Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Karl Pearson 840/4/3/30-31
Archive	University College London Library, Special Collections, UCL, London
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	13 July 1886
Address From	The Convent, Harrow, London
Address To
Who To	Karl Pearson
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 95-6

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, 13 July 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 name of the addressee is indicated by content.

1:  The Convent
2:  July 13 / 86
3: 
4:  Your paper is deliciously, tantalizingly, excitingly, suggestive. It
5:  sends one off in every direction. I have a pamphlet of remarks on it:
6:  I shall send them with the woman paper notes in six weeks’ time.
7: 
8:  To answer the remark at the end of your letter with regard to
9:  life-long unions being a mistake would draw down the whole woman
10:  question. To me it seems that one should no more enter on a life-long
11:  sexual union, than on a life long friendship, or a life long strife
12:  after truth. The ideal ^sexual^ union, is, I think, life-long, as the
13:  ideal friendship is, or the ideal strife after truth. They may grown
14:  to be life long, but they should not be entered upon with such an
15:  understanding, can not be. The ^most^ ideal of marriage at the present
16:  day, possible seems to me to be the union of two individuals strongly
17:  sympathetic, who after deep thought enter on the sexual relationship.
18:  There should be no bond or promise between them; for the sake of
19:  children a legal contract should be, I think, formed. The less said
20:  about love & life-long continuance together the better. The fact that
21:  they are willing to enter on the sexual relationship is with highly
22:  developed natures the strongest expression of affection that could be
23:  given. The union will be, as long as each one feels they are expanding
24:  or aiding the other’s life. If life-long or of many year duration,
25:  well; if short, well, but not so well (perhaps it is a woman & a
26:  German who feels this? To the French ^nature^ perhaps the ideal union
27:  would always be the short one?). - There are two ideals of love the
28:  feeling of the boy who unreadable catches a bird, & holds it tight in
29:  his hand & crushes its wings up, & who says "I love you so, you are
30:  mine, I will never let you go." & the feeling of one who catches a
31:  bird, & says "My own, my beautiful, I love you so I can’t crush you
32:  up," & lets it fly, & watches it, & thrills with delight; & feels the
33:  joy in its wings as it rises! Those who The one kind of love is as
34:  much higher ^sweeter^ than the other as sympathy is higher ^sweeter^ than
35:  passion. Only the one kind of love can form the basis of a life-long union
36:  When a sexual union is based on the first kind of love it seems to me
37:  it can never be anything but accursed; - whether it extends over a
38:  month or a life time. And the second might be indefinitely protracted
39:  with out losing its beauty. The old lover’s question - Will you love
40:  me for ever? - has to be changed to - If you feel I am pressing on
41:  your individuality will you let me go? It may be thousands of years
42:  before the mass have attained to this ideal unreadable, but it is that
43:  towards which the race is slowly but surely moving. What we are
44:  already beginning to unreadable that, & nothing else, If I unreadable
45:  ^All this is nonsense; I can’t say it didactically, only in a story I
46:  can say it.^ You may think the view very credulous, but I believe that
47:  sexual relations built on such a foundation might be very permanent
48:  without ceasing to be invigorating & pungent. I think that for a
49:  successful sexual union it is ^absolutely^ necessary the woman should be
50:  materially independent of the man & have her own work life, otherwise
51:  he is not free. A man cannot say to a woman who depends entirely on
52:  him, & has no work in her life, "Leave me." You say you have not seen
53:  a quite happy sexual union, nor have I ^except an old gentleman & lady
54:  at Shanklin^ - but may it not often be attained when free men & women
55:  growing ^up^ together combine simply for mental sympathy & sexual
56:  purposes & to share the parent-hood of children together? (They would
57:  probably, perhaps generally live together & share their material
58:  possessions but that is a different thing.) It is the possibility of
59:  this in the far future to which I look as the hope of the race. While
60:  we live ^through your^ by the use of our sexual natures, we are slaves,
61:  & our slavery reacts on you. To me it seems, that what we have to
62:  fight for for woman is a condition in which she shall as little make
63:  the use of her make her living through the use of her sexual nature as
64:  man does. Do you think it is attainable? If not, woman will never be
65:  free, & the ideal marriage, & the ideal future of the race depend on
66:  her freedom. Can there be a free & joyful union except between
67:  freemen?
68: 
69:  //Thank you very much for saying that I may unreadable perhaps
70:  dedicate my little book to you. You have not taught me anything
71:  definitely, & unreadable ^perhaps^ we have not been near enough to
72:  become close friends; but the little book seems to belong to you. I
73:  don’t think I should ever have had the courage to revise & finish it
74:  if I had ^not^ known you. I wrote it long ago when I was full of hope.
75:  Then all that died away. I was so pathetic ^tired^, I could do nothing.
76:  Without faith & hope in human nature, no artistic work. You have
77:  brought back my old faith. unreadable
78:  "Nor knowest thou what argument,
79:  Thy life to thy neighbours creed hath lent."
80:  ^You’re not to laugh at me^
81: 
82:  You are please not to answer this for at least six weeks when I shall
83:  perhaps get a further instalment of the woman in Germany paper? You
84:  ought to have two months instead of two weeks climbing about. Eat,
85:  drink, sleep, lead as animal a life as you can, & above all never
86:  analyze!
87: 
88:  Good bye.
89:  Olive Schreiner
90: 
91:  I’m going to work so desperately hard at my book. You are not to say
92:  it’s "fantastic dreams" when it’s done - though there are two live
93:  grave-diggers, real ones, at the end!!
94:  O.S.
95: 
96:  Thank you so much for saying that I may: it helps me unreadable I
97:  always have to unreadable for fear unreadable
98: 
99: 

Notation
The 'little book' Schreiner wants to dedicate to Pearson is From Man to Man. Pearson's 'deliciously suggestive' paper is his 'A Sketch of the History of Sexual Relations in Germany', read at the Men and Women's Club in June 1886. Schreiner's 'woman paper notes' are her comments on his July 1885 'The Woman's Question', and one version of these is her short 1885 'Note'; see Pearson 840/4/1/105. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.