiner
49: 
50:  ^Of course you know Mul Myburg and the Leaguers here are most anxious
51:  the franchise should not be granted.^
52: 
53: 
54: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/79
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1899
Address From	Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 350-1

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Box 406
2:  Johannesburg
3: 
4:  Dear Mr Smuts
5: 
6:  It was a great pleasure to me to meet your wife. My heart has seldom
7:  gone out so to any woman at first meeting her. I am coming over to
8:  Pretoria on Friday next with an American friend Mrs Chapin. We shall
9:  be at the hotel. Would you & Mrs Smuts be able to come & have lunch
10:  with us at mid-day? I have asked the Reitzes. If you can come would
11:  you name the time that would be most convenient for you & Mr Reitz. I
12:  know you are too busy to spare much time, & Mrs Chapin is very anxious
13:  to meet you. She leaves for England in a few days. She is a great
14:  friend of ha the Governors & in constant correspondence with
15:  him; she also knows the Chamberlains with whom she will probably stay
16:  on her return to England; ^as she did before she came out here,^ yet she
17:  is an American & I believe her sympathies are largely with us. I tell
18:  you all this because anything said will go straight to Chamberlain -
19:  Mr Bene Milner; & it might be well to impress her with the fact
20:  that while we don’t want to fight if Chamberlain is determined to
21:  drive us to war, it will not be the walk over the field that they
22:  dream of! A well-known man ^from Cape Town^ with whom I dined the other
23:  evening scouted the idea that 9,000 (nine thousand) English troops
24:  could not walk over the Transvaal and Free State! And I think it is
25:  the widely spread idea that if the war does come it will be a
26:  comparatively light matter, which makes many so eager for it.
27: 
28:  I know that Mrs Chapin has been asked to investigate matters while
29:  here & report to Chamberlain & Milner, so it is not unimportant she
30:  should be rightly impressed.
31: 
32:  Yours sincerely
33:  Olive Schreiner
34: 
35:  If you should be coming to Johannesburg I shall be very glad to see
36:  you, at any time. There is much I should like to discuss with you.
37:  Please give the enclosed note to Mr Reitz, & explain why I want him &
38:  you to meet Mrs Chapin.
39: 
40: 
41: 

Notation
The enclosed note is no longer attached. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in various respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/80
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	June 1899
Address From	Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 363

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Box 406
2:  Johannesburg
3: 
4:  Dear Mrs Smuts
5: 
6:  Thank you very much for your letter, & the book. I began reading it
7:  last night when I went to bed & finished it before morning.
8: 
9:  What I feel most is a great sympathy with the writer’s view of life
10:  & love. I suppose she it is by a woman. I am keeping it a couple of
11:  days longer for my husband to read.
12: 
13:  If we should be able to come over to Pretoria, my husband & I, next
14:  Saturday afternoon to stay with you till Monday afternoon would it be
15:  quite convenient? If it would, I’ll wire on Friday afternoon if we
16:  are able to come. My heart has been troubling me a bit since I came
17:  back, & I’m not sure I shall be able to come. But it would be a
18:  great pleasure to spend a day with you & little Baas Koosie, a baby is
19:  a great joy to me. My little girl died when she was two days old.
20: 
21:  I think we shall not go to the Free State. My husband would have all
22:  the mechanical editing of the paper, proof correcting &c to do, & he
23:  feels he could not do justice to paper with so little time for leaders
24:  &c: the salary is only £400 so he could not afford to pay £250 out
25:  of it for an assistant. If they are willing to give him he will go but
26:  not otherwise. It is just to help the South African cause that he wants
27:  to go! Here he can do nothing, as by the terms of his agreement as an
28:  articled clerk he must take no part in politics. I would rather stay
29:  here, but he chaffs so much against his inactivity here that if it can
30:  be arranged we shall go. We shall know by the end of the week. Don’t
31:  mention the possibility of our going to anyone, as my husband fears
32:  the men with whom he is will make a difficulty about letting him go if
33:  they know the purpose for which he is leaving. They are "Reformers".
34: 
35:  Please give the enclosed to your husband.
36: 
37:  One reason why I should like to stay in Johannesburg is that then I
38:  shall see more of you.
39: 
40:  Yours most sincerely
41:  Olive Schreiner
42: 
43:  ^Mrs Smuts^
44: 
45: 
46: 

Notation
The book Schreiner received from Isie Smuts has not been established. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/81
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Monday 7 June 1899
Address From	Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 358

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 7 June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Box 406
2:  Johannesburg
3:  Monday
4: 
5:  Dear Mr Smuts,
6: 
7:  I am coming to Pretoria for the day on Friday bringing over two
8:  cousins of my husband’s Mr who have come up from the Colony on a
9:  visit to the Transvaal. They are two of the wealthiest & most
10:  important men in the Hope Town district, having much influence with
11:  the farmers as well as town’s folk, & I want them to see things in a
12:  true light while they are up here, as every little tells.
13: 
14:  They are strongly on "our side" & are very anxious to meet the
15:  President even if it be merely to shake hands. Do you think it could
16:  be managed? I have written to Mrs Reitz asking her, ^to try & arrange it,^
17:  but it has just struck me she may be from home, & perhaps, if she is,
18:  or can’t arrange it, you might be good enough to do so. I know how
19:  very busy you must be now with Raad sitting, & shall not wonder if you
20:  can’t. I shall come over by the ^train which arrives in Pretoria at^
21:  11.36, & leave again the same evening.
22: 
23:  If I could have a few minutes talk with you I would be glad, as I
24:  would like to know your opinion of a plan I have for forming an
25:  "Uitlander’s Peace Association" in Johannesburg in opposition to the
26:  League. The mass of Johannesburg do not want to fight: & it is only
27:  necessary to organize this public feeling in some way to make it
28:  effective.
29: 
30:  Yours sincerely
31:  Olive Schreiner
32: 
33:  My husband is unable to come over, I am coming alone.
34: 
35: 
36: 

Notation
Schreiner was going to Paarde Kraal in connection with a peace congress meeting. She sent written addresses to some of the Volkskongresses and peace congresses and spoke at others, as follows: Graaff-Reinet Volkskongres, April 1900 (spoke); Cape Town women's meeting, June 1900 (spoke); Somerset East peace congress, October 1900 (a letter of address); Paarl, November 1900 peace congress (a letter of address); Worcester Volkskongres, December 1900 (spoke). Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/82
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	13 June 1899
Address From	Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 362

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 13 June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  2 Primrose Terrace
2:  Box 406
3:  Johannesburg
4:  June 13th 1899.
5: 
6:  Dear Mr Smuts
7: 
8:  I am going to Paarde Kraal on Saturday as I want to write an account
9:  of the meeting. My husband can’t go with me. Is any friend of yours
10:  going from Johannesburg whe with whom I could perhaps go, as
11:  there will I expect be a large crowd & I may not be able to get near
12:  the speakers ^if I am alone.^ If it had been unreadable enough I think it
13:  suitable I shall send the account to one of the English papers.
14: 
15:  I wish I could have had a longer talk with you. I am feeling a little
16:  hopeless about Milner; but things may be better than one thinks. I
17:  think Vessels’s speech paper read at the meeting the other night did
18:  much harm here. I can’t understand a South African taking such a
19:  stand, one can forgive anything to a man who has been only a few
20:  months in the country.
21: 
22:  Love to your wife & boy
23: 
24:  Yours ever
25:  Olive Schreiner
26: 
27: 
28: 

Notation
Schreiner was going to Paarde Kraal in connection with a peace congress meeting. She sent written addresses to some of the Volkskongresses and peace congresses and spoke at others, as follows: Graaff-Reinet Volkskongres, April 1900 (spoke); Cape Town women's meeting, June 1900 (spoke); Somerset East peace congress, October 1900 (a letter of address); Paarl, November 1900 peace congress (a letter of address); Worcester Volkskongres, December 1900 (spoke). Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/83
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 28 June 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 364-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 28 June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Tuesday
2: 
3:  Dear Mrs Smuts
4: 
5:  Many thanks for your letter. I am coming over to Pretoria on Thursd
6:  Friday with two dear friends Miss Greene & Miss Molteno (sister of the
7:  two Bond members at the Cape). They are both intensely on our side.
8:  Miss Greene is an English woman who has been only 12 years at the Cape,
9:  but I think she feels more the injustice & evil of Englands conduct
10:  towards the Transvaal than any of us! She is quite ready to fight for
11:  the Transvaal!! They have come up just to see how things are going.
12:  They are such sweet simple women I’m sure you will love them. Can we
13:  all three come & have dinner with you on Friday. Don’t mind saying
14:  if it will put you out, but they want so much to meet you & your
15:  husband. We shall come by the train which reaches Pretoria at ^12.40^ &
16:  shall come up to your house soon after. If we have They I hope
17:  are such dear simple souls, who hate dress & fashion as much as you or
18:  I do. I know you will love them.
19: 
20:  I’m so glad the little son is better. I was so afraid he was going
21:  to be ill when we were there.
22: 
23:  I am not at all restful about public matters; we may give, & give,
24:  till we have nothing left to give, & then have to fight in the end! As
25:  long as we have this accursed gold they will never leave us in peace;
26:  but time is with us, & every six months or year we can stave off war,
27:  makes our position stronger.
28: 
29:  Yours ever lovingly
30:  Olive Schreiner
31: 
32: 
33: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/84
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	7 July 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 367-8

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 7 July 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  July 7th 1899
2: 
3:  Dear Mrs Smuts,
4: 
5:  I’ve been meaning to write ever since we were at Pretoria, but Miss
6:  Greene was very ill when we came back (she only got out of bed to go
7:  over) & my dear friends only left the day before yesterday. They so
8:  much enjoyed their day in Pretoria: but Johannesburg they hated as I
9:  think any true-hearted English person must. Here you see the English
10:  race at its worst. That is what saddens one so who knows the other
11:  noble & generous side of the English spirit.
12: 
13:  I saw Onze Jan when he passed through, & was much grieved to see how
14:  ill & old he was looking.
15: 
16:  I hope our little Coosie is still looking so bonny. Thank Ella for her
17:  letter which I was glad to get to-day. I don’t know when I shall be
18:  able to come over to Pretoria again as I must settle down to my
19:  writing.
20: 
21:  Yours ever lovingly
22:  Olive Schreiner
23: 
24:  ^Did Mr Esselen get his books?^
25: 
26: 
27: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/85
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	8 August 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 372

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 8 August 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Aug 8th 1899
2: 
3:  Dear Mrs Smuts
4: 
5:  I am sending you the book I mentioned by my friend Ed Carpenter that I
6:  am so fond of. I fancy you will like it. I have been ill ever since I
7:  came back from Pretoria that day, never able to lie down at night with
8:  asthma, or I would have come over to Pretoria.
9: 
10:  I am feeling so anxious & almost hopeless about public matter. We are
11:  like sheep surrounded by Chamberlain, Rhodes, Uitlander wolves; but
12:  sheep can sometimes give a good kick when they are fighting for their
13:  lives.
14: 
15:  Much love to you & the little son.
16: 
17:  Yours ever
18:  Olive Schreiner
19: 
20: 
21: 

Notation
The book by Carpenter that Schreiner refers to is either: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; or, Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/86
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	18 August 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 373-4

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 18 August 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Dear Mrs Smuts
2: 
3:  I was so sorry I couldn’t come to see you, as ^I wanted,^ but I was
4:  ill the day I was in Pretoria. I think I shall try going for a week to
5:  Bloemfontein next week, as ^the Doctor says I must go.^ I don’t think
6:  there can be war now; Chamberlain cannot be so absolutely mad. The
7:  mass of the English people are certainly strongly against it, but they
8:  don’t make themselves felt as they should. I have got scores of
9:  letters like the enclosed from every part of England & Ireland. But
10:  somehow I have a feeling that whether we fight or don’t things will
11:  come right: only we mustn’t give up too much: there are worse things
12:  than fighting even.
13: 
14:  Much love to you.
15: 
16:  Olive Schreiner
17: 
18:  ^This is a letter from my dear friend Miss Greene who came over with me.
19:  There are many English people who feel as strongly as she does, ^^but
20:  the scoundrels are in power! It is hard not to wish Chamberlain would die.^^
21:  She was so delighted with the portrait of old President Kruger & his wife.^
22: 

Notation
Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899. Schreiner’s final insertion is written on an enclosed letter dated 1 August 1899 from Alice Greene, who writes that:

'I am writing in pencil because I am sitting in the shade on the lawn. It is so fiercely hot that I could bear the house no longer. It is still hotter out here, but at any rate it is out, & therefore more endurable. Yesterday I received the beautiful photograph from you of the old President & his wife. I almost cried for joy – it seems to me so very beautiful. I like it better even than yours, because there there were the weak & evil faces cringing behind, & here there is nothing but a noble strength & calm. I do not know when I have been more touched & stirred than by those two old figures. It makes me cry now to think of them, & to think of all the wild beasts howling & slinking round them. I do not know how to thank you enough for the photograph. I ought to have written to you before this but public affairs seem to me so bad & sad that I am getting quite bad & sad too, & then it is not fair to write to you away in that wicked city. Chamberlain makes one feel perfectly murderous. I never knew an Englishman could be so contemptibly ungenerous & unfair. To turn upon the Transvaal now after all they have conceded seems so horribly mean that I wonder the whole world does not cry shame upon the English government. Instead of that the colonies offer to send help. I sometimes wonder if the world is mad or if I am mad. At any rate England does not seem the same England I used to know, & one’s whole being seems turned topsy turvy. I wish you could send a grain of comfort. But I know that is impossible now you live in Johannesburg…'.

Rive’s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/87
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 August 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 374-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 22 August 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Dear Mrs Smuts
2: 
3:  Thank you for your kind letter: if it were possible I much should like
4:  to come to Pretoria. Thank you so much but the doctor will not allow
5:  me to go over even for a day. He says it was the last day I spent
6:  there made me so bad.
7: 
8:  I shall perhaps leave this week on a few ^two^ weeks visit to my
9:  husbands cousin farm in the Colony. but I am so afraid of war breaking
10:  out while I am gone. I have such a strange feeling that I want to be
11:  here in time of war that there is something I could do if I get better.
12:  But if war does come I don’t see how it can be for another 2 months.
13:  They cannot fight till they have the troops from India here, unless
14:  they have a larger body in the country than they pretend.
15: 
16:  A great friend of ours from England Mr John Hobson arrived here
17:  yesterday. He is going late to Pretoria. He is strongly on our side, a
18:  man as true & honest as steel. He is going to Pretoria later. He has
19:  come out to study the South African question & write on it. Would it
20:  be possible instead of having me for you to invite him to spend a few
21:  days with you? He is a very simple dear old fellow, would give you no
22:  trouble; & I want him really to get to see & know our people in
23:  Pretoria which he won’t do if he goes to an hotel. He is one of the
24:  most brilliant writers in England, was at one time the Editor of the
25:  Progressive Review. He can & will do our cause great service.
26: 
27:  Good bye. My love to you all, & thank you for your loving wish to have
28:  me. I am so ill now I should only be a trouble to everyone if I could
29:  come.
30: 
31:  Olive Schreiner
32: 
33: 
34: 

Notation
From his study of the South African question referred to here, Hobson published: John A. Hobson (1900) War In South Africa London: James Nisbet; John A. Hobson (1902) Imperialism: A Study London: Allen and Unwin. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/88
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	September 1899
Address From	Karree Kloof, Krankuil, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 379

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, September 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed on the Karee Kloof farm near Krankuil from late August to mid November 1899.

1:  My dear friend
2: 
3:  I am sending back the book it was in the desk in my husbands study, he
4:  thought I had sent it, & I thought he had. I send you with it a little
5:  book which I love very much called "Englands Ideal by my dear friend
6:  Edward Carpenter. I think you will like it; let me know what you think
7:  of it when you have read it. You must try for baby’s sake not to
8:  feel the hard times through which we are passing, as your good health
9:  means his.
10: 
11:  What is your little sisters name. I want to write it in a book I want
12:  to send her.
13: 
14:  Yours ever
15:  Olive Schreiner
16: 
17:  Tell your husband I will show him the answers I get from John Morley
18:  &c today, when they come. They may be interesting: but it may be all
19:  over with us one way or another before they come.
20: 
21: 
22: 

Notation
The book Schreiner sent back to Isie Smuts has not been established; Carpenter's book is: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/89
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	24 September 1899
Address From	Karree Kloof, Krankuil, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 380-1

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 24 September 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Sep 24 / 99
2:  Private
3: 
4:  Dear Mr Smuts
5: 
6:  I have had a cable from the New York Journal asking me take the post
7:  of war correspondent to that paper, ^in case of war.^ It is one of the
8:  most powerful in America & if possible we ought to have someone with
9:  our Burgers in case of war who will report our view side fairly. I
10:  shall take the it ^offer^ if I am at all physically able. Will you wire
11:  me a reply telling me, in the first place, whether the Transvaal
12:  authorities will give me facilities ^for gaining information, &^ for
13:  going with the men ^Burgers to the front:^ &, secondly, where in case wh
14:  war is proclaimed you think I had better go at first, to Bloemfontein
15:  to Pretoria or to the Natal frontier? If you wire "yes" to the first
16:  question; & give the name of a place as answer to the second I shall
17:  know what you mean. I shall receive £110 a month which will pay my
18:  travelling expenses, but it would greatly add to my usefulness if I
19:  could receive advice as to where I could be most useful. All I fear is
20:  that if I am in the Transvaal the other war correspondents who are
21:  with the English troops will send off news long before unreadable I
22:  can, ^as our Transvaal wires are sure to be cut,^ poisoning the public
23:  mind. Please advise me by letter, as well as wire, & tell me where I
24:  can be most useful. I am so sorry to hear you have been unfit. I hope
25:  you are up again in strength.
26: 
27:  I sent an article on the "Boer" to a New York paper two weeks ago at
28:  the request of the editor; but I fear it is too late for any writing
29:  to be of use now. Any information you may give me will be kept
30:  strictly private of course, not even to be mentioned to my brother or
31:  friends in Cape Town. I am better but one would give much for a little
32:  more physical strength at this time.
33: 
34:  Olive Schreiner
35: 
36:  Please address the wire
37:  Olive Schreiner
38:  Strydenburg that will be enough & the letter to
39:  Karree Kloof via Kran Kuil.
40: 
41:  Please show my letter to Reitz & Grobler, & would you or Reitz please
42:  send me a letter stating who I & my husband are; that if travelling
43:  through the Free State in time of war, the Burgers we may come across
44:  will know who we are & what our object is, & ^please^ sign it legibly.
45:  They might in some out-of-the-way place mistake us for "Roi-neks"! &
46:  stop us.
47: 
48: 
49: 

Notation
The article referred is probably 'The Boer', one of her 'Returned South African' essays. Schreiner published these essays in various journals between 1891 and 1900. A set of them was to have been published as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'; however, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some other essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/186/90
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	24 September 1899
Address From	Karree Kloof, Krankuil, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 380

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 24 September 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  O Karree Kloof
2:  Via Kran Kuil
3:  Sep 24 / 99
4: 
5:  Dear Mrs Smuts
6: 
7:  You are often in my thoughts at this time. If war breaks out perhaps I
8:  may see you soon.
9: 
10:  I am much better though not yet quite strong after the miscarriage I
11:  had the last week at Pr Johannesburg. I knew I should never go my time
12:  in all that sorrow & darkness.
13: 
14:  Give my love to Mrs Roos.
15: 
16:  You see the better half of the English nation is moving for us now,
17:  but I fear me it is too late.
18: 
19:  Love to you & your little sister & Koosie.
20: 
21:  Olive Schreiner
22: 
23: 
24: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/78A
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	July 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, July 1901, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover C.C.
2: 
3:  Dear Isie Smuts
4: 
5:  It was indeed a joy to me to receive your letter. My thoughts have
6:  always been with you & yours, especially when I heard the news of your
7:  sweet little Koosie’s death. I am thankful to know you have got Ella
8:  with you. Give our warm greetings to your husband if write to him.
9:  Your good news with regard to this is very comforting. Is your Brother
10:  quite well? The one I met at your house.
11: 
12:  Yes, dear friend, how well I realize your feelings with regard to the
13:  three little ones who have been taken from you. I always feel that if
14:  my little girl had lived I could have borne all. For the six months
15:  while my husband was in England I was alone on a farm in the Victoria
16:  district. When he came out he returned we came up here & were here for
17:  a few weeks & then he went down ^to Cape Town^ & could not get a pass
18:  from the military to return, so I was here quite alone again for thre
19:  six months. Then I became so ill that with my heart that the doctor
20:  here got a pass from the Commandant who kindly allowed my husband to
21:  come up to me & we have been together again for some weeks. He will
22:  soon have to go down again to try & earn something, & I will have to
23:  stay here as I cannot go to the coast on account of the asthma & my
24:  heart.
25: 
26:  You know that the Uitlanders burnt everything we possessed before they
27:  left Johannesburg in October 1899, & it is almost impossible for my
28:  husband to get any work now, & I cannot write any more. I wrote
29:  several long things & sent them to England, but the publishers would
30:  not take them as they are boycotting me.
31: 
32:  Please write to me soon & tell me how it goes with you all. You
33:  don’t know how often I am thinking of you all.
34: 
35:  Yours lovingly
36:  Olive Schreiner
37: 
38: 
39: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/78B
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1 September 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 1 September 1901, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sep 1st 1901
3: 
4:  Dear Isie Smuts
5: 
6:  Thank you with all my heart for both your letters. I did not answer
7:  your first because I was too ill. I am much better now. Thank your
8:  sister & father-in-law deeply for their kind wish that I should go &
9:  stay with them on their farm; but I could not get a pass now for
10:  Malmesbury district, & it is too near the sea eaven there for me
11:  to live. I have to stop up in these high dry parts. My chest is much
12:  worse than it use to be when I lived at Johannesburg, & I always
13:  spitting blood.
14: 
15:  As to money matters, I have at just had an old article of mine on the
16:  Woman question accepted by a womans paper in America, for which I am
17:  promised £100, so we shall be able to manage well till the war is
18:  over & my darling husband can find work again. Thank you from my heart
19:  for your loving wish to help us.
20: 
21:  Please send me the large photographs you mentioned. They will come
22:  quite safely: the military authorities only object to letters which
23:  refer in any way to politics or public matters. Thank you much for the
24:  two little photographs you sent me. Your little son had beautiful
25:  large eyes just like yours. If you should be writing to your husband
26:  tell him I send him a heavy handshake across the distance. I am so
27:  glad Ella is with you to comfort & help you. I have a little dog all
28:  the seven months I was here alone, she comforted & helped me more than
29:  most people could believe a dog would. My darling husband has now ^been^
30:  down in Cape Town, but the military authorities have kindly given him
31:  a pass to return to me: he is ^to be^ here tomorrow morning; I feel as
32:  if I couldn’t sleep tonight waiting for tomorrow morning to come.
33: 
34:  I hope I shall see you again someday my dear brave friend. You & yours
35:  are always in my thoughts
36: 
37:  Yours ever as of old & unchanged
38:  Olive Schreiner
39: 

Notation
The 'old article of mine' appeared as Schreiner's two-part essay on 'Woman': "The Woman Question I" The Cosmopolitan vol 28, no 1, November 1899, pp.45-54; and "The Woman Question II" The Cosmopolitan vol 28, no 2, December 1899, pp.182-192. These eventually became Woman and Labour.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/79
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	7 December 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 7 December 1901, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Dec 7th 1901
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so glad to get your short letters yesterday the Photograph’s
7:  of your darling Baby & of Ella & yourself reached me at last. They
8:  seem from the post marks to have miscarried & gone to a place called
9:  New Hanover in Natal. Perhaps that is why I have never got your long
10:  letters. Address Cape Colony very clearly when you write; & please
11:  write soon & tell me just how it goes with you all. I am glad the boys
12:  are well. My love to you all. I value the photographs very much.
13:  Baby’s is beautiful. But yours made me very sad you have got so thin
14:  & sad-looking. I think we shall many of us hardly know each other if
15:  ever we meet again. We are still at Hanover, & all things are going on
16:  in the old way with us. There is no fresh news. Give my love to Ella &
17:  please write soon if only a few lines
18: 
19:  Yours ever Olive
20: 
21: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/80
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	24 January 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 24 January 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Jan 24 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  The little shawl for the head will do just as well in fact I only
7:  didn’t want a very bright colour. Thank you so much dear I shall
8:  value it so. Crochet is just as nice as knitting to me.
9: 
10:  Do write again soon & let me know how you are. It is such joy to me to
11:  see your handwriting.
12: 
13:  I am so glad Ella is able to get on well with her studies.
14: 
15:  A friend of mine here is very poor & is expecting a little Baby & if
16:  when you have time some day you would make a tiny little thing, a pair
17:  of socks or something of that kind for me to give her I know she would
18:  prize it greatly as having been made by you. She is a woman you would
19:  love if you knew her. I am going out tomorrow to buy some little bits
20:  of stuff for dresses for it. // Cron & I are both well, but my heart
21:  has been bad again the last two weeks.
22: 
23:  Good bye. I was so thankful to hear you were all well. Love to Ella.
24:  Olive
25: 
26: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/81
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	20 March 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 20 March 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Dear Isie
2: 
3:  I was so glad, so very glad to get your letter this morning. I am
4:  writing at once I got all the parcels, the Tam-o-shanter, shawl &
5:  Babys things. I wrote at once to thank for them, though no letter came
6:  with any of the parcels I of course knew they were from you. You
7:  can’t think of what use the shawl & Tam-o-shanter are to me: every
8:  evening about 8 my husband & I go to the fountain to fetch water, he
9:  carries the water & I go with him & I always wear your things.
10: 
11:  I am sorry to hear Ella has left you, & yet so glad she will see all
12:  the family. I do hope to hear you have been allowed to come to the
13:  colony soon, but I fear there is as little hope of my seeing you here
14:  as in Natal. It seems almost impossible to realize that if we live the
15:  day must come when we shall all meet in joy & peace. The friend of
16:  mine for whom you made the Baby things has a lovely strong little son.
17:  She begs me to ask you whether she can not give your names & your
18:  husbands as God parents to the child, Cron & I are going to be, & asks
19:  what your full names are if you are willing.
20: 
21:  I am so glad the ^two^ children are well. How you must long to see them
22:  all dear. My heart has been very bad again lately; my feet &
23:  hands are much swollen & it is difficult for me to walk, more than
24:  just getting through my house work. When the war is over & I can
25:  travel about & get change of air & rest perhaps I shall get better. I
26:  want so to live on a few years now. Please write to me soon. I am so
27:  thankful to think you have kind friends in Natal & so are not utterly
28:  alone.
29: 
30:  Good bye dear.
31: 
32:  Yours, very lovingly
33:  Olive Schreiner
34: 
35: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/82
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 June 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 4 June 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  June 4th 1902
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so very very glad to hear from you again. Please write soon &
7:  tell me how all goes with you & whether there is any chance of your
8:  seeing your husband soon. Also please send me your mother’s address.
9:  I want to write to her & ask her to do something unreadable for me.
10: 
11:  On Monday morning the guns fired here & we were told it was because
12:  the Boers had surrendered, & there was going to be peace. Since that,
13:  the last three days, I am able to hear nothing. Of course the village
14:  is full of reports. Some say the Boers have got their independence &
15:  the Transvaal flag is flying at Pretoria. The jingoes say the Boers
16:  have been beaten absolutely & had to surrender. One doesn’t know
17:  what is true, & what is not, & ^believes every one lies.^ One sees no
18:  ^English^ papers so it will probably be months before we know the truth
19:  here. I heard your husband passed at de Aar close to this yesterday.
20:  What would I not have given to see him for half an hour. I have not
21:  seen the face of a friend except my husband’s for so many long
22:  months, but while I have him I should be so absolutely contented when
23:  I think of all of you. I was one year & two months without seeing him
24:  & you have been two years separated from your husband & he was in the
25:  greatest danger ^all that time.^ I don’t know how you have lived
26:  through it, dear one. I hope you will be so well when the meeting time
27:  comes. Let me know that I may share your joy.
28: 
29:  Good bye dear. The world seems rather dark just now. But the sun will
30:  rise at last. Give my love to Ella.
31: 
32:  I am afraid it will be very long before I can get a pass to go to Cape
33:  Town, but some day if I go perhaps I shall see her.
34: 
35:  Yours ever Olive
36: 
37:  Give our affectionate remembrances to your husband when you write to
38:  him.
39: 
40: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/83
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 June 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 4 June 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Jun 4 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Friend
5: 
6:  I hear you are about in this part of the world & I am longing to see
7:  you once more. I heard from Isie yesterday & I know it would be a joy
8:  to her if I could tell her I had seen you & you were looking strong &
9:  well.
10: 
11:  I am sending this line to Major White at the station & asking him very
12:  kindly to forward it to you if he knows where you are. I would come to
13:  the station or anywhere where I was allowed just to shake hands with
14:  you: but if you could come here for a day ^at our house^ it would be a
15:  great joy.
16: 
17:  Yours Your little son will be with you no more when you & Isie form
18:  your home again: but it be such joy to me to know you are together
19:  again.
20: 
21:  My husband joins me in warmest & most heartfelt greetings
22: 
23:  Yours ever
24:  Olive Schreiner
25: 
26: 
27: 

Notation
Written on this letter in an unknown hand is: "Forwarded Hanover Road 6.6.02 GD White: Major: 3rd unreadable Guards Commandant", and attached to the letter is a memorandum from Major White to the Chief Censor asking for Schreiner's letter to be sent on to General Smuts.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/84
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 June 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 15 June 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  June 15 / 02
3: 
4:  Dearest Isie
5: 
6:  How my heart aches to think that just now when you ought to be so well
7:  to go through all that has to be gone through & to go to meet your
8:  husband you should be ill. Please write & tell me how you are getting
9:  on if but a post card.
10: 
11:  I wrote to our English officer at Hanover Rd & ask him if he would
12:  give me permission to go there or anywhere where your husband was just
13:  to see him for a few moments. He wrote & told my your husband had just
14:  left this part to go on to Cape Town & perhaps from there to Port
15:  Noloth, to get the commandos to surrender, so I could not see him, but
16:  he said he would send on the little note I wrote to him.
17: 
18:  I don’t feel as if I ever wished to see Johannesburg or even dear
19:  old Pretoria again. But perhaps you will be moving down to the colony
20:  some time & then I shall see you, as you must pass at Hanover Rd & I
21:  know you will stop here & see us. Good bye dear my heart & my thoughts
22:  are with you. I am so thankful that your husband & brother are still
23:  alive.
24: 
25:  Olive
26: 
27:  I think I told you my husband is trying to get some work here as a
28:  general agent. Next month we shall move into a little cottage of our
29:  own. Its rather a tumble down place, but it will be so nice to have
30:  more than one room. We can’t get any servants here as the natives
31:  Boycott us, we have even to fetch the wall water & scrub floors
32:  ourselves so I can’t do any writing. I am sorry because there is so
33:  much I want to write & life is so short it will be over so soon. If
34:  only one could write one would feel there was still some reason for
35:  ones going on living.
36: 
37: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/85
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	17 June 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 17 June 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  June 17 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Isie,
5: 
6:  I find I shall have to go to Johannesburg to see if I cannot find any
7:  traces of the things which were looted from my house, & also to look
8:  through the charred remains which my brother-in-law had removed to see
9:  if there are not bits of my MS &c. When will you be back in Pretoria.
10:  I would like if possible to put off my going for a few days till you
11:  were back so that I might spend a couple of days with you. Please
12:  write & tell me when you will be there. I long to see you. Please let
13:  me know how you are getting on after the operation.
14: 
15:  Yours lovingly
16:  Olive
17: 
18:  I have written to General Lyttleton himself, so I think I shall be
19:  sure to get a pass.
20: 

Notation
The 'bits of MS' refers to the manuscript, left in Johannesburg when Schreiner went to Karree Kloof in late August 1899, which was destroyed when her house was badly damaged by marauding troops during the South African War; parts of it were published in the US in 1899 in two articles on 'The woman question', and these eventually became Woman and Labour.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/86
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	11 July 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 11 July 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  July 11 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I like to think that by this time you have seen your husband: but am
7:  so sorry to know from your letter that you must still be weak &
8:  suffering, if the doctors will not allow you to go home yet. But you
9:  must not hurry. A little haste after an operation may make all the
10:  difference between health & invalidism for life. Please tell your
11:  husband how very very glad I was to get his letter, -- but talking
12:  would have been so much better. Letters are poor things when the heart
13:  is full. I hear Commandant Malan is coming into Hanover next week, & I
14:  hope I shall see him.
15: 
16:  I shall not be able to come up to Johannesburg now will next month, as
17:  my chest has been a bit bad & I must wait till the weather is warmer,
18:  I don’t think I shall be able to stay longer than one day in
19:  Johannesburg & one day in Pretoria; but I do hope you will be there by
20:  that time, even if I see you for only a couple of hours.
21: 
22:  We are moving into our own little cottage next week I hope, which will
23:  seem grand after living in one room for nearly two years. There is
24:  much, much in my heart to say but it must wait.
25: 
26:  I have written ^out^ two little kind of dream allegory sort of stories,
27:  one called "My Dreams", which I wrote in Cape Town at the end of
28:  October 19 1899. which I think you will like. I suppose myself to be
29:  in bed, & to have three dreams following each other like a succession
30:  of pictures, & another called the "Angel of Freedom" which I wrote on
31:  a kopje here about three ^six^ months ago. I have also three stories
32:  written in my head but not set on paper yet though I can repeat them.
33:  The one is called "The last of the Vander Spuys unreadable of ^of the Van der Spuys."^ & the
34:  mottor is "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened unless
35:  it die." The scene of that, is in the North Transvaal, about two years
36:  ago. The second is called "Where is the lad?" & the scene is laid in
37:  the Priska district, about a year & a half ago. The third is called
38:  unreadable "Gerbrech, or the Queen’s cannister." The cannister, is
39:  one of those little, common tin ^tea^ cannisters, with Queen
40:  Victoria’s picture on ^it^ which little Boer girls used often to prize
41:  so on out of the way farms. Imagine the scene to be somewhere in the
42:  Colesberg district, about a year ago.
43: 
44:  The last is called "An African Woman" & is the story of a young girl &
45:  her lover & why she renounces him. Some day when I’ve a servant & a
46:  little time I’ll write them out, & later yet publish them together
47:  as a book.
48: 
49:  I do hope dear that you will soon be able to write to me that you are
50:  going home.
51: 
52:  Give both Cron’s warmest greetings ^& mine, to your husband. I think
53:  you will get stronger quickly after you have seen him.
54: 
55:  Olive^
56: 

Notation
The 'written out' and the 'not set on paper' allegories which Schreiner refers to are as follows: 'My Dreams' seems not now to exist; the 'Angel of Freedom' morphed into 'Seeds-a-growing'; and 'The last of the Van der Spuys', 'Where is the lad?' and 'the Queen's cannister' seem to have been incorporated into what became '1899'. They were published posthumously in Stories, Dreams and Allegories.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/87
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 July 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 15 July 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  July 15 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I fancy by this time your husband may have been & have had to go to
7:  Pretoria again to his work. You did not say whether he would be able
8:  to stay with you till you were able to move.
9: 
10:  I think I shall be leaving this for Johannesburg about the 15th of Aug.
11:  that is a month from today. The doctor thinks it is too cold for me
12:  to stand the journey now: so you will be sure to be home by the time I
13:  come. My husband is very busy; ^he is managing the case of^ one of the
14:  young men of our district who is to be tried for murder in connection
15:  with the taking of a train near to this a year & a half ago. He was
16:  one of the rebels who surrendered with Fouches in Cradock the other
17:  day. He is in prison here. unreadable Three Hanover men were executed
18:  with regard to the taking of the same train. My husband gett
19:  gets a good deal of legal work here, but ^many^ people are so poor that
20:  for much they can’t pay anything: but he likes helping them. We have
21:  not got into our little cottage yet. Some day if you are going to Cape
22:  Town to visit your mother you must unreadable stop at Hanover on the
23:  way. Try & find time just to send me a card to let me know if you are
24:  getting stronger. Did you get the note I sent you a couple of days ago
25:  telling you that I had heard from your husband.
26: 
27:  Yours ever,
28:  Olive
29: 
30: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/88
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	30 July 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 30 July 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The name of the addressee is indicated by salutation and content. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  July 30 / 02
2: 
3:  Dear Friend
4: 
5:  I hope I shall be able to leave this about the 16th for Johannesburg,
6:  but have not been able to hear of any place I can get a bed in. Do you
7:  perhaps know the address of any Africander boarding house where I
8:  might get a bed for a couple of nights? If so please write at once &
9:  give me the address. If I could only get a bed I could go out for my
10:  food.
11: 
12:  Thankyou for your letter I will answer it in person. Will you be in
13:  Pretoria if I came over for a day about the 2 19th or 20th?
14: 
15:  I have had two letters from Isie this week. It is a bitter
16:  disappointment to me that I can’t see her. If it were possible I
17:  should like to go to Maritzburg to see her. I think only a woman can
18:  understand what the disappointment must have been to her of being so
19:  ill when you returned. We have General Olivier here just now, & we had
20:  Malan here last week as a witness in the case of a ^Hanover^ rebel who
21:  is being tried for his life & whose case Cron is defending: but he was
22:  here as a prisoner under guard, & is now in prison at Nauwpoort
23:  awaiting his trial. He ^(Commandant Malan)^ strikes me as a most
24:  remarkable man; not cultured, but one of the most strongly marked
25:  individualities I ever met. It seems strange that he should be in
26:  prison & Olivier walking about here, free, & they are both Transvaal
27:  Commanders! – but there are some things "that no feller can
28:  understand" as Lord Dundreary would say; in fact, a good many just now.
29: 
30:  When I write to you may I address your letters General Smuts, or must
31:  it be Advocate? I would write you a long letter but that I hope to see
32:  you so soon & writing is a poor matter.
33: 
34:  Give my love to Isie when you write. I have spent many anxious hours
35:  thinking of you during the past.
36: 
37:  Olive Schreiner
38: 

Notation
Soon after this letter was written, Smuts sent a telegram to Olive Schreiner, which received an immediate reply from Cronwright-Schreiner writing on her bahalf:

Hanover, C. C.
9. Aug. 02

My dear Smuts,

Your very kind wire to my wife came this morning. I at once replied 'Malan is said to be out on parole now. Writing'. The facts are as follows. Among the surrendered rebels was a man of this district names P. A. Pienaar, who was at once arrested on a charge of Train-wrecking & murder, for being concerned in the ?Taribosch incident in Feb. 1901. (You will remember that, under the same charge, 3 Hanover men were found guily guilty by a military court at De Aar, & shoot there in and shot there in March 1901, while two of their companions were sentenced to 5 years hard labour. S. The chief witness in securing these sentences was one of the companions named Jan V. d. Berg, who turned King's evidence.) It was on the account of Jan v. d. Berg, the supported by that of two Tothies, that Pienaar was arrested. I know quite well that the above 5 men were innocent & that v. d. Berg had perjured himself throughout. Pienaar's preliminary was held here & I defended him. Among my witnesses was General Malan who was then at NaauwPoort. I had him summoned. In my correspondence with the Military authorities at N. Poort, he was referred to as the 'prisoner Malan' by them, and I was informed that he was in the Military Prison. He came here, in perfect health, & was found under military unreadable, & was handed over here to the civil authorities, & only by a lucky accident unreadable imprisonment in the local goal, where private persons had prepared a room for him. He was kept guarded in a private house & marched up & down to the court room, & people were allowed to see him, each for 15 minutes time limit, on a written permit. With his help (he swore, as did one of the Tothies - a crown witness) that v. d. berg perjured hims that v. d. Berg was never with the commando, & I found through other witnesses that ^where^, v. d. Berg was that night. Malan (who by the way is a very remarkable man) was then taken away again & lodged in the military prison at N'Poort. Soon afterwards, General Oliver came here on a visit, & he heard from me and others how Malan was being treated. Next day he called at my office & instructed me to write a letter, which he signed, to unreadable unreadable. A few days thereafter we heard that Malan had been allowed to go out on parole to Cradock. I hope this is true, though why parole should be ?commanded I don't know. I think the matter is worth inquiring into. These are all facts.

Please write to me immediately on receiving this, or rather, please wire and write at once that I may know you have received this and that it has not been stopped by the military.

I hope we shall meet again some day - when, I can't say. Ever yours, my dear Smuts,
S C CronwrightSchreiner

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/89
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	August 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, August 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The end of the letter appears to be missing.

1:  Dear Isie
2: 
3:  I was so glad to get the joyful news you were better & going to your
4:  home.
5: 
6:  I meant to leave for Johannesburg on the 15th (next of this month, but
7:  I have got my chest bad since I moved into our little cottage which
8:  doesn’t suit me as we get no sun in the bed room, & its damp. I must
9:  put off going till I’m better. I’m going to sleep in the dining
10:  room & hope I shall be able to leave about the 20th. I got your
11:  husbands kind wire saying the Rev Meiring would receive me as a guest.
12:  Thank him very much: it will be so nice to be there, an not at a jingo
13:  boarding house. I will wire to him when I am leaving. What a terrible
14:  thing a body is when it drags one down so. Its months now since I put
15:  pen to paper except to write a few notes, & to take those notes in
16:  court.
17: 
18:  Cron wrote answering your husbands questions as to Commandant Malan.
19:  We hear he is out on bail in Cradock now. When he was here I was only
20:  allowed to see him for 15 minutes, & with soldiers at the window, many
21:  people could not even get a pass to see him for a minute. I hope you
22:  will soon get quite strong now you are at home. I don’t fancy I
23:  shall be able to stay more than one day at Pretoria, & we have so much
24:  to talk about. I will come straight to ^you if you will have me. Please
25:  thank Mr & Mrs Meiring very much for asking me.^ [page/s missing]
26: 
27: 
28: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/90
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	16 August 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 16 August 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Aug 16 1902
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I hope to leave this on the 21st for Johannesburg.
7: 
8:  I shall stay at Mr. Beyers, & shall write to you or wire when I leave
9:  for Pretoria. I do hope I shall be able to stay more than one day, but
10:  can’t reckon on it.
11: 
12:  I hope I shall find you quite strong comparatively, I long to see you so.
13: 
14:  Olive
15: 
16: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/91
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday August 1902
Address From	Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, August 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The place this letter was sent from is supplied by content.

1:  Sunday night
2: 
3:  Dear Isie
4: 
5:  It was a bitter disappointment to me not to be able to come over this
6:  morning I was so knocked up I couldn’t come, & it would have been no
7:  use if I had so staid in bed till this afternoon. I am going to try &
8:  get my work, sorting out bits of photographs & books &c alone on
9:  Tuesday & to come over on Wednesday. I am so sorry to think perhaps
10:  some of you took all the trouble to come to the station to meet me. I
11:  am longing so to be with you. Johannesburg is always very sad to me.
12: 
13:  I will wire you my plans & then I will realy come whatever happens. I
14:  hope you are better.
15: 
16:  Olive
17: 
18: 
19: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/92
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 September 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 15 September 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Sep 15th 1902
2: 
3:  Dear Isie
4: 
5:  I have been in bed ever since I came back; am going out today for the
6:  first time that is why I haven’t written before. My little visit to
7:  you seems a beautiful time of rest, the rest of seeing friends.
8: 
9:  I hope you will soon be strong dear. I hope some day you will have
10:  another little one to comfort your heart, I shall feel almost as glad
11:  as if it were mine. Good bye. My love to you all.
12: 
13:  Olive
14: 
15:  Why do you always call me Mrs Schreiner then of course I have to call
16:  you Mrs Smuts. All my friends call me Olive.
17: 
18:  My husband whent left for Cape Town the day before yesterday
19:  where is going to visit his mother for a few days & attend his
20:  brother’s wedding. I am so glad he is having a little change from
21:  the hard work here, in sad little Hanover.
22: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/93
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	26 September 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, 26 September 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sep 26th 1902
3: 
4:  Dear Friend
5: 
6:  Will you do me a very great favour.
7: 
8:  Please write & tell me exactly what you payed on my luggage at
9:  Pretoria station, &, if possible get me a written statement of the
10:  amount from the clerk. I know how very busy you are & will be glad to
11:  pay an law attorney in Pretoria for getting it if you are too busy. In
12:  fact it might be better to employ an ordinary attorney, if Jingo so
13:  much the better. I
14: 
15:  I want to return you the money of course, but that is not the
16:  important reason why I want it. When I got to Hanover Rd Station I
17:  showed it to the ticket to the station master & he said I had been
18:  charged about 3 th times too much on the luggage. I asked him to
19:  return me the ticket. He appeared to do so, but I now find that what
20:  he returned to me was my passenger ticket & not the luggage ticket. It
21:  was simply part of their whole plan as they charged me £7.10. too much
22:  on my passenger ticket the last time I traveled to Graaff Reinett. I
23:  can’t explain to you why I want so much to have it but I will gladly
24:  pay £10 to the attorney in Pretoria if he can get it for me. He must
25:  see the station master himself who is a kindly & gentlemanly man, who
26:  without whose help I should never have got away.
27: 
28:  The subordinates absolutely refused to give me a ticket; they told me
29:  my pass from General Lyttleton was so much dirty paper, that I would
30:  never be allowed to go out of the Transvaal with it, & had not the
31:  station master insisted they would have given me no ticket. Even after
32:  I was sitting in my carriage just before the train left a filthy
33:  little fore-man came in & shook his fist at me & jeered at me & told
34:  me I would never be allowed to leave the Transvaal &c.
35: 
36:  Don’t please take any action in the matter as soon as I I am better I
37:  will see write to General Lyttleton about it. This is not a solitary
38:  case, or it would not matter it is a system on the railways among the
39:  subordinate officials. I shall never forget the kindness of the
40:  station master. If you've any diff Perhaps it would be better
41:  as keeping you quite out of the matter if you just sent me the name of
42:  an attorney (not Hudson Findlay, who evidently doesn’t want to have
43:  anything to do with me) to whom I could write to get me a statement of
44:  the amount you paid. The station master at Johannesburg when I put the
45:  bicycles on the train told me there would be no duty on them as they
46:  came from the Colony.
47: 
48:  The people here are very anxious Cron should stand for Parliament; at
49:  this this by election. I shrink so from Politics that I shall be sorry
50:  if he stands, unreadable for my own sake.
51: 
52:  Politicians & priests always fight with "reservations". Cron is so
53:  straight forward I should be sorry to see him become a real politician:
54:  I hope even if he is returned he ^never^ will.
55: 
56:  No I never want to see Pretoria again. I only want to see you people.
57: 
58:  Olive Schreiner
59: 
60: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/94
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday September 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, September 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sunday night
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I hope you got my last letter all right. I have yours & Daisy’s.
7: 
8:  Cron is still away on his visit to Cape Town but returns tomorrow
9:  morning. I wish he could have stayed longer but there is too much work
10:  waiting for him here. He has looked wonderfully tired & aged ever
11:  since he returned from England. I hardly think you would know him. Boy
12:  Pienaar is out of prison on £5000 pounds bail!! When he is to be
13:  tried I don’t yet know. Perhaps Cron will have heard in Cape Town. I
14:  get long letters from Miss Molteno every week. She is staying at the
15:  Hotel in London where the Generals stay: the letters are very
16:  interesting. Have you read a truly fine article in the Speaker for Aug.
17:  23rd on "Dignity". You would both enjoy it much. It expresses exactly
18:  my feeling & I am sure it would yours. I put all my little war
19:  treasures in my work box. Some one tells me that some of the dear old
20:  prisoners at St Helena have made me a very pretty broach, but I
21:  haven’t got it yet.
22: 
23:  I have a very good little Bushman boy now, who washes all my pots &
24:  cleans the floors &c. It seems like heaven to have him: I could get
25:  time for writing now; but somehow it’s curious, nothing seems to me
26:  to matter any more. Every thing. I don’t mean that intellectually I
27:  have lost my hope in the future either for humanity or for our own
28:  land. But for the first time in my life nothing seems to matter to me,
29:  & one can’t write while one feels like that.
30: 
31:  I enclose a cheque for your husband for the money he paid out for my
32:  goods at the station. Some day I’ll tell you what a time I had with
33:  those clerks. How they bullied & unsettled me. If it hadn’t been for
34:  the dear old station master I don’t know what I should have done.
35:  They over charged for the luggage too, more than twice too much, but I
36:  shall get a refund from the traffic manager in Cape Town. The spite of
37:  these unclean little officials is something wonderful. I did not do
38:  anything about their conduct at the station, because I was so anxious
39:  he should know nothing of it & not be mixed up with them in any way. I
40:  am dreading being exposed to the railway again next month when I have
41:  to go to Cape Town for two days to see my dear old Mother, who is
42:  growing very weak & old. I shall not stay in Town more than two days,
43:  but shall be staying with Anna Purcell, so shall be sure to see Malan
44:  who lives next door. It will be refreshing to see them all. Hearty
45:  greetings to your Husband & Daisy.
46: 
47:  Olive Schreiner
48: 
49:  ^P.S. I quite forgot to tell you when I was up that my friend Mrs
50:  Viljoen for whose baby you sent the things called her baby Jan
51:  Dela-ray De Wet, after your husband Delaray & De Wet. He is my God son
52:  & a lovely little fellow. He is always still wearing the little things
53:  you sent.^
54: 
55: 
56: 

Notation
The 'fine article' on dignity referred to was unsigned and is: "On Dignity" The Speaker Saturday 23 August 1902, pp.544-5. It concerns the visit of the Boer Generals to Britain and Chamberlain's inhospitable treatment of them, the intrusive behaviour of journalists, the General's good conduct and similar topics likely to have appealed to Schreiner.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/95
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Monday November 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, November 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover
2:  Monday.
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so glad to get your letter this morning. No my heart is not at
7:  rest about Boy Pienaar. He is still out on bail for £4.000 awaiting
8:  his trial. Van der Berg has not been tried yet, & the two Nieuwhouts
9:  are still serving their hard labour term at Kimberley. I am going down
10:  to Cape Town by the mail train next Tuesday & shall see General
11:  ?Settle about them, & the governor, & if they are not released at once
12:  I shall write to the English papers. It is all very well for us to sit
13:  here happy & contented, but what of two perfectly innocent men who are
14:  doing hard labour, to whom every day seems a week!
15: 
16:  Did your husband get the cheque for £2 17s which I sent him in a
17:  separate envelope from my letter? I think Cron is safe to be returned
18:  to Parliament by this division, as the Africander Party have chosen
19:  him, & it does not seem likely the Jingoes will put up any man at all.
20: 
21:  I wish Daisy had been leaving a little sooner then we might have
22:  traveled down together from Hanover Rd. No I never, never want to see
23:  Pretoria again it’s a hateful place! You & your husband must come
24:  here & see us. The friends here would be just delighted to see you.
25:  It’s so nice & cool here in summer too: it would do you good. Are
26:  you feeling better, & getting a little fatter.
27: 
28:  Good bye, dear.
29:  Love to you all
30: 
31:  Olive
32: 
33: 
34: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/96
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 November 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 28 November 1902, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  November 28 / 02
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so glad to hear from you. I should like to be one of the
7:  visitors to the trees, & the tree owners! But I don’t want ever to
8:  see the Transvaal again!
9: 
10:  Have you seen Hobson’s new book on "Imperialism" It is first class &
11:  you would much enjoy it.
12: 
13:  I think Cron is quite sure to be returned, but we shall not know the
14:  results till tomorrow or Monday.
15: 
16:  I had a very delightful little time in Cape Town. It seems like a
17:  beautiful dream. I saw one of your Uncles there, one I met one evening
18:  in your dining room. I hope he is quite well. Tell your husbands
19:  sister I hope I shall meet her some day.
20: 
21:  When Cron & I were going up to attend a meeting at Colesburg last week
22:  we met General de Wet in the train, & had ten minutes talk, we were so
23:  busy talking that we didn’t feel the train moving & had to jump out
24:  while it was going or we should have gone on to Norvals spo -pont. He
25:  is an exceedingly strong man, & as straight as strong. He impressed me
26:  greatly, but one doesn’t love him as one loves Malan. He (Malan)
27:  will be here again this week to give evidence in the endless case of
28:  Van der Berg. I went to see the Governor & Sir Gordon Sprig & the
29:  Attorney General about getting the two Neuwenhouts out of of prison as
30:  every one knows they are perfectly innocent & were never near the
31:  train. It was like throwing oneself against a stone wall. I wish I had
32:  gone to see Lord Milner about them when I was in Pretoria, I believe I
33:  could have got him to set them free; but I felt so dead when I was
34:  there. I think my interviews with them have however hastened the trial
35:  of Van der Berg.
36: 
37:  Miss Greene has been very ill in England. They were to leave on the
38:  15th ^of November^ for this country again, so must be on the water now.
39: 
40:  My little Bushman boy has gone so I’ve no one to help; if Cron
41:  werent so sweet & contented with what I give him to eat I shouldn’t
42:  manage at all.
43: 
44:  ^Are you getting stronger? Much love to you all. ^
45: 
46:  Olive
47: 
48:  ^I saw Onse Jan when I was in Cape Town, he looks very old & changed, I
49:  should not have known him. Do you take the South African News. It is
50:  very interesting just now.^
51: 

Notation
The book referred to is: John A. Hobson (1902) Imperialism: A Study London: Allen and Unwin.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/97
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	27 April 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 27 April 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  April 27th 1903
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  How can I thank you enough for your letter & the two wires I got today.
7:  I would like more than you can think to be with you in your dear home,
8:  which seems like a home to me too. But I can’t stand the climate at
9:  Pretoria; the last time I was there, I was six weeks in bed when I got
10:  home, & whenever I’ve gone out from Johannesburg in the winter its
11:  had the same effect on me. If only you lived in Bloemfontein! I wanted
12:  to go there but I hear there is not a house or room to be had. I
13:  don’t know where I shall go. I have spent £4 on advertising already,
14:  & have had only one answer from a farm near Beaufort West, so I
15:  suppose I shall have to go there, though the people are great jingoes.
16:  If it wasn’t for my husband I should go to Italy & spend the rest of
17:  my life there; but I should always be fancying he was ill & perhaps
18:  needing me. I’d have my body brought back to this old country; but
19:  life is very hard here now, & I can do no more good here. When to keep
20:  silent is all you can do for your country, you may as well be silent
21:  in one place as another; & I would copy out & finish off one of my
22:  novels & so earn money if I were in Italy.
23: 
24:  Thank you so much for your husband’s photo. Many of the folk here
25:  have been to see it. It’s very good, but a little "kwaai".
26: 
27:  If Mrs de Wet (the General’s wife) is still in Pretoria please give
28:  my my kind regards. I should like so much to have a photograph of her.
29:  I hope her daughter’s heart is better. Give my love to Daisy when
30:  you write please. I hope she is getting all right, & will get quite
31:  strong. We are I am going down to Grahamstown to Jan Van der Berg’s
32:  trial on the 11th of May; they will do all they can to get him off &
33:  prove him not guilty, & so make it appear that our innocent men were
34:  present when the train was wrecked. If they do I don’t care what
35:  anyone says or how the politicians may weep, I’ll show the whole
36:  thing up in the English news papers. I never get any time for writing
37:  now; when my work’s done I’m just glad to get to the bed & lie
38:  down. But perhaps I shall be able to write a little during the winter
39:  if I get a warm place.
40: 
41:  We are having a tiny little cottage build, the whole not much bigger
42:  than your dining room to move into when the parliament is over. There
43:  is not even a room to be had here. Miss Molteno & Miss Greene wrote
44:  this week that they were coming up, but but I had to wire & tell them
45:  not. I can’t understand what is the matter with country: it seems
46:  all gone wrong. It will be fifty years before its fit for a decent
47:  person to live in. We are going to have a public meeting here on the
48:  9th.
49: 
50:  I hope you are keeping strong.
51: 
52:  Affectionate greetings to you all; & deep thanks for your really
53:  wishing to have me. I could have cried when your wires came today; it
54:  seemed so nice any one should care to have me.
55:  Yours ever
56: 
57:  Olive Schreiner
58: 
59:  Have you read a nice book of poems by Earnest Crosby called Swords &
60:  Ploughshares, ^there are some good poems on South Africa in the book.^
61: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Ernest H. Crosby (1903) Swords and Ploughshares London: Grant Richards.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/98
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 May 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 22 May 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  May 22 / 03
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Thank you for your letter. I was down in Grahamstown for six days at
7:  the trial. It was a hideous farce. The war was "cakes & ale" compared
8:  to the peace.
9: 
10:  Of Don’t you believe a word you see in the papers about it. It’s
11:  all untrue. Hamlet with Hamlet left out. I’ll tell you about it some
12:  day. The whole jury was English & Grahamstown jury. There was one
13:  Dutch man & he was challenged, I believe because your husband had been
14:  to his farm when he was in the colony; but am not sure of the
15:  correctness of this statement. Lombard was his name. "The more you
16:  refuse to pay your debts, the bigger your debts grow."
17: 
18:  My husband was much better the last two days before I left, though too
19:  ill to go. I found him when I returned very very ill, for four days he
20:  was unable to move & I had to feed & nurse him like a little baby.
21:  Today he is much much better able to sit up in bed & help himself. The
22:  doctor says he must go to Cape Town at once as it is rheumatism so I
23:  am taking him down on Tuesday, & we shall arrive in Cape Town on
24:  Wednesday with the mail train. If my husband che remains ill of course
25:  I shall stay, but as the doctors think he will get quite better as
26:  soon as he gets to the coast I shall return to Beaufort West. I shall
27:  board at first with Danie Theron’s sister Mrs Kriel, & then try to
28:  go out to some farm. I shall go for some time to Commandant Malan’s
29:  farm to help him with his book. I am going to write a preface for him
30:  & help him revise it. Then I am going to send it to England to be
31:  published. What a dear fellow he is! A man with a real touch of genius
32:  & yet so child like. He & several of his commando whent went with
33:  me to Grahamstown to give unreadable evidence that the men from de
34:  Bael never joined the commando & were never with them, but nothing
35:  helped.
36: 
37:  When you write please still address here as I will have my letters
38:  sent on to me, till I know for certain where I shall be. Emily
39:  Hobhouse is here: I had a note from her this morning.
40: 
41:  Yes, it would have been splendid, but if I could have gone to Gen de
42:  Wet’s unreadable last unreadable but I wouldn’t like to trouble them. If I ever am
43:  passing there however I should like to go & spend a day at their farm
44:  to see them all.
45: 
46:  Love to you all
47:  Olive
48: 
49:  ^I have to pack up all this my things & be out of this house too by
50:  Tuesday, & pack my things away in a room as our little cottage is not
51:  half built yet. I wonder if you can read this I’m writing in such a
52:  hurry.^
53: 
54: 

Notation
The book Schreiner wanted to help Commandant Malan with was a war memoir, but which in the event was never written.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/98A
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	June 1903
Address From	PO Uitkÿk, Frasersburg Road, Western Cape (now Leeu Gamka, Prince Albert, Western Cape)
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, June 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Address
2:  P.O. Uitkÿk
3:  near Frasersburg Rd
4:  Cape Colony
5: 
6:  Dear Isie
7: 
8:  I got your letter just before I left Beaufort for General Malan’s
9:  Grandfather’s farm where I spent two delightful days. It is away
10:  among the most beautiful mountains. The old Grandfather is 84 & almost
11:  childish though he must have been a wonderfully fine man in his youth.
12:  But a most beautiful & interesting young aunt of Malan’s who is a
13:  widow keeps house for the old man & looks after him. She & Malan & the
14:  old man forming the family. It is beautiful to see "our" Malan at his
15:  farm work. Im so glad he’s there & not in a town. I took his aunt
16:  back ^with^ me to Beaufort for a few days, as she had been there once
17:  before the war. She has had a hard time doing all the working &
18:  washing & housecleaning all through the war for the old man & all
19:  Malans little brother’s & sisters who were with her all through the
20:  war. I wish you would see her. She is such a beautiful strong woman, I
21:  mean strong in heart as well as in body. One doesn’t wonder at Malan
22:  being what he is when he has such female relations.
23: 
24:  Miss Emily Hobhouse spent two days with me in Beaufort. You will see
25:  her in Pretoria soon. She gave me £10 ^of the money she has brought out^
26:  to buy a washing machine for the wife of one of our men who was shot
27:  in Hanover & who has to make her living by washing. I am very glad
28:  about it.
29: 
30:  Now I have come out to a farm called Uitkÿk belonging to a Mr Le Roux
31:  where they take boarders. If I don’t get asthma here I shall stay
32:  here for a couple of months & try to do a little writing. It is a nice
33:  place with a beautiful view of the mountains, now all covered with
34:  snow.
35: 
36:  My Husband writes me that he is much better. But he looks terribly ill
37:  & aged.
38: 
39:  My dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are spending a few days
40:  with me here: it is so delightful to have them. I shall miss them much
41:  when they go. I have got mY three meerkats & my little dog with me.
42: 
43: 
44:  ^I wish I could see you; there is so much I should like to say, & to
45:  hear. Writing is no good. Much love to you all. ^
46: 
47:  Olive Schreiner
48: 
49: 
50: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/99
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 June 1903
Address From	PO Uitkik, Frasersburg Road, Western Cape (now Leeu Gamka, Prince Albert, Western Cape)
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 28 June 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  P.O. Uitkÿk
2:  near Frasersburg Rd
3:  Cape Colony
4:  June 28 / 03.
5: 
6:  Dear Isie
7: 
8:  Thankyou for your long letter & the pleasant messages. Also for the
9:  magazines I got last night.
10: 
11:  This is a beautiful place to me, very bare, open, Karroo, but the air
12:  is wonderfully fresh & clear & we can see the far mountains, always on
13:  every hand. Yesterday my husband came for the day from Cape Town. He
14:  left again by the afternoon train but it was very nice to see him, it
15:  makes this place seem more home like. The Le Roux’s are very nice kind
16:  people & I couldn’t be more comfortable boarding anywhere than here.
17:  Mrs. Le Roux who was a Miss ?Fütch says she remembers you as a little
18:  girl at the school at Stellenbosch when she was there: two of her
19:  brothers died fighting on the Transvaal side; one was shot & one died
20:  of disease: Yes, I always feel more significantly with the Transvaal &
21:  Freestate than this Colony. This old Bond is a stick in the mud
22: 
23:  ^?fast of organization; but one must take life as it comes. Good bye my
24:  love to you all
25: 
26:  Olive Schreiner^
27: 
28:  PS. Do you know Dr. Kolk did not write those poems, but some one else
29:  who does not at all wish their name known. It was a great surprise to
30:  me when I found out Have you perhaps got another copy of Songs of the
31:  Veld you could send me? I want one so much to send to Mrs Malan^’s^
32:  aunt Mrs. Van Heerden, & I can’t get a copy in Cape Town.
33: 
34:  Good bye again
35:  OS
36: 
37:  ^I shall perhaps be going up to Bloemfontein for a week or ten days
38:  before I return to Hanover in August. I wish the air at Pretoria more
39:  like the air at Bloemfontein. I have about 12 stories most of them I
40:  made during the first year of the war. Since the peace all life seems
41:  to have died out of me.^
42: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Anonymous (1902) Songs of the Veld and Other Poems: Reprinted from ‘The New Age’ London: New Age Press.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/99A
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	30 August 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 30 August 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Aug 30 / 03
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Your letter was sent on to me here. All my heart goes out in love &
7:  sympathy towards little Sannie. I know what a joy she will be to her
8:  father & mother. I am so glad to know you are getting on well; but
9:  please send me a line to say just how you both are. It was such a
10:  surprise & joy to hear of the coming of your little one.
11: 
12:  I am now in Hanover. I got here a week ago meaning to spend one day
13:  here & then go on to Bloemfontein, but I got unreadable ill here &
14:  have not been able to go on. I hope I may be able to go at the end of
15:  this week. I think Cron will be going up to the Pretoria for a few
16:  days & will pass Hanover Rd on Saturday the a 5th & it I will join him
17:  at Hanover Rd & go as far as Bloemfontein. I am staying in bed &
18:  trying to get better. Our little home is not yet nearly finished; & it
19:  was a great disappointment to me when I came here as I expected it to
20:  be quite done. I have just had a letter from Malan’s aunt Mrs Van
21:  Heerden. Her old father for whom she has kept house & whom she had
22:  tended for years like a child is dead. I do hope she & Malan will not
23:  have to leave the farm, that some arrangement will be made by which he
24:  & his aunt can stay on the farm. I had such a delightful time with the
25:  dear Le Roux’s at Uitkÿk; it was like being in my ^own^ sister’s house.
26:  They took me to Prince Albert & we spent a delightful two weeks there
27:  with the ?Lütys & I got to know a very sweet little woman Mrs Du Toit
28:  the wife of the Dutch Minister there. She was a Miss Goosen of the
29:  Free State, & was sent away by the Military. Her sister-in-law Mrs
30:  Fouchè who was Sophie du Toit, is coming here as the wife of our new
31:  minister Fouchè.
32: 
33:  I am long so terribly to see my husband. I have only seen him twice in
34:  the last three months. I am trying to be well to catch the mail train
35:  on Saturday. It is my heart that is so troublesome. I want to try &
36:  get a servant in Bloemfontein too.
37: 
38:  Give many kisses to little Sannie. I know what a joy she must be to
39:  you all.
40: 
41:  ^I hope I shall see her some day.
42: 
43:  Yours ever
44:  Olive^
45: 
46:  ^Please drop me a line to say just how you are.^
47: 
48: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/99B
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 October 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 22 October 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Oct 22nd 1903
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Its very funny that just this morning as I was thinking that as soon
7:  as I’d put the dinner on I would write to you, Cron came in with
8:  post & Sannie’s little box of cherries. Give her a kiss for each
9:  cherry. They were very sweet coming from that dear old garden in
10:  Pretoria. That house & garden are the only parts of Pretoria I like
11:  now.
12: 
13:  How does Sannie grow? Do you know that you owe me two letters? But I
14:  believe if I had Sannie I shouldn’t write to anyone, I’d be so
15:  busy over her. We’ve moved into our little house as I told you. But
16:  I like it so much. It stands just on the out skirts of the town & you
17:  can see the veld all roun. If you go to Cape Town do, do, do come &
18:  stay with us for a couple of days on the way. I can get you a nice
19:  bedroom near to this in the house of my friend Miss Viljoen in whose
20:  house I had my room during Martial Law; & if you’ll put up with my
21:  cooking for the sake of giving me pleasure, I’ll be so happy. I’ve
22:  got a little Bushman girl now of almost 11 who cleans the pots &
23:  fetches water, & it is such a splendid comfort I’ve even even begun
24:  to write a little again.
25: 
26:  Public affairs are so sickening to write about. Some people say if you
27:  get up to the top of the hill what matter whether it be crawling on
28:  your hands & knees or walking upright. But to me it seems to make a
29:  great difference. There is some talk of sh Cron’s standing for
30:  Beaufort West. The leaders of the party wanted Venter & du Vaal to
31:  stand here, so though Cron had a big majority of voters he with-drew.
32:  Good bye. Tell me about Sannie.
33: 
34:  Love to you all
35: 
36:  Olive
37: 
38: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/100
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	30 October 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 30 October 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Oct 30 / 03
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Thank you for the biltong. We get none here now as the soldiers nearly
7:  exterminated the bucks in this part of the world, so it is specially
8:  welcome. I would have written to thank you the day before yesterday
9:  when it came but by my heart has been laying me up again. I write for
10:  two days & then comes a long spell when I can’t. Cron has written to
11:  the government & from it we have got permission to take up the bodies
12:  of our three friends buried at de Aar, & have them buried here at
13:  Hanover the only condition is that there must be no demonstration at
14:  the funeral, a condition we shall see is strictly observed. Do a The
15:  friends of the men are very poor the widow & 6 little children of one
16:  we have almost entirely to support as she is very ill. The other dear
17:  old man ^the father of Nieuwhout^ is very old, he works hard to support
18:  himself & his invalid daughter. I am collecting money to pay for
19:  fetching the bodies from de Aar, bring them here by train & cart &
20:  getting coffins &c. I wondered whether it would be possible for your
21:  husband or any of the friends in the Transvaal to make a small
22:  contribution. I am sure I can raise all the money here, it will be
23:  about £216 (sixteen pounds) but if a little were contributed by
24:  friends in the Transvaal (with or without their names being given ^just^
25:  as they liked) it would touch the dear old parents & friends here very
26:  much. But be sure not to send anything if you think it best not. There
27:  may be objections which I don’t see.
28: 
29:  Do all of you come here if you can. I shall like to meet the two girls
30:  & shall find them a bed room, perhaps not so close as y at Miss
31:  Viljoens, which is next house but one to mine, but they won’t mind
32:  walking a little way. I’ll send 2 carts to the station quite as
33:  easily as one. I do hope it will have rained by that time, otherwise
34:  we shall have nothing but meat & rice to offer you. There are I think
35:  only about two cows in the Hanover district, people have sent all
36:  their cattle & most of their small stock to the Free State. But butter
37:  we get up by parcels post from Cape Town! Fruit & vegetables we never
38:  see & a terrible frost last week killed everything that was beginning
39:  to sprout in the village gardens – so you mustn’t expect much in
40:  the way of meat & drink – though ever so much in the way of loving
41:  welcome. Please write to me some time before you come if you do see
42:  any chance of breaking your journey here, because letters from the
43:  Transvaal seem often so delayed. Miss Viljoen is delighted to think
44:  you will perhaps sleep at her house. Good bye.
45: 
46:  Olive
47: 
48:  ^Give my best love to Ellen Burger. I am always meaning to write her a
49:  long letter but the time never seems to come.^
50: 
51: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/187/100A
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	21 November 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 21 November 1903, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Nov 21st 1903
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Many thanks for your letter & the enclosed cheque. We have changed our
7:  minds about having the funeral here. We are going to buy the little
8:  bit of ground in which ?Islow lie, & enclose it, & at some future
9:  date. I hope it may be before very long set up a large monument to
10:  them. I have not cashed the cheque till I heard whether you would be
11:  willing it should be spent on ^buying^ the ground &c. It is now private
12:  property. No, I can’t go to Gordon’s Bay; Thank you so much for
13:  wanting me to. But I can’t go close to the sea. I shall however be
14:  in Cape Town for a couple of days early this next month, staying at
15:  Mrs. Purcells for three or four days. Is there is any hope of your
16:  being down there by that time? I want to see Sannie so. You might be
17:  coming into Town to spend the day with us. I shall only be in ^Cape^
18:  Town a few days. It would be so nice if I could join your train & go
19:  down with you. But my going depends on when the committee in Cape Town
20:  comes to a decision in Cape Town about Cron’s standing for
21:  Parliament or not. I want to go to Cape Town while he is away visiting
22:  Prince Albert. If he stands I can’t bear to leave him alone here.
23: 
24:  Good bye dear friend. Greetings to all the good friends at Pretoria.
25: 
26:  Olive Schreiner
27: 
28: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/61
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	9 January 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 9 January 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Jan 9 / 04
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Do let me have just an answer on enclosed bit of paper as to how you &
7:  the little ones are. I know it is so impossible for you to write put
8:  just answers to the enclosed questions. You know you ought never to
9:  have let us all come & fill the house when you were in such a delicate
10:  state, with your hands so full. But some how I can’t help being
11:  anxious especially about Santa. Has she cut her teeth I wonder. We go
12:  down to parliament on the l before the 10th of March when parliament
13:  opens. I do wish there was a chance of your all being down at
14:  Stellenbosch then.
15: 
16:  Good bye, my dear friend
17:  Olive
18: 
19: 

Notation
The enclosed questions are no longer attached.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/62
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	12 February 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 12 February 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Feb 12 / 04
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so glad this morning to get the really beautiful photo of you
7:  three. It’s so good. Dear little Sannie with her big eyes looks so
8:  sweet one wants to get hold of her & hug her here a little & her
9:  mother looks so happy & satisfied. I think this dear little daughter
10:  is consoling you for all you passed through.
11: 
12:  I was so sorry I couldn’t come to see you at Gordon’s Bay, but I
13:  dare not go near the sea there, or I have to hurry back up country.
14: 
15:  Cron returned yesterday from Beaufort West. He had been gone 6 weeks &
16:  a half electioneering, except when hers returned once for two days,
17:  because the doctors wired for him to come & see me. I didn’t know
18:  anything about it or I wouldn’t have let him come. It’s so nice to
19:  have him back. Tomorrow I suppose we shall hear the result of the
20:  election.
21: 
22:  My little Bushman servant was taken ill with typhoid fever the day I
23:  returned from Cape Town & three members of her family have died of it
24:  in the last five weeks, so I’ve had no one in the house all the time
25:  Cron was away but now I’ve got a little Africander girl of about 12
26:  to help me, a very nice little thing. I am so glad to have her. Her
27:  father drinks a great deal & they are very poor with six little
28:  children; so she is glad to come & I hope she may stay with me. I like
29:  so to have people about me whom I can realy get to love & feel are
30:  part of the household.
31: 
32:  I’m so sorry Daisy has no prospect of having a little one very soon,
33:  but so very glad you all like her husband so much.
34: 
35:  About those men at de Aar for whose funeral you sent the money, –
36:  Mrs. Nienaber the wife of one of them is going to marry Mr. Nieuwhout
37:  the father of another of the men who is buried at de Aar, & she wants
38:  us to wait till the wedding is over before we do anything about
39:  burying them. The idea is now to buy the bit of ground they are buried
40:  in at de Aar, & go & have a funeral over their graves, & to get
41:  General Malan & some of his men to come. You We are having a terrible
42:  time here with typhoid & a curious type of stomach complaint from
43:  which I also suffered. Many ^white^ children & four adults, unreadable
44:  quite a dozen natives have died of the last after being only from six
45:  to twenty four hours ill, & we have had 23 ^white^ people down with
46:  typhoid during this month. It makes one think of what the camps must
47:  have been like. We have four Trained hospital nurses here from Port
48:  Elizabeth; the doctors wired everywhere to get some more but we could
49:  not. However its going over now, mine was one of the last cases. They
50:  think its the water supply that is wrong; but all kinds of new
51:  diseases seem to inflict us since we had the big military camps here
52:  just outside the village.
53: 
54:  I see dear old Stead is coming out. I shall be so glad to see him. I
55:  shouldn’t have thought one could long to see one’s friends as
56:  I’ve done in the three years I’ve been in Hanover. Except when my
57:  sister came for one day, I’ve not seen the face of a friend in
58:  Hanover in all the three years. It’s so off the line that people
59:  can’t come. When Cron is away I sometimes pass weeks here without
60:  speaking to a human creature except the little boy who brings the
61:  wires. It’s rather sad in these little up country Towns now, the
62:  reaction after the war. Danger & suffering held us all together, &
63:  founded a great common bond. Now it is the usual little up country
64:  life, quarreling about the water rates, or the ?school & every man
65:  fighting for his own hand.
66: 
67:  ^Much love to you all & good bye. I’m so glad you had such a good
68:  time in the Boovenland. ^
69: 
70:  Olive
71: 
72:  Did you see my dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Green & Anna Purcell
73:  when you were in Town I saw you were at Miss Eloff’s wedding.
74: 
75: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/63
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 February 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 22 February 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Feb 22 / 04
2: 
3:  Dear Isie
4: 
5:  I am leaving this on the 1st for Cape Town. Cron is going down to
6:  parliament & I am going down with him; but shall probably only stay
7:  for a few days, as I can’t stand the air there.
8: 
9:  Most of our people are very down spirited. I am not more so than I
10:  have been for the last two years. I have always seen that these things
11:  & probably many much worse must happen before the day breaks. I cannot
12:  think how our leaders can have miscalculated so! It has also seemed to
13:  me they were living in a fools paradise. Of course things will come
14:  right in the end: the long long end. We are going to have the funeral
15:  here on the 21st ^of March^ after all. I have had the coffins made. I am
16:  sorry I shall not be here. I am buying some crape &c for Mrs. Nienaber
17:  & the children for that day.
18: 
19:  I wish so very very much I could stand the climate at Pretoria & come
20:  up to stay with you for a little time. I must try to find some farm
21:  where I can go n. I wish you were in Town now that I could see Sannie.
22:  Isn’t she like your husbands mother? It seems so from the
23:  photograph? Every one says she was such an exceptionally sweet woman.
24: 
25:  Good bye. Greetings to you all.
26:  Olive
27: 
28:  Tell your husband his little letter to my husband, & what he said
29:  about the passing of a redistribution bill here, did ?my ?heart good.
30: 
31:  ^If you write while I am in Cape Town address c/o my husband House of
32:  Parliament, as I don’t yet know where I shall find a boarding house.
33:  Mrs. Purcell with whom I always stay is away at the sea side.^
34: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/64
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	19 June 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 19 June 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  June 19 / 04
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I hope you will see my husband, he is in Pretoria now I think. It was
7:  such a happy happy time to me in Cape Town with my dear friends Dr. &
8:  Mrs. Purcell & their little boy. They were living quite close to the
9:  boarding house where I stayed at Tamboer’s Kloof. I was not able to
10:  go to Stellenbosch. I went to Wellington once for a day, & that made
11:  my chest so bad I did not venture on Stellenbosch. It seems I am never
12:  to see it. In Tamboers Kloof I am always quite fit. I saw old Stead
13:  when he was there. It’s strange that even the pro-Boers don’t seem
14:  really to understand us.
15: 
16:  I hope little Sannie is doing very well. General Malan spent 5 very
17:  delightful days with us at Cape Town. He is absorbed in his farming.
18:  He’s a splendid fellow I wish I could have come to Pretoria too &
19:  have seen you all & little Sannie Good bye, dear Isie
20: 
21:  Olive
22: 
23:  ^Did I ever tell you what a comfort that biltong you sent me was to me
24:  when there was so much typhoid here? I used to give it to the people
25:  when they were getting well & were very weak. I was almost the only
26:  person who had biltong in the village, & it did many folks good.^
27: 
28: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/65
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 July 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 22 July 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  July 22nd 1904
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  I was so glad to get your letter with its good news of little Sannie &
7:  all the rest of you, except poor Daisy. I wish I had known she was in
8:  Tamboer’s Kloof I would certainly have gone to see her often.
9: 
10:  Our old President is gone! I had no idea I would feel his death so
11:  much as I did. Botha’s few words on him as reported in the papers
12:  were I thought very fine. Yes, we will keep silence. I wish I could
13:  come to Pretoria to his funeral.
14: 
15:  Cron only stayed a few hours in Pretoria, did not even sleep one night
16:  there so had no time to come & see you. Thank you very much for having
17:  meant to send me the oranges & lemons. I told him to buy me some up
18:  there: but he forgot in all the business & worry of Johannesburg. We
19:  can now easily get things from the station as the poor men here have
20:  now got waggons & mules, but the pity is that now they have the
21:  waggons & teams there are no goods to carry as traid here as
22:  everywhere else is very slack: & there is no money. We paying for the
23:  war in a new way. Cron is away from home again down in Cape Town on
24:  business & I & my little Kaffir boy of nine years old are here alone.
25:  Did I tell you I’d got him from the reformatory in Cape Town. He
26:  can’t do much in the way of work, but he carries in the coals for me
27:  & cleans the pots which saves me a great deal, & he is a dear little
28:  fellow. It is so nice to have a little loving human being about the
29:  house as Cron is away all day. If you have Sannie’s photograph taken
30:  again please send me one.
31: 
32:  My dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are going to England this
33:  week, & may be away for more than a year. Though I so seldom see them
34:  it will be a great loss to me. I like to know they are in Africa; I
35:  have so few friends here. All my old English friends in South Africa I
36:  have lost, & one doesn’t make new ones in their place. The only one
37:  of my
38: 
39:  ^old friends who has stuck to me through all is Lady Innes, & I feel
40:  grateful to her for it. Though there isn’t much sympathy between us
41:  now our ideas on the public affairs in this country are so different.
42:  You & your husband & the Purcells & Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are
43:  nearly the only friends I have in South Africa, unless I enclude
44:  General Malan & his sweet & beautiful aunt. Did I tell you Malan spent
45:  a few days with us in Cape Town. I always have such a wish he could
46:  meet your sister Ella & they could fall in love with each other. But
47:  these things never turn out as you wish: & it is a mistake ever to try
48:  to make them! Good. bye. Give little Sannie a kiss for me. ^
49: 
50:  Olive Schreiner
51: 
52:  ^Did I tell you that when we reburied the men from de Aar here, all the
53:  flesh was quite gone from the bones, but the ropes were there still
54:  undecayed tied round the bones of the arms & legs; & there were still
55:  bits of the chairs to which they were tied when they were thrown into
56:  the holes. There were over 1000 people at the funeral.^
57: 
58: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/66
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	3 September 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 3 September 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  September 3rd 1904
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  Just the day after the beautiful fruit arrived I had to start off on a
7:  long journey to fetch my dear old fathers remains to rest by my
8:  mothers in Cape Town. I only returned the day pefore before yesterday.
9:  I took a bag full of the fruit with me, & we enjoyed it much. You can
10:  get plenty of oranges here but such wretched little sour things, only
11:  good for cooking. I have still some of the nartjes quite quite good,
12:  only dry.
13: 
14:  Thank you very much dear Isie for writing me for the 16th of December.
15:  I don’t know when I have wished so much for anything as to be there.
16:  But is it true that cheap ticket will be given by the English
17:  government costing only £1 return from Stellenbosch & Cape Town? In
18:  that case I shall not be able to come, as the trains will be too
19:  crowded & I My heart is a bit bad now & I shouldn’t be any good when
20:  I got there if I came in a crush with no place place to lie down. It
21:  doesn’t seem to me likely that the British Government should try to
22:  collect thousands & thousands of Africanders in Pretoria on that date,
23:  but it may be so! Please let me know if your husband knows anything of
24:  the matter, as everyone here is very anxious to hear the truth. Thank
25:  you so much dear Isie for offering the room & to pay my expenses but I
26:  fear I shant be able to come but I think my husband will unreadable
27:  try to. That funeral seems to me so much more than a funeral. It
28:  should be a testimony that the love of freedom which lived in the old
29:  man’s heart is not really buried with him but lives on in the hearts
30:  of the thousands of South Africans who follow his remains.
31: 
32:  Next Thursday ^Tuesday^ I leave for Cape Town to attend the re-burial of
33:  my dear old fathers remains beside my mother’s; whom he always loved
34:  so tenderly & devotedly. I & my sister felt we couldn’t rest till he
35:  was sleeping beside her. He would have wished it so. I shall not stay
36:  in Cape Town very long, & Cron will send on all my letters to me at once.
37:  So just address here.
38: 
39:  Thank you so much for the picture of little Sannie. She looks
40:  splendidly strong & happy. I don’t mean only physically strong, but
41:  she has such a strong little face, in her picture, mentally as well.
42:  When I was in Eastern Province I meet some old friends English farmers
43:  who fought all through the war on the English side. They are very
44:  bitter, one & all, at the way they have been treated, much more bitter
45:  than the Dutch; & they all say without exception "Never will we take
46:  up a gun for the British Government again." It was rather interesting
47:  to be among them. I think it is so well that Jameson & his party are
48:  in power now: they are wonderful educators. I should like very much to
49:  meet Botha & de la Rey. One would see all our leading people if one
50:  came up to the funeral.
51: 
52:  // I am so glad Daisy has a little one. Perhaps she will get quite
53:  strong now. Much love to you
54: 
55:  Olive Schreiner
56: 
57: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/67
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1 October 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 1 October 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Oct 1st 1904
2: 
3:  Dear Isie
4: 
5:  Two dear old friends of mine Dr & Mrs Brown have just arrived in Natal
6:  to visit their daughter there. They are strong pro-Boer, & have
7:  suffered much for their views in England. They are old friends of the
8:  Steyns. Dr Brown has now retired from his pro profession, & they have
9:  come back to visit South Africa, where he practiced as a Doctor for
10:  some years as a doct in the Frazerburg district. Mrs Brown is South
11:  African (a cousin of Judge Solomon’s) & as all her family are very
12:  strong on the Jingo side she has been much divided from them. You
13:  would all love them so much if you knew them. They talk of visiting
14:  the Transvaal soon & then coming on to Hanover to stay with us for
15:  some time. I am writing to you about them because if they come to
16:  Pretoria I want you so much to see them, & perhaps you could introduce
17:  them to some of our friends there. Could you drop them a line perhaps
18:  to their daughter’s address (Mrs Brown, care Mrs Dick, St Thomas’s
19:  Rd, Durban, ^Natal^) asking them to let you know when they come to
20:  Pretoria so you can meet. They are such beautiful, simple, lovable
21:  souls, & know how much you & your husband would like to see them, or I
22:  wouldn’t ask you to take the trouble.
23: 
24:  I hope Sannie is still growing & thriving. It would be so nice to see
25:  you all. My dear husband is well & sends many greetings.
26: 
27:  Yours ever
28:  Olive Schreiner
29: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/68
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 October 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 31 October 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Oct 31st 1904
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  We will both accept your kind invitation & come up to the funeral if
7:  you are quite sure you can make room for us. I don’t know why I have
8:  such a curious wish to be there; it’s long since I wanted anything
9:  so much. I know what crowds there will be in the trains & how now more
10:  dead than alive one will get there, & yet I mean to come; I really
11:  don’t know why! because absolutely one will see nothing but a big
12:  big crowd swarming about every where, & I have seen so many. It’s an
13:  idea I suppose. We have had a little nice rain here; not enough to
14:  make anything green yet, but enough to lay the dust & put a little
15:  hope into many of our poor farmer’s hearts. I am so glad your mother
16:  will be there: I have wanted to meet her, but it seems I shall never
17:  get as far as Stellenbosch. Will Ella be there too? I hope so. This is
18:  just a line to tell you
19: 
20:  ^that if you are quite sure you can have us we are coming. Yours with a
21:  kiss for little Sannie ^
22:  Olive
23: 
24: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/69
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	20 November 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 20 November 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Nov 20th 1904
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  No, I wouldn’t think of letting you pay for my coming up; it is good
7:  enough of you to be willing to give me a room when every place will be
8:  so crowded. If you can give me us even that outside room Mr. Roos had
9:  it would be quite right. I shall only be able to stay the one day I
10:  fear. Cron says I am mad to think of going that I want to be buried on
11:  the same day as Oom Paul! But I mean to come; even if I can only stay
12:  the one day. I want so much to see Botha & de la Ray. It’s perhaps
13:  the only chance I shall ever have. I cat I can’t get a cart to take
14:  me over to the station when the train passes with the body as everyone
15:  wants their own carts & won’t even let me hire one for 40/-
16:  shillings. But there’ll be such a crowd, I don’t suppose I should
17:  be able to get near the train if I went. I do hope little Sannie is
18:  quite better again. It is this awful drought that makes everyone feel
19:  so bad. We are always watching the sky, but the clouds come & melt
20:  without any rain. I hope Ella will be able to come to Pretoria after
21:  all. Love to you
22: 
23:  Olive Schreiner
24: 
25: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/70
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: November 1904 ; Before End: December 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, November 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Dear Isie
2: 
3:  I have decided to leave this by the mail train that passes here on
4:  Tuesday ^the 13th^ & gets to Pretoria on Wednesday midday. I must go by
5:  the mail as the others will be too crowded. My husband says he is
6:  afraid his business will keep him here. I hope very much he will be
7:  able to.
8: 
9:  Have you seen that disgraceful notice of Kruger in the Fortnightly for
10:  Aug by Professor Dicey, - Rhodes’ great friend? Well, - the great
11:  man lives, & the small man dies! Time puts all things right.
12: 
13:  I do hope that little Sannie is quite well again. Perhaps it was only
14:  the smell of the new paint: I got very feverish & had a sore throat a
15:  couple of months ago, & the doctor said it was only the smell of this
16:  room which we’d just had repainted.
17: 
18:  My little story "Elandslaagte" is done; but the boy is so slow
19:  typewriting it. If he’s got it finished I’ll bring it up to
20:  Pretoria to show you.
21: 
22:  Its beautifully cool here now, we had sharp frosts two weeks ago that
23:  killed nearly all the fruit & vegetables here, & we’ve got locusts &
24:  the drought goes on. It is a hard time for our poor farmers. Several
25:  have turned insolvent; & many would go if any one pressed, but
26:  fortunately so far people are waiting, & not pressing more than they
27:  can help. It will be so nice to see you all. I am so glad your mother
28:  will be there. Perhaps I shall have to stay till Monday, as people
29:  seem to think all the trains will be full on Saturday & Sunday.
30: 
31:  Much love.
32:  Olive Schreiner
33: 
34: 
35: 

Notation
The 'disgraceful notice of Kruger' by Dicey in the Fortnightly Review cannot be traced, as nothing by Dicey in any way connected was published during 1904; thus while there was an April 1904 article on Jameson as the new Prime Minister of the Cape, this nowhere even mentions Kruger. Schreiner's 'Elandslaagte' became '1899' and was published posthumously in Stories, Dreams and Allegories.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/70A
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	26 December 1904
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 26 December 1904, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. Although Schreiner has written on 1907 as the year of this letter, content shows it is clearly 1904.

1:  Hanover
2:  Dec 26 / 07
3: 
4:  Dear Isie
5: 
6:  You will have wondered at not having heard from me, but since I came
7:  home I have been ill, & in Johannesburg the four days I spent there I
8:  was so over run with visitors I had not one second. Twenty minutes
9:  before the train started I had to ask some people to leave that I
10:  might pack my things.
11: 
12:  I can’t thank you enough for the very, very, happy time I had with
13:  you. It is years since I felt so strong & well & enjoyed any holiday
14:  so much. The only draw back was that little Santa was not well enough
15:  for me to romp with her, & the thought that it couldn’t be good for
16:  you to have that great house full of us in your delicate state. I
17:  think you stood it all just wonderfully. I always feel a woman ought
18:  to have six weeks of perfect quite & rest after the birth of her baby,
19:  just to think of it & enjoy it, & nothing else. I wonder if you could
20:  spare the time, or get Mary Reitz just to send me a post card to say
21:  how you all are. I shall be so glad to heart Santa’s teeth are
22:  through. I keep seeing her face with its big blue eyes, & it’s
23:  wonderful little smile. I wonder if she is so beautiful when she is
24:  well! Please give my love to your dear mother if she is still with you.
25:  I shall certainly go to Stellenbosch just to have the pleasure of
26:  seeing her again. I should like to know more of Garfield too. He looks
27:  to me almost as interesting as Ella, but I had no chance of talking
28:  with him. It’s so beautiful to me that the quite young generation of
29:  Africanders seems growing up with so much promise. Garfields face is
30:  like Ellas; its the face of someone who really can think. Most people
31:  just live without thinking. I spent an afternoon at Johannesburg with
32:  Malan’s parents. His sister is such a beautiful girl, strong & sweet
33:  in character, exactly like her brother. All the sons & daughters
34:  resemble the mother who is a very fine woman. The father is quite
35:  common place, & one wonders how he comes to have such remarkable
36:  children till you see the mother. I had a very very happy time in
37:  Johannesburg too, but didn’t get to Roodepoort to see my little name
38:  sake. I am afraid the child will be disappointed as I promised to go,
39:  but I had not a moment to spare. We had a very trying journey down:
40:  not a place to lie down in, over 230 passengers on the train, & not
41:  one mouthful of food to be got from the time I left Johannesburg at 8.
42:  20. one evening till I got to Hanover Rd at 8.10 the next. Except some
43:  soda water which I got out of the train & bought at Bloemfontein. The
44:  unreadable passengers ate up all the food on the train, before we
45:  could get any. When we got to Hanover Rd the cart I had ordered had
46:  gone back again, would not wait as the train was some hours late, & I
47:  had to sit out on the platform till half past ten the next morning.
48:  But all the rest of the journey was so delightful I am very thankful I
49:  went. Please tell your mother Mrs. Malan is going to have a photograph
50:  of her sons taken for me & sh & I will send her one with all their
51:  names written below. The youngest was only 14 when he joined at the
52:  beginning of the war & all the brother’s fought to the end. The old
53:  lady is so proud of them, & well she may be! All good & loving wishes
54:  for you all for the new year.
55: 
56:  Olive.
57: 
58:  ^Malan of Ons Land got into the train at Bloemfontein but I was so
59:  tired & there were so many people I couldn’t look for him. His wife
60:  is a very sweet woman: you would like her much. I wish you would be
61:  down at Stellenbosch when parliament meets. Is there any chance of
62:  your being down there?^
63: 
64: 
65: 

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/71
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1905
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 1905, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The name of the addressee is indicated by content. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere. The place the letter was sent from is provided by content.

1:  Do you know two things you said to me at Pretoria were a comfort to me.
2:  One was that you mentioned something about the different relation one
3:  had to have ^for^ to people since the war. It has distressed me so much
4:  that the people who were everything to me during the whole war, more
5:  than my brothers & sisters when I had to try & help to get them out of
6:  prison, or to help them get food, seem nothing to me now, & I am
7:  nothing to them. They pass me in the street almost without saying good
8:  morning. I sometimes feel there must be some fault in me that it is so.
9:  But perhaps we are all feeling the same! We were all like
10:  ship-wrecked people on a raft at sea together, now we have landed &
11:  each one falls back into his own line of life, & the bond that held us
12:  together is gone!
13: 
14:  The other thing was that you said something that made me fancy see you
15:  & your husband knew about the miserable things some of our own people
16:  (at least Africander people) are saying about the Generals, about
17:  their taking all the money & not giving it away &c, &c. It has made me
18:  more angry than anything that ever happened in the war, when they
19:  speak so of all the Generals but especially of your husband. I have
20:  often wondered if he knew about it, & yet I couldn’t write to him
21:  about it, because I myself hate so much to hear anything unloving
22:  people say of me. You have to forgive them, & sometimes it hurts & is
23:  hard to do so. Yet I often had a feeling I ought to write & tell your
24:  husband. After all one mustn’t feel these things. That it has been
25:  given them to be leaders in a great cause, is matter for much
26:  gratitude, that nothing that can be said or done should touch them.
27:  This bitterness of attitude towards their leaders; & the desire of
28:  each man to be first, seem to me the things we really have to fear in
29:  the future of our people. It seems to me the motto of our Africander
30:  or South African nation should be the little line I wrote in your
31:  sisters album, "And he that is greatest among you let him be as the
32:  servant of all." It’s the finest text in the bible I always think.
33: 
34:  Well, you are having a very ?long letter this morning, dear Isie, but
35:  I am writing it in between, while I run into the kitchen every now &
36:  then to stir the ?leen brad & the sheep tail I am melting out on the
37:  stove; & now it is time to set the table for dinner.
38: 
39:  We are going to have some of the apricots your mother sent me from
40:  Stellenbosch for dinner too. Good bye. Don’t forget just to answer
41:  my questions, & just to close the envelope & send it to the post. I
42:  know it must be quite impossible for you to write letters now with the
43:  two babies. How rich you are, dear!! Health, & children & true friends
44:  seem to me always the only wealth one has really any joy out of. I
45:  haven’t the two first, but I have the last if ever a person had.
46:  Give our affectionate greetings to your husband.
47: 
48:  Olive
49: 
50: 
51: 

Notation
The Biblical quote seems to be a version of Luke 22, verse 26.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/72
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	13 May 1905
Address From	Eastbergholt, Tamboer?s Kloof Road, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 13 May 1905, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Eastbergholt
2:  Tamboer’s Kloof Rd
3:  Tamboer’s Kloof
4:  May 13th 1905
5: 
6:  My dear Isie
7: 
8:  Nearly every day for months I’ve been meaning to write to you but
9:  I’ve not been writing to any one of late. I am better now again. I
10:  hope I may still get over to Stellenbosch to see your mother before I
11:  leave. I am so sorry to hear Daisy’s little baby is gone. I am so
12:  glad to have her address. I am writing to her. I will go & see her if
13:  she can’t come to see me.
14: 
15:  Thank you so much for the beautiful tin of biscuits you sent me. I
16:  thought as they came from Stellenbosch they were from your mother; but
17:  when I wrote to her she said they were from you. We still had some to
18:  eat in the train on the way down. I am so glad to hear of little Santa
19:  running about & doing mischief – no doubt she doesn’t look so much
20:  like an angel as when I saw her – but that’s better!
21: 
22:  I sent you a letter yesterday in the news. I wasn’t well enough to
23:  re-writ revise or reread the proofs & there are a lot of
24:  printers-errors as in "Forges Valley" for "Valley Forge" &c but it
25:  doesn’t matter. My husband has just returned from Hanover where he
26:  had to be for a couple of weeks on business. We shall go up four ^weeks^
27:  few from to-day I expect. I have not got Cato’s photo yet. I shall
28:  never forget the surprise she gave me when I saw her in your arms!!! I
29:  want to ask you a question Isie: of course you need not answer it
30:  unless you feel you can, & like to just take no notice of it. When I
31:  was in Pretoria you said something to me about people saying I only
32:  liked unreadable de Wet & not Botha or de la Ray. I didn’t have time
33:  to ask you more then as the nurse came in, & the next day I left. But
34:  someone from Bloemfontein told me the same thing, that I had said de
35:  Wet was the only real general, that Botha & de la Rey were no generals!
36:  – can you think of anything so mad! – & they wouldn’t tell me
37:  the name of the person who had told them! I had said: If you could
38:  tell me who told you I should be very glad, because I am in my own
39:  mind thinking it is a certain person who did it deliberately from spite
40:  & I don’t like to think so of any one; & may be quite unjust to them.
41:  And it’s bad to feel you may be unjust to any one. I’m sure its
42:  no Dutch Africander; that I know. Not only have the greatest
43:  admiration for all the the three generals but I really am not in a
44:  position to say which was the best general. If I had to chose a great
45:  head general for a war out of the three I should probably chose de la
46:  Ray. But I realy have no means of judging as under martial law I never
47:  even saw the papers, & to determine which was the greatest you would
48:  have to know the exactly the difficulties each one had to contend with,
49:  & the relative means at his disposal. de la Rays men all say he was
50:  best, Bothas men that he was, de Wets that he was! And I don’t
51:  believe any of us knows!!
52: 
53:  Of course personally I have a feeling for de Wet I can’t have for
54:  the others because I know him personally & have had long talks with
55:  him, & I’ve never exchanged one word with either of the others &
56:  only shacken hands once. Just as I love your husband better than all
57:  three, not because I say he is always a greater leader but because he
58:  is my friend. It always seems so small to me, this drawing comparisons
59:  between men who have to the last of their power fought for their own
60:  country. I no more believe all the lies told by Africanders about
61:  Botha & de la Ray having taken the money that ought to have gone to
62:  the people than I believe the story that your husband walked off with
63:  £25,000 which he has kept for himself. A student of history knows
64:  that is always from the hands of the people for whom a man has
65:  sacrificed himself & risked all that he receives the hardest blows. I
66:  have never felt any thing that the Jingoes said of me in the
67:  very least but when Dutch Africanders have come to me & demanded money
68:  from me, & when I said I really hadn’t any more to give, have said
69:  that of the thousands I got from the Transvaal government for writing
70:  for them before the war & since, I ought to have plenty to give them
71:  – I have felt a little pained. Oh Only the other day before I left
72:  Hanover a rich Boer woman flaunted into my little room & began talking
73:  of the money I had made out of the Trans-vaal & by show being on the
74:  Africander side. You know you can’t answer such people – you just
75:  let them talk on. You can’t answer such people. Not only did I lose
76:  all the little I had in Johannesburg & have my little house ^in
77:  Kimberley^ blown to pieces with boems boms & looted by the English
78:  between the many so that I was left without a penny in the world,
79:  but even the money with which my husband went to England to speak for
80:  the Republics was given him by an Englishman relation of mine who did
81:  not wish his name mentioned, but every act of kindness & consideration
82:  I have ever received in my life except from you & your husband & your
83:  dear mother & my friend Miss Viljoen, has been from English people. I
84:  have not one smallest tiniest thing to thank Dutch Africanders for.
85:  You may say my husband earns his living now among Dutch Africanders
86:  – & a poor little living it is – but I have never taken one
87:  sixpence of my husbands money since I married, I support myself
88:  entirely by my own writing & pay every week half of all the household
89:  expenses, so they cannot even throw it in my teeth that I am earning
90:  that from them. My dear old brother died in England five years ago &
91:  left me a couple of hundred pounds & on that & the proceeds of some
92:  articles on the woman question which I have published in America I
93:  have been living ever since. The living of my husband & myself in
94:  Hanover even this included doesn’t come to more than £10 a month; &
95:  all he gets in parliament & a third of what he gets in Hanover has got
96:  to go to pay a competent assistant, whom he would not need if he were
97:  not away at parliament for three months. I am telling you all this not
98:  because it matters at all, but simply that you may know how impossible
99:  it is I should believe any of the lies they tell of the Botha & de la
100:  Ray & your husband.
101: 
102:  // I’ve seen Malan & his wife once since I was down here. Their dear
103:  little boy ?Jacquie has quite hopeless heart disease but the baby girl
104:  is fine & well. Yes I wish so much I could up to Pretoria a little
105:  this winter, but I can’t. It is bad that we always are here in the
106:  winter & you in the summer. I’m so glad it’s going so well with
107:  the two little daughters.
108: 
109:  Your very loving friend
110:  Olive Schreiner
111: 
112:  ^This letter is private, just for yourself & your husband. Dont show it
113:  to Miss Hobhouse or anyone.^
114: 

Notation
What the proofs were that Schreiner mentions she was correcting cannot be established.

Letter Reference	View Smuts A1/188/73
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	24 May 1905
Address From	Eastbergholt, Tamboer's Kloof Road, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 24 May 1905, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Eastberg Holt
2:  Tamboer’s Kloof Rd
3:  May 24th 1905
4: 
5:  Dear Isie
6: 
7:  Thank so you so much for Cato’s picture. She is so pretty & strong
8:  in it; the little hands are so nice.
9: 
10:  I’m going to try & go to see Daisy tomorrow.
11: 
12:  On Friday I was driving home with my little dog Neta & she fell under
13:  the wheel of the cab & was crushed to death. I have had many good &
14:  beautiful friends in my life; but she was the best friend I ever had.
15: 
16:  We shall be back in Hanover in the middle of next month. I saw Mrs.
17:  Malan & her little boy today. he has such a sweet bright little face
18:  but his heart is very bad; the doctors say he will never grow up: but
19:  their little girl is splendid & strong.
20: 
21:  Good bye.
22:  Olive Schreiner
23: 
24:  Don’t you think Cato is very like your little boy, about the upper
25:  part of the face?
26:  Wednesday night
27:  May 24th
28: 
29:  ^I hope dear you did not think from my last letter of what people I was
30:  complaining of what people said. One has long ago accepted
31:  misunderstanding as one of the condition, that follow all most for
32:  others. I only mentioned it to show how certain it was the bitter
33:  things said of our great men would not touch me.^
34: 
35: 
36: 

Notation