Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	John X. Merriman MSC 15/1907:16
Archive	National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	26 February 1907
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	John X. Merriman
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 John X. Merriman, 26 February 1907, NLSA Cape Town, Special Collections, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.

1:  Hanover
2:  Feb 26th 1907
3: 
4:  Dear Mr Merriman
5: 
6:  I am so delighted that Solomon has not got in. it's the finest thing
7:  about the election. All his other desertions I might make excuses for
8:  th but this desertion of the Progressives I can't. A man on the make
9:  looking for place & power can never be trusted. I am the last person
10:  in the world to blame a man for changing his views. Fortunately (or
11:  unfortunately!) for myself I was born with such a firm constitutional
12:  ?build in one ^certain^ direction, that unless I violated myself I
13:  should have to keep on in one course. I was a republican, a feeler of
14:  the injustice of woman's position, an opponent of all here-ditary
15:  rights to govern others, a believer in the primary moral importance of
16:  defending the weak, animals or men, against injustice of oppression ^&c
17:  &c^ when I was ten, just as I am today & must be when I'm eighty unless
18:  I sell my soul. But I know & believe there are numbers of person more
19:  gifted more valuable than myself, who have not been born with a kind
20:  of constitutional mandate "this is thy way; & thou shalt walk in it &
21:  no other." & who form their opinions in quite another way, & who grow
22:  & expand in the dropping of old stand points & the attaining to new; &
23:  I should be the last person to think that a man may not be deeply
24:  consciencious in changing his view, even of the largest questions in
25:  life. But when you see a cat sitting on a hedge, & he always jumps
26:  down on the side on which there is a mouse running, it is difficult to
27:  believe he is not looking after mice.
28: 
29:  I so entirely agreed with your remarks ?to the interviewer, as
30:  reported in the paper. Pimm & Creswell were the two men I most wanted
31:  to see in; Abe Bailey was the man I hoped to see thrown out more than
32:  any other. But I really fix little hope on this incoming government or
33:  any other. The first thing they are trying to do is bring down wages.
34:  Really enlightened men & women must be in this country for the next 50
35:  ^(perhaps 30! only)^ years as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
36: 
37:  I am now as an old Boer would express it "full up to my throat" with
38:  South Africa. I have not lost my faith in the glorious forward march
39:  which humanity is still going to take upon earth; for "I doubt not
40:  through the ages one increasing purpose runs" -" . but here in South
41:  Africa we are the crest of a wave & there will be an awful sweep down
42:  wards before we mount on the other side; - hideous native wars,
43:  injustice & greed riding rampant, - with always the protesting few of
44:  course. Do not think I am despairing over human life & things generall;
45:  I am more full of hope than ever; but just as I saw in England in 88
46:  that there was a long terrible downward dip before us, so I see it
47:  here today.
48: 
49:  I have just got your speech on that most interesting fas-cinating of
50:  all question. I have not yet looked at it: am going to read it this
51:  afternoon. The subject of the decay & death of nature & empires has so
52:  interested me all my life that I have brought in a whole chapter in it
53:  in my big novel - which doesn't sound promising for the novel! - but
54:  it really had to come in, because the woman in the book was so
55:  interested in it.
56: 
57:  I am very curious to see if your view & mine harmonize at all. You
58:  know it's only on the woman question you & I stand at such opposite poles
59: 
60:  ^& I have hope we shall agree yet!!!^
61: 
62:  Your friend,
63:  Olive Schreiner
64: