Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Karl Pearson 840/4/3/102-110
Archive	University College London Library, Special Collections, UCL, London
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	25 October 1886
Address From	9 Blandford Square, Paddington, London
Address To	2 Harcourt Buildings, Temple, London
Who To	Karl Pearson
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 108-11

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 Karl Pearson, 25 October 1886, University College London Library, Special Collections, UCL, London, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to University College London (UCL) and its Library Services for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date of this letter has been derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, while the name of the addressee and the address it was sent to are on its front. Schreiner was resident in Blandford Square from early October to late December 1886, when she left England for Europe. The start of the letter is perhaps missing.

1:  You say we need a Jesus Christ, that we leave the work of preaching in
2:  the streets to the Hyndmans & Avelings! We do need a Christ; but the
3:  Christ of one age is not like to that of another. As for preaching in
4:  the streets, or indeed preaching & lecturing anywhere, it is pretty
5:  well dead as a power to move men with. The press has taken the place
6:  of the preacher. If Peter the Hermit should come to rouse a new
7:  crusade against the Turk he could do so at once not by preaching in
8:  Smithfield, but by a fierce, clever series of articles in the "Daily
9:  News" or "Pall Mall".
10: 
11:  One man might set all Europe in a blaze still, but he must do it in a
12:  new way. If spoken & delivered speeches, say Mr Gladstone’s or
13:  Hyndman’s, ^have power^ it is not because they were spoken, but because
14:  they were repeated in all "the papers". Three things seem to me to
15:  have taken the place of the old powers that moved society. Science has
16:  taken the place of Theology, the press has taken the place of the
17:  ruler & the preacher (to a large & always growing larger extent) &
18:  fiction has taken the place which painting & the drama occupied in
19:  other ages, especially the middle ages. These are the three living
20:  powers of our age, whose rule is only beginning. Let us see to it, if
21:  it is our aim to influence humanity ^we must do it through these means.^
22:  Science is the pope of the middle ages ages, the Holy Ecumenical
23:  Council, when it speaks loud & clear & firm enough the whole world
24:  listens & not a dog may wag its tail; the Huxleys & Spencers &
25:  Tyndalls & Cliffords are preaching monks. The press is manifestly
26:  becoming the governing & ruling power. It matters cop comparatively
27:  little (of course it does matter somewhat) whether we send donkeys or
28:  sane men to parliament. It matters everything in the political world
29:  what "the papers say" & who rules them. Even more clearly the novel
30:  has taken the place of other forms ^of art^ in carrying to the heart of
31:  the people the truths (or untruths!) of the Age. In Florence or Venice
32:  once when a great picture was painted there crowded, not only the
33:  nobles & the idlers only to look at it but the work man & woman & the
34:  very child. It was the expression of their life, of their thought, of
35:  their religion. So also with the theatre of the Elizabethan age; now
36:  all this is dead & the work of fiction has taken their place. From the
37:  Queen to the servant girl & Smith & Sons news boys everyone reads the
38:  novel & is touched by it.
39: 
40:  Its vice & its virtue, its frivolity & its ideals, all the life of our
41:  age is incarnate in its fiction, & reacts on the people. Let me take
42:  my own tiny experience. ^if I may.^ An un-taught girl, working ten hours
43:  a day, having no time for thought or writing, but a few in the middle
44:  of the night, writes a little story like "An African Farm"; a book
45:  wanting in unreadable many respects, & altogether young & crude, &
46:  full of faults; a book that was written altogether for myself, when
47:  there seemed no possible purpose chance that I should ever come to
48:  England or publish it. Yet, I have got scores, almost hundreds of
49:  letters about it from all classes of people, from an Earl’s son to a
50:  dressmaker in Bond St, & from a coal-heaver to a poet. One of the last
51:  letters I have had was from Pearsall Smith the American Millionaire &
52:  Lecturer: saying that it had helped largely in his giving up
53:  Christianity & the work he had been engaged in for thirty years. Now
54:  if a work of art so childish & full of faults, simply by right of a
55:  certain truth to nature that is in it can have so great a power, what
56:  of a great work of art? No, K. P., we will leave Hyndman & Aveling &
57:  do our own work. It strikes deeper. Sometimes I see your part in life
58:  as such an altogether rare & choice one. Not to influence the masses,
59:  but to influence those who influence them, - perhaps unknown to
60:  yourself.
61: 
62:  Yes, we need to be more Christlike, but in this; - After our forty
63:  days of solitary contemplation we need to carry the theories & ideals
64:  we have formed out into the world, & incarnate them quietly & simply
65:  day by day in action. We want to raise women – well - let us help some
66:  ^one^ woman up! – "And fail?" -Yes, fail, - & in that action that seems
67:  a great failure may lie a great success. I suppose one of the greatest
68:  successes the world has ever seen was when the Jew carpenter’s son
69:  hung alone, & cried "My God, I am forsaken". One can only form one’s
70:  ideal & strive to live it; success & failure must come as they will.
71: 
72:  By the bye, I asked Donkin if he knew that Ray liked you, he said "Yes
73:  of course he’s always talking about him". Poor old Ray!
74: 
75:  I send you an allegory I wrote on Thursday night. You’re not to laugh
76:  at it. I hate you so intensely sometimes.
77: 
78:  //Thanks for your letter. My note was written before I got yours or it
79:  would not have been written. I have plenty of excuses for it, but none
80:  of them worth wasting time over.
81: 
82:  I am going out to Regents Park. Saw yesterday morning one of the most
83:  beautiful sights I have seen in England there; the ducks on the great
84:  pond & the sun breaking through the mist at 9 o’clock in morning.
85: 
86:  O.S.
87: 
88:  Have been writing this in great haste to rest myself hope it is
89:  comprehendable.
90: 
91:  Sat. night. Have just had a note from Donkin to say he has written to
92:  resign his membership of the Woll. I didn’t know he was going to. ^A
93:  week ago^ I told him I thought it was better he should not write to me
94:  or come to see me often. I’ve only seen him once since. I am sure that
95:  is the reason for his resigning, not any lack of good feeling to the
96:  club. I feel like a mother who has lost her child. But it now he can
97:  love some one else. He couldn’t while he was seeing me every day.
98: 
99:  I don’t know that your theory of putting the thermometer in ice cold
100:  water always answers, because there isn’t always any ice to be had;
101:  but if one can set one’s teeth & make oneself "in love", or make
102:  oneself believe that one is "in love" with any body else, it always
103:  answers, for a time ^at least. Sometimes always.^
104: 
105:  ^I’m glad you’re so well & happy. When those times of mental rest &
106:  satisfaction come we always do such good work. I work so much if I’m
107:  happy.^
108: 
109: 

Notation
The allegory Schreiner sent to Pearson cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated and is also in a number of respects incorrect.