1The Convent
2Harrow
3Sep 16 / 86.
4
5Dear Mr Chapman
6
7R. Pears-all Smith the American tells me he sent a letter to your care.
8 Could you kindly forward it to me, ^here.^ And would you kindly let me
9know how many copy^ies^ of my book you have still been unable to dispose of.
10
11Yours faithfully
12Olive Schreiner
13

19 Blandford Sq
2Nov 2 / 86
3
4Dear Mr Chapman
5
6Your letter has just been forwarded to me from the Convent. I hope to
7reply or call to see you in a couple of days.
8
9Yours sincerely
10Olive Schreiner

1I am going down to
2Knap-Hill
3Nr Woking
4Surrey
5on Saturday Alice will be there on till Monday afternoon. Can you come
6on Monday morning, & help me decide about the house. I long to see you.
7 I am afraid that place is damp I’ve had such rheumatism since
8yesterday that right arm can hardly hold pen. You must come to
9Brookwood station & walk up to Knap-hill about 1 mile & a ½.
10
11My cousin Emile has written a nice letter.
12
13I’m very pl glad Symons liked being here. I thought I was so tired
14he would be bored. I’m always tired now. Are you in love that you
15suddenly look so handsome. If you would rather come when I am alone
16come on Tuesday & perhaps we can go Hind head for the day they say
17it’s lovely.
18

1Edinburgh Hotel
2St. Leonards-on-Sea
3Feb 25 / 84
4
5My dear Sir,
6
7On my return from a visit to London I found your letter which my
8publishers had forwarded here. Had I received it sooner I should have
9earlier written to tell you of the pleasure your expression of
10sympathy with the little book “An African Farm” gave me. Thank you
11for having written.
12
13The book was unreadable written on an Upcountry farm in the Karroo, &
14it gives me ^much^ pleasure to think that other hearts find it real. I
15have been now almost three years in England but I long always for that
16old life.
17
18I agree with you in objecting to Bonaparte: he is drawn closely after
19life, but in hard straight lines with-out shading^,^ & is not artistic^,^
20nor idealized enough. I had no definite idea when I wrote the story
21that I should ever come to England or publish it. It was just one of
22the many little stories I had been making ever since I was five years
23old, & its kind reception at the hands of the critics here surprised
24me much. & a letter such as yours I value much indeed.
25
26There is too much moralising in the story, but when one is leading an
27absolutely solitary life one is apt to use one’s work as Gregory
28used his letters, as an out-let for all one’s superfluous feelings^,^
29without asking too closely whether they can or can not be artistically
30expressed there.
31
32I intend bringing out another book towards the close of the year.
33
34Thank you again for your letter which has given me such pleasure
35
36I am, dear Sir,
37Yours sincerely
38Olive Schreiner
39

1Edinburgh Hotel
2St. Leonards-on-Sea
3March 16 / 84.
4
5Dear Sir
6
7Thankyou very much for your letter. I shall so like to see that
8article when you are kind enough to send it me. I shall be be
9remaining at St. Leonards till the weather gets warmer.
10
11Yes, it would be impossible to return to the old life: the outward
12circumstances might be recalled, but the hope that made it beautiful
13would never come back when once the outside world had been known, &
14found empty.
15
16I have not read any of Hardy’s novels, but am sending for the
17“Westminster Rev:” to read your article. What you say in the
18letter about “the melodramatic & farcial element” is very true.
19When I said that Bonaparte was not “idealized” enough perhaps I
20was using the word in a sense of my own; what I meant was that he was
21painted roughly from the outside (just as I might off-hand des-cribe
22the people who sat at dinner with me this evening) not sympathetically
23from the inside showing the how & the why of his being the manner of
24sinner he was. I should have entered into him showed his many sides,
25not only the one superficial side that was ridiculous; then he would
26have been a real human creature to love or to hate, & not farcial at all.
27
28Is it very long since you left Australia? Do you not miss the
29starlight nights when one can be out all night, I miss them so. It is
30so hard to think shut up in a room.
31
32I am,
33Yours very sincerely,
34Olive Schreiner
35
36The “Miss” is right. I do not think I shall be leaving this till
37May when I return to town.
38

1Edinburgh Hotel
2March 28 / 84
3
4My dear Mr. Ellis,
5
6I have just finished reading your article in the Westminster, & I have
7read “A pair of blue eyes.” I think your criticism very adequate &
8just. I shall read “Far from the madding crowd” & then I shall
9better be able to make up my mind as to whether I like Hardy much or
10not. Now I hardly know – there seems to me a certain shallowness &
11un-real-ness about his work – no, that’s putting it too strongly;
12it seems to me as though he was only fingering his characters with his
13hands, not pressing them up against him till he felt their hearts beat.
14
15Thank you for your letter. I liked the last sheet about your
16Australian life. Yes, our African sky gives one the same sense of
17perfect freedom & wild exhilaration; sometimes one feels as though,
18for no reason that could be given, one were almost in an ecstasy of
19happiness when one goes out alone. Here one never is alone.
20
21The book that the Stranger gives to Waldo was intended to be
22Spencer’s “First Principles.” When I was up in Basuto Land with
23an old Aunt & cousin, one stormy, rainy night, there was a knock at
24the door; they were afraid to go & open it so I went. There was a
25stranger there like Waldos Stranger exactly. There was no house within
26fifty miles so he slept there: the next morning he talked with me for
27a little while & after that I saw him twice for half an hour: & then I
28never saw him again. He lent me Spencer’s “First Principles.” I
29always think that when Christianity burst on the dark Roman world it
30was ?about what that book was to me. I was in such complete, blank
31atheism. I did not even believe in my own nature, in any right or
32wrong, or certainty. I can still feel myself lying before the fire to
33read it. I had only three days. I always hoped I should see him again
34some day & tell him how he had an had helped me - Just after I had
35written that part of the story where he comes in I heard that he had
36killed himself. I am not sorry he did it if life was too sore for him;
37but I cannot bear to think of all he suffered before he did it; – &
38he helped me so. I always feel as though his grave was^ere^ one of my
39possessions.
40
41If you write any other articles for reviews & do not mind telling me
42^of them,^ I should be glad; it would interest me to read them very much.
43
44Have you read a little play called “Nora” by Ibsen, translated
45from the Swedish by my Frances Lord?? It is a most wonderful little
46work. I should like it to be reviewed by some able reviewer that it
47might be more widely read, but perhaps you would not like it. It shows
48some sides of woman’s nature that are not often spoken of, & that
49some people do not believe exist – but they do. I think
50
51Yours sincerely
52Olive Schreiner
53
54^It is very funny that in the book that I am revising now there is one
55character who reminds me somewhat of Knight in his relation to Elfride.
56 The likeness is not strong, still it is there. He is a man who when
57the woman he loves confesses to him turns away from her; but my woman
58tells him that which he could never have known if she had not told him^
59
60^& he yet turns away from her.^
61

1Edinburgh Hotel
2April 8 / 84
3
4My dear Mr. Ellis
5
6It happens that the book I have been reading the last few days has
7been James Hinton’s “Life & Letters” I have loved the man
8him-self. I like to know that saying of his that you tell me of. In
9his feeling for woman he is like Jesus but like few other men. I have
10had a feeling while I have been reading the book that the writer,
11without meaning to be untrue is not quite showing the real man: your
12letter of this evening tells me that I was right. I look forward to
13seeing the book you talk of: will it be ready soon?
14
15Thank you for letting me see those sonnets. The first three express
16what has also been my experience; but sometimes I let the joy be
17overclouded by letting my own little personal life come in. Your
18sonnets & I think something in your letters help me. “Arabella” is
19a sweet little poem. & strikes one as being sincere. The last four
20lines I like better than the other ten. They are very strong.
21
22Thursday.
23
24I am not able to write very much at a time & could not finish my
25letter the other day. This morning I came across your Sonnet in
26“Today” “Sophia Perovskaia”. I am glad you feel sympathy with
27socialism.
28
29You ask me whether Spencer is to me what he was. If one has a broken
30leg & a doctor sets it; when once it is set one may be said to have no
31more need of the doctor, never the-less one always walks on his leg. I
32think that is how it is with ^regard to^ myself & Herbert Spencer. I
33have read all his works once, some three & four times, now I read him
34no more. He helped me to believe in a unity underlying all nature;
35that was a great thing, but he has nothing else to give me now.
36
37I have read Straus’s “Old Faith & New,” but that was lately. I
38suppose you have read his life of Jesus? It had a rather strange
39effect upon me; it made me love Jesus so much. I never cried over the
40crucifixion till I read Straus’s cold dispassionate criticism ^of^
41that poor loving human soul that had been so tender to other, left
42there to face death alone. I am glad those women went after him. I
43believe Mary Magdalene stood close to the cross where the blood of his
44feet dropped down on her.
45
46With regard to Nora. I think Ibsen does see the other side of the
47question, but in a book which is a work of art & not a mere
48philosophical dessertation it is not always possible to show all the
49sides. I have a sense of something wanting in the book, but I do not
50see how he could have supplied it. In the ideal condition for which we
51look men & women will walk close, hand in hand, but now the fight has
52often^est^ to be fought out alone by both. I think men suffer as much as
53women from the falseness of the relations. Helmer’s life lost as
54much as Nora’s did through the fact that they never lived really
55together.
56
57I have not got “Far from the madding crowd” yet; but I have been
58reading C. Brontë’s Villette. I think it splendid.
59
60Yours sincerely,
61Olive Schreiner
62
63We are having beautiful weather here. I went to Ecclesbourne Glen this
64afternoon & basked in the sun. Have you ever been there?
65

1Edinburgh Hotel
2April 19 / 84.
3
4My dear Mr. Ellis
5
6That extract from Mr. Hinton’s letter I liked very much; though I
7could not quite understand it I could fill in. James Hinton’s life
8has been a help to me. Sometimes I get an almost despairing feeling,
9that woman will have to save woman alone, – & yet I feel that to be
10impossible. Strength comes when I see one man’s heart that has seen
11these things, & burnt over them. He has chimed in with the thought &
12feelings that are just now dominant in my life. I shall like to read
13that article of yours upon him.
14
15The book I am revising now is the story of a woman, a simple,
16child-like woman, that goes down, down. I wish I wish I had more power;
17 I would put it all into this book; I would write so that no one who
18read it should ever forget it. You will find many artistic faults, but
19I think you will sympathize with it.
20
21Thank you for tellingl me about “Arabella” Your sonnet is much
22more beautiful to me now, much. When I first came to England I was
23nursing in a Hospital for a little time, & I had such a beautiful girl.
24 She was almost dying of inflammation of the lungs. A little thrill of
25pleasure used to run through me every time I had to touch her or do
26anything for her, & she used to open her sweet eyes, just like two
27stars, & look at me. I don’t know if I should have liked your sonnet
28quite so much but for that. That is the best of writing what is true;
29other lives are sure to answer back to it. I wonder if your girl
30looked like mine
31
32Strauss’s life of Jesus is very different from Renan’s, I think
33better; though I like I Renan. I shall be glad when his life of his
34sister is published. It will be the record of a true relation between
35a man & a woman
36
37I love Shelly, & there is another man whom I love in that same
38personal way, Hein¬rich Heine. I personify myself with him. I know
39how & why he wrote every line that he did write. There is more depth &
40passion in one of his sneers, more quivering ?reflecting ^tenderness^
41veiled under it, than in the out-cries of half the world. I feel that
42I owe a debt of personal gratitude to the girl who comforted him in
43his “Mattress grave”.
44
45I have not the same personal feeling for Hinton that you have, who
46know so much more of him than I can from that life; but one thing that
47draws me to him very much is his fear of feeling: that comes out so
48clearly in the extract you sent me. Some people dare not feel fully
49– all life must be a long self-repression.
50
51I have never seen that picture that you mention. I have always thought
52that she stood so. How else could she stand.
53
54If you know of any very good book will you please tell me of it. I got
55down ten last time, & of them all only Hinton’s life was a real book.
56 I want scientific reading^:^ my mind needs it just now.
57
58I like to write to you
59
60Yours sincerely,
61Olive Schreiner
62
63May I, please, copy your poem “Arabella” & send it to a friend of
64mine. She will like it so much.
65

1Edinburgh Hotel
2Ap May 2nd 1884
3
4My dear Mr. Ellis
5
6Heine is not understood, & I almost doubt whether anything one could
7do would cause him to be better understood. He belongs to his own,
8like Emerson. One might cause him to be more read (& that would be
9something) but the real man, the infinitely tender, burning,
10passionate heart will be known only to a few – it must be heart to
11heart.
12
13I have been reading that little book you lent me all the afternoon. I
14like it, & I like it more the more I read it, & when I re-read a page
15or two I like it better than at first. It is true, & it expresses what
16is in our hearts, ours of today. I must get Whitman & read him. I have
17read nothing of his yet. One evening a friend began to read him aloud
18to me, but I was in a wicked mood & began to laugh: I made fun of ^him,^
19it, & made them all laugh so that there was no more reading. I have
20sent for him to-day.
21
22It was at the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh that I nursed for a little
23while, & saw my beautiful girl. Then I was taken ill. When I got
24?fluen better I went to the Woman’s Hospital in Endel St in London, &
25nursed there for five days, & then I got inflammation of the lungs, ^&^
26had to go to Ventnor. When I came back I began attending the lectures
27at the Woman’s Medical School, the second lecture I went to I got my
28feet wet & sat in wet boots & got congestion of the lungs. I am very
29strong & well now, but I have made up my mind that scribbling will be
30my only work in life.
31
32Yes, my little glimps of nursing life was very sweet to me I am glad I
33had it though it was so short. The dream of my life always was to be a
34doctor; I can’t remember a time when I was so small that it was not
35there in my heart. I used to dissect ostriches, & sheeps’ hearts &
36livers, & almost the first book I ever bought myself was an elementary
37physiology. I don’t like to talk of my old dream even now, my heart is
38still tender over it. It seems to me that a doctor’s is the most
39perfect of all lives, it satisfies the craving to know, & also the
40craving to serve. A nurse’s life is sweet, but not so perfect.
41
42Thank you for those papers you sent me. I think I should like to join
43that society, though, like you, I have not much faith in them
44societies. One old woman sitting in her bed room alone reading her
45bible is sincere, but six old women at a “class meeting” make humbugs
46– very often. Ideally nothing can full be more perfect than the aims
47of that Progressive Society. I like the “New Life,” especially the
48clause on the necessity of combining physical with mental labour.
49
50My feeling about Socialism is exactly yours. I sympathize with it, but
51when I see the works & aims of the men who are working for it in
52London my heart sinks. What will it benefitt us to seize away the
53money from the rich? At the same moment that the greedy hands are
54seizing it there will pass over with it the disease of which the rich
55are dying, the selfishness, the hardness of heart, the greed for the
56material good. What we want is more love & more sympathy Does it ever
57strike you, it often does me, fo how within the sixteen miles that
58make London lie all the materials for heaven on earth, if only some
59thing could come suddenly & touch our hearts one night; there would be
60no-body sad, no-body lonely: every aching head with a hand on it;
61every miserable old maid let out of her drawingroom & her old life
62blood flowing; every wailing little child hushed in somebody’s arms &
63making them warm: no-body hungry & nobody untaught, the prisons
64emptied & the back slums cleaned, everybody looking with loving eyes
65at the world about them. That would be heaven, & it only wants a
66little change of heart. I haven’t faith in anything that promises to
67raise us by purely material means.
68
69I am glad you are so busy, you must be happy.
70
71Thank you for telling me about that new book of Romane’s. I think you
72are wrong in saying that scientific reading is not of much use. It is.
73To touch & handle would be far better, but it is better than nothing.
74You don’t know what a gap would be left in my life if all the ^good^
75?tragaghumites I have had from scientific books were taken out of it
76(making the word scientific cover everything from Darwin & Carl Vogt,
77to little primers on Heat & Light). I think that even the mere reading
78helps one to the feeling that truth is before all things, & to have a
79kind of love for things in their naked simplicity; I think that the
80tendency of science is always to awaken these two feelings; don’t you?
81
82I want to tell you what my feeling is about woman, but I can’t tonight
83because I would have too much to say. I have just got a letter I
84should like to show you. It is from a woman whose heart is being
85slowly broken, & the man who is doing it doesn’t know & doesn’t
86realize what he is doing. Why can’t we men & women come nearer each
87other & help each other, & not kill eachother’s souls & blight each
88other’s lives^.^ for unreadable There is no need why it should be so.
89
90I am coming up to live in London next week. My address will be 5
91Harrington Rd. South Kensington. After next Thursday. I shall like to
92know more of what Hinton thought, & of what you think. The question of
93woman’s having the vote, & independences & education, is only part of
94the question, there lies something deeper.
95
96Good bye.
97Olive Schreiner
98
99I love what you say about feeling a woman’s heart throbbing in you.
100

117 Pelham Street
2South Kensington
3May 12 / 84
4
5My dear Mr. Ellis,
6
7I have not got your letter. I found the House at 5 Harrington Rd. in a
8terrible condition & all the people drunk. The woman seized hold of me
9& would not let me have my luggage removed till I had paid her 30 /-,
10though I had only been 5 minutes in the house. I am quite sure they
11will have torn up any letters that came for me. I am very much
12troubled about it. I hope there was nothing in Hinton’s hand-writing
13in it ^(your letter)^ I am going to the house this morning to ask, but I
14know it will be fruitless. I don’t know in which part of London I
15shall settle. Until Friday this will be my new address, & I will let
16you know the new one.
17
18Olive Schreiner
19
20P.S. What a splendid fellow Carpenter must be. I have just been
21reading his article in “Today” It expresses what I feel so exactly
22that I seem to feel as if I had written myself. What kind of man is
23her? I think
24

17 Pelham St.
2South Kensington
3May 1112 / 84
4
5Dear Mr Ellis
6
7I have been to the place; I cannyot get the letter. I am very sorry
8about it
9
10Yours sincerely,
11Olive Schreiner
12

17 Pelham St
2Wednesday After
3
4 [line torn away] ?letters this morning., but not the Harrington Rd one.
5Please write all that was in it over again.
6
7I shall like so much to go on Sunday, & will be glad if you will call
8for me.
9
10I’m sorry to hear anything that isn’t quite beautiful [line torn away]
11
12but don’t you think there must always be some sense of pain in
13learning to know more of people whom you have known only through their
14books? I think so.
15
16I went to St. James’s Hall last night. Every fibre in my being revolts
17against old Bradlaugh, & I wanted to like him. (This has nothing to do
18with what I said on the other page, it reads as though it had!)
19
20I shall like very much to see Mr. Hinton’s sister-in-law
21
22^Yours sincerely,^
23Olive Schreiner
24
25I shan’t leave this till Friday, & perhaps I shan’t have succeeded in
26finding quiet rooms by that time, quiet is so hard to get in London.
27

1Please send both this by unreadable ^back^ unreadable & please send my
2big brown box too, Dadda.
3Good night
4Olive
5

17 Pelham St
2South Kensington
3Friday
4
5I shall be at home all Sunday Afternoon so if you come at any time it
6will do. I am cannot travel by the Underground so we will have to
7start rather early.
8
9Thank you for the sonnets I will say what I want to say about them
10when you come. Is the fourth one from a woman to a man or from a man
11to a man? It is more beautiful in the latter case.
12
13I have been in such heaviness with my work today, & I have just made
14up my mind I must tear up & leave out a large bit. I have been so long
15in making up my mind.
16
17Yes, isn’t it beautiful how grateful those women are for little acts
18of tenderness. Ach, if you only handle their babies kindly how
19grateful ^& bright^ they look! Some of those hospital nurses are so
20unkind & rough with them. I wish I was back at my hospital work, the
21brain works better if the hands work too.
22
23I have been to the Brompton Oratory this evening & enjoyed the quiet &
24the music. I got a dark corner where I could kneel down.
25
26Thank you for your letter, but I am still sorry about the other one.
27
28I am so tired that I am writing everything upside down.
29
30Good night,
31Olive Schreiner
32
33PS.
34I shall be staying here till next Th Friday then I think I shall go
35back to St. Leonards, or to some country place.
36OS.
37

17 Pelham St
2Tuesday
3May 20 / 84
4
5My dear Mr. Ellis,
6
7I enjoyed going with you to that lecture so much. Thank ^you^ for coming
8for me. If you are not too busy & do not feel it would be a waste of I
9time I should be glad if you could sometimes come & see me. It would
10be a help to me.
11
12I got another letter about Hinton this morning, from the same friend.
13I can’t help feeling that she didn’t understand Hinton, & that the
14other women of whom she writes did not understand him. I should so
15like to show you her letters, but I think she might not like it. If
16^she^ is right, I shall be sorry.
17
18I have made up my mind not to leave Town just yet. I shall remain here
19till Friday, then my address will be 32 Fitzroy Sq St., Fitzroy Square.
20
21Good night.
22Olive Schreiner
23
24That bus took me up to Holloway on Sunday night.
25

17 Pelham St.
2Thursday
3
4Dear Mr. Ellis,
5
6I have so much to say about Hinton & Hinton’s views (I have some
7questions to ask too) that I shan’t try to say it to-day. Thank you
8much for your letter & for the proofs.
9
10I send you a little bit of my friends first letter. I would like to
11send you all of both. In the second she tells me of a lady (of several,
12 but of one especially,) whom Hinton knew when she was a widow & whom
13he tired to make love him, & of how she burnt his letters & would
14never have anything more to do with him, &c, &c.
15
16The writer of the letter I send you is a Freethinker, & freer in ther
17her thoughts on social & moral questions than on any other. Though
18married happily herself she does not believe in formal marriage, but
19^only^ in a marriage of mutual consent &c, &c. So you see the ordinary
20narrow prejudices will not have acted in her case.
21
22Hinton says much in those proofs that I have thought & felt but never
23seen expressed before; but, I think, I see what he does not see, &
24where his theory [part of page torn away]
25
26human nature & in woman nature in Hinton. There is something to me
27infinitely touching in that last little note you read me of
28
29 [part of page torn away] I am going to see Herbert Spencer on Sunday week.
30
31Did Hinton aply the same measure to man & to woman? Would he have been
32satisfied if his wife had had six “spiritual husbands”? I mean this
33really as a question.
34
35I am writing this lying down; I hope you can make it out.
36
37^Please send back the enclosed.^
38
39^Have just got your note. Sunday suits me very nicely.^
40
41

1[part of page missing] I shall be at home all day on Sunday. Come as
2early as you like. I shall want to see you.
3
4I have heard that my sister is dead: she died suddenly like my father.
5
6Olive Schreiner
7
8

132 Fitzroy St
2Monday.
3
4Dear Mr. Ellis,
5
6I enclose my subscription to the Progressive & 2d for a hymn hook.
7Last night after you went I read Miss Jones’s des-cription. I think
8I should like her very much. But Mrs. Hinton ins the woman I love.
9
10Will you some day show me Hinton likeness? You must come to see me
11whenever you care to. If you tell me what time you are coming I will
12stay in.
13
14I wish I was really your sister; it would be very nice.
15
16Don’t think of, & dwell, upon Hinton too much. I think it is not
17well for any of us to allow another another personality to submerge in
18anyway our own. ^Do you?^
19
20I have been walking about in the quiet part of Regent’s-park all the
21morning.
22
23Olive Schreiner
24
25I have just now got the note you sent to 7 Pelham St. There is some
26evil fate ^at^ work with your
27
28^letters.^
29

1Wednes-day.
2
3Come tomorrow afternoon if you can because on Friday I may have other
4visitors & then we can’t talk so well, & I have much I want to say &
5to hear.
6
7Yes, but you do let Hinton submerge you; & you mustn’t. It’s not
8good for you.
9
10Good bye.
11Olive Schreiner
12
13Any time will do.
14
15I shall be in after four & all the evening. I shall be glad if Miss
16Jones calls. I shall not mention her having written that paper. I will
17give it you when you come. O.S
18

1Friday.
2
3I think when Mrs. Hinton say that we can “cure license not by
4restriction but by greater freedom” she is giving expression to one of
5Hinton’s quite truest ideas. The very fact of freedom takes away from
6the morbid desire which restriction has created.
7
8I only say what I do about Hinton because I see you take the other
9side. It’s my nature to be “kopach” (that’s a Cape Dutch word which
10means that when you turn a horse’s head to one side of the road its
11bound to go & see what’s on the other) I don’t think it’s quite a bad
12quality, at least it always makes one stick up for the absent. I love
13Hinton & I feel sympathy with him, when he’s most wrong I feel it most.
14 But why must I say I love him when you love him?
15
16What you say about jealousy is exactly what I feel. When we rise to
17the last, highest, white-heat of love all selfishness dies away. “And
18if I love thee, what is that to thee?” &, what do I ask of thee?
19
20I am going to find the quiet part of the park now. It’s so nice. One
21day when you have time come & I’ll show it you, please.
22
23It’s just because I know & feel you are so unlike Hinton in many ways
24that I don’t want your your you to be drawn out of your own I natural
25line of growth by him. Can you understand what I ?fee mean?
26
27I like Witman very much & I like those little essays.
28
29O.S
30
31Won If I am not able to go to Herbert Spencer on Sunday & send you a
32post card on Sat evening, will you be able to call for me on Sunday
33afternoon to go to the Progressive? Don’t if it will be troubling you
34at all.
35

1Thursday.
2
3As soon as you had gone out I thought of my likeness. Please send it
4me. I hope you won’t take cold I have been reading that article & am
5much interested in it.
6
7Olive Schreiner
8

132 Fitzroy St
2Monday.
3
4I didn’t give you Eleanor Marx’s note. I am just starting off to
5see my fashionable old lady, & to hear what she had for dinner.
6
7I enjoyed this morning so. I don’t feel that draw-back quite so much
8now, at least I didn’t this morning.
9
10Olive
11

132 Fitzroy St
2Wednesday.
3
4You aren’t angry with me because of what I said on Monday, are you?
5You mustn’t be.
6
7I have so much to say but I am too stupid to say it. I have been lying
8down since yesterday afternoon with a heavy chest cold. I don’t know
9when I shall get to see Miss Jones. You aren’t angry with me, are you?
10
11O.S
12

1Thursday
2
3I will like to come on Monday if I am well enough. I am glad you are
4not angry. I hope you will enjoy going to Oxford. I am still in bed, &
5so stupid
6
7Please let Miss Jones know I can’t come just now
8
9Olive
10

1Sunday Morning.
2
3I am so sorry you have been ill. You & I seem to have had the same
4thing. It’s very funny. On Wednesday Thursday night my head got so bad
5throbbed as though it was going to burst. I thought Eleanor Marx was
6my sister Ettie.
7
8I hope you are quite better & that today’s journey will do you good.
9If my head is better I shall like to go tomorrow evening; if we don’t
10feel well enough we can just stay with eachother. My chest & throat
11are better now, it is only my head that is so bad.
12
13Dr. Donkin says it is nervous prostration that makes my head so. I am
14leaving on Friday week. Let us try to see as much of eachother before
15we ^I^ go as we can.
16
17Yes, I would be better for some mechanical labour; but when I am in
18the country I will work & think from morning till night.
19
20Miss Jones came to see me just after I wrote to you. I was sorry I was
21too stupid to talk.
22
23If you feel tired tomorrow evening to can just sit in the armchair & rest.
24
25Olive Schreiner
26

132 Fitzroy St
2Thursday Eve.
3
4I have been waiting for you as you don’t come I must go down to the
5Oxford where Dr. Aveling said he would wait for us at a quarter to
6eight. You told me any evening this week would do & Dr. Aveling
7can’t take me & Eleanor.
8
9I think the opera you mention will be good. I should like to go Friday
10night if you care to.
11
12Come & unreadable see me on Sat evening if you like, but not if you
13have any other work. My head is still bad. I hope yours keeps all
14right.
15
16Olive
17

1I sent one note to your home address & send this to the Hospital. Are
2you going to the opera this tomorrow evening (Friday) I am making no
3engagements this week because I thought you would be coming this
4evening & perhaps tomorrow. Come on Sat evening if you care to & have
5nothing else to do, but let me know.
6
7I think the Flying Dutchman will be very good.
8
9My head is too bad to scribble much & I am going down to the Oxford
10where Dr. Aveling is waiting for us.
11
12O.S
13

1Sunday
2
3Yesterday was all holiday you are having & you need to be so helped &
4made strong for your work, & I don’t think I helped you. When they
5were reading Witman & you lay on the ground I looked at you
6
7It was sweet to want to come to ^with^ me to London Bridge but our Louie
8can’t go about alone like I can.
9
10Will you please let your coming to see me be entirely governed by what
11is good for the exam.
12
13I am so proud that you love me so much, it is so sweet to me. Can I be
14glad without thinking I am selfish. You love me so beautifully.
15
16Olive
17
18I got a Pall Mall.
19

1Tuesday.
2
3I should like ?ber to come with you tomorrow evening, & shall be here
4if you come at four. I was sorry after I got back thinking you
5hadn’t had any supper, & it would be so late when you got home.
6
7I am somewhat worried today about other people’s affairs. I should
8like to lie down & sleep only I’ve no time.
9
10I like that article on women very much.
11
12I’m glad Miss Jones is coming this afternoon
13
14O. Schreiner
15

1I have to go out to to see an American lady. I will be back by four.
2If I should be a few minutes late wait for me. Eh?
3

1Holly Cottage
2Friday Night
3
4I got here this afternoon at half past six. I think the place will
5suit me. It is very quiet.
6
7Thank you for your letter.
8
9We have ?Mon only one post a a day here. So I do not know when you
10will get this.
11
12I am glad your mother & sister did not dislike me. I am very glad I
13went to see them. I can picture them ^your life^ so much better (I
14didn’t change that word I only scratched it out!)
15
16I feel a bit sad this evening, but that is only because the rain is
17beating on the trees outside & the place is strange to me. I think it
18is rather a sad place, but I shall work here.
19
20I have much I could say, but nothing I could write about. Write to me
21when you have nothing better to I do & it doesn’t interfere with
22your work. You have to work for an exam, havenot you?
23
24I feel very grateful to you; you are very good, & very tender, & ^very^
25true. Tomorrow I shall begin my reading & writing & have something
26rational to write about to you.
27
28Olive Schreiner
29
30If you write to me don’t put Woburn Sands, but just Woburn on the
31letter. I think I shall I give you the full address again because I
32fancy I didn’t give it right & it won’t find me if a letter
33hasn’t the full address
34
35Holly Cottage
36Mount Pleasant
37Aspley Guise
38Woburn
39Beds.
40
41I should be sorry to lose one of your letters. Olive.
42

1Saturday Morning
2
3How good it was of you to think so of me on Thursday night at two
4o’clock & to tell me so.
5
6The letter I sent you last night wasn’t real quite. I wanted to
7write otherwise, but I wouldn’t let myself.
8
9I am not well today. I have not been off the sofa since this morning.
10As soon as I stand up my head swims so, but all the time I lie there I
11have just the thought of you, & some-how I^i^t is pleasant. I think I
12have a heavy feverish cold, I hope it is not the place.
13
14Did you tell Louie all about me? Please do. I hope you feel happy &
15are able to work well. You mustn’t tell her or any one things that I
16tell you about other people but things that I are about myself alone,
17are in your hands, you can do what you like with them, & I shall think
18it right. I have such a strong feeling for Louie. When she put her arm
19round me on the sofa, I wanted to to cuddle ^close^ up to her, but I was
20ashamed. I liked it. I have such an odd feeling ^for her.^ You know when
21I tell you people have loved me or any thing of that kind you must not
22tell any one. Love that has been given you is too sacred a thing to be
23talked of to anyone (don’t you think so,) except just to the person
24who seems ^is like^ part of you & who will feel it as you do.
25
26Will you please tell me little things about your self, about your work,
27 & every thing like that. Is your finger quite better?
28
29Please tell our Louie every thing.
30
31I am so bad, I can’t write better than this today my head goes round
32& round. Whad did you think of that little story in the Mag?
33
34I want to do so much work. You don’t know how I am much better
35mentally since I knew you. I ought to work now.
36
37Olive
38
39It may be I shall be too ill in the next few days to write to you, but
40you can write still.
41

1Holly Cottage
2Sunday evening
3
4I am a bit better this evening. I have been reading Heine. Isn’t it
5odd how when you sympathize with a any one in the main you sympathize
6with them in the little tiny things too. Now, Heine’s hatred to
7Wellington is so delicious to me. I never found anyone who could quite
8sympathize with my loathing for that man.
9
10I have read almost the whole vol. of Galton like it very much, ^because^
11it is suggestive, but he generalizes from quite insufficient data, it
12is ludicru [wordspace] some times. Didn’t it strike you so? I don’t
13know when a book has interested me more. I used to try & teach myself
14the multiplication table when I was small, & I couldn’t remember it,
15& I used to cry & pray about it. At last once (I don’t think it was
16in an instant but in a few days) I saw it. It is like a stair or a
17sloping plank & the figures on it in different shads
18(six-times-six-is-thirty-six, is pure, dazzling white) & now I never
19forget it I always see that. I have often wondered if other people saw
20figures in the same way. It isn’t so clear now as it used to be.
21
22I wish you had told me more about what you used to do & think when you
23were in Australia. I can’t tell everything intuitively! & I rather
24like to hear.
25
26Writing is not so nice as talking. When you talk you know it is for
27one ear only, when you write you feel as if it might not be so, & the
28sweetness is gone. Do you not feel so too? I am very much strong
29
30This place doesn’t suit me at all. I want to find a place that is
31not low & damp. If I go Derbyshire I think I shall feel glorious like
32I used to in the karroo. My mind is so full of thoughts that want
33artistic expression it is almost painful I must go where I can work.
34If I go to Derbyshire, & you felt you cared to come into the country a
35bit would that be too far for you to come? It is much more beautiful
36than here & it would do you more good. I fancy you must be like me &
37need stimulating air. Why we thought so strongly & brightly in the far
38away countrys had to do with other things except solitude.
39
40Don’t think too much of Hinton. Your nobler, stronger, many
41sided-self must not be crushed by him, or rather I should say warped,
42for it will not be crushed.
43
44Don’t trouble to read that MS. of mine till you have quite time &
45nothing else to do. The doctor there is my beau-ideal of a man. Do you
46love him a little?
47
48I had a letter from Mr. Norman this morning, & because I had not heard
49from any one else since I came here I was very glad to get it. I have
50not heard from my brother for fourteen days except one line. Mr.
51Norman’s letter was ^only^ about some books he was going to send me.
52
53I still see always that thing that happened in the bus. Is it not
54strange that it should be so vivid?
55
56Good night. I am going to bed now. I hope you had a nice evening at
57the Browning society. With You know I have a feeling that if you ever
58really care about ^for^ a woman it will be a woman some^thing^ like that
59Lily in New Rush, only she will have a more animal nature, & she will
60crush you out ^completely^ ?powerfully ^mentally & spiritually. Don’t
61you think so.^
62
63Good-night.
64O.S
65
66I wonder if you went to the Progressive this evening. It seems so long
67ago since Herbert Spencer & last Sunday. Months & months seem to have
68passed since then. I wish I was dead.
69
70^When you think of any book it would be good for me to read please, if
71it doesn’t trouble your put it down, & I will put down any book I
72think of that I would like you to read. Did you tell me you you had
73not read Mill’s Logic? I wonder if you have now got on so far that
74it would not be of any help to you.^
75

1Wednesday ^Afternoon^
2
3I got the letter you wrote on Sunday yesterday morning. I haven’t
4been well enough to answer it.
5
6This morning I got the note you wrote on Monday evening, & Louie’s.
7
8I have so much I want to say & I don’t know how to say it with my
9head like this.
10
11I have been quite quiet & happy in spirit since I got your letter
12yesterday morning. I am sorry I wrote you that note, but since it was
13a great help & comfort to me you won’t mind.
14
15You were right not to stay longer on Thurs-day. A few moments longer
16or shorter & you would have had to go all the same.
17
18Will you let me write & arrange for your going to see Philip Marston.
19I should like it so much.
20
21Isn’t this stupid! I try I feel half asleep. Chapman has written
22saying how much he wants to have my book. I got the letter this
23morning. When I get to Derbyshire I shall work away & be as jolly as
24possible.
25
26I haven’t been reading Heine or anything the last two days.
27
28Olive
29
30I know there was something I wanted so much to say, & I can’t think
31of it.
32
33Olive
34

1Thursday.
2
3Thankyou. I would like to see your diary so much. I have a kind of
4journal, but that is mainly of events, not of thoughts & feelings.
5
6I’m ^no^to a bit afraid now. You do comfort me.
7
8I am just the same in body but it’s only the place, I mean the house
9& its position more than the place generally Did I ever tell you how
10my chest first got bad. I was four days quite without food, &
11travelling all the time; I had nothing but a little cold water ^all
12that time.^ I had no money to buy food. When I ate the first mouthful
13at the end of the time, I got this horrible agony in my chest, & bad
14to rush out & for weeks I never lie down night or day. I suffocated if
15I even leaned back. Ever since that if I get to a place that is close,
16& damp & hot, it comes back.
17
18I have been to many doctors, some say it is an affection of the heart
19some say it is asthma of a very peculiar kind. They all say they have
20never seen a case just like it, & I don’t like to tell them how it
21began. Some how one can’t go back into the past without blaming
22those that are dearest to one. & it is better to let the past dead
23bury its dead.^eh?^ I have not been able to go for any walks. Twice I
24have been for a little way & yesterday I walked up & down before the
25door. You wouldn’t know me if you were to see me; I look so funny,
26my face ^is^ such a dark red with the blood in my head.
27
28There is no need to be anxious about me. I shall be better when I get
29to a fresher breezier place.
30
31You will perhaps like to see some of the reviews of S.A.F. so I send
32you some. Send them back because they are my Dadda’s. I’m sorry I
33didn’t keep any. It would be rather amusing after many years – if
34I live so long – to look at them.
35
36You say I must tell you what I am doing, but I don’t do anything
37except walk about my room & try to breathe & lie down on my bed & try
38to breathe. I don’t think it would do for me to stay here long I
39feel as though if I did I should stay here altogether. [one side of the
40page has been torn off here]
41
42feel no passion. The passion is there, but something stronger
43over-rides it.
44
45I wish you could have had what you needed in Australia.
46
47I never used to want to be good. I used to want to know, & to be, & to
48do. Now I want to be good too. It is this time of pain that has done
49it. It has broken my spirit. I am much more pitiful & tender than I
50used to be. I love every thing that can feel. You will see the
51difference in any work I do now. Do you think it is for the worse or
52the better?
53
54I am glad you told Louie. I was afraid you wouldn’t & it would make
55you untrue. ^Please work very^ Love hard. & don’t let me trouble you.
56
57You know I’m not good at all. It’s because I've never told you any
58of the mean little things about myself that you I think I am perhaps
59better than you.
60
61I have much I want to tell you.
62
63You must say Aspley on Apsley.
64Good bye.
65Olive
66
67You must say just what you think about New Rush, & about every thing
68connected with me.
69
70You must not be anxious about me I shall soon be better.
71
72Olive
73

1Aspley Guise
2Friday
3
4Henry you are spoiling me by being so good to me.
5
6I can’t write because my bead is too bad. I have neuralgia which
7contracts my one eye. Will you tell me the name of a good head doctor,
8a specialist
9
10I have been lying all the afternoon talking to you in my mind I hope
11you will go in for the exam at the end of the month I should like it.
12I do not see that writing to me wil take much out of you if you say
13what comes first. Yes, it will be good for me that you write as much
14as you can. Your letters cool & strengthen me. Some day when you are
15in need of help I will help you. Send me that diary, please.
16
17I don’t think you are good in the common way when I say good I mean
18good to me. And by ‘good” generally I mean unselfish. I don’t
19know if I care for you much but somehow my m (no, I won't say that) I
20care so much about ach, I won’t say any thing of that.
21
22I shall prize being allowed to see that diary. I will show you my
23journal when I am with you some day. You wouldn’t be able to
24understand it alone. When I come to something wrong I put it into such
25words that one can’t understand. How close we are to each other.
26
27You would be sorry if you saw me because my head is very bad my eye is
28all drawn up, it has been for two day.
29
30Yes, it would spoil our relationship I feel like you do.
31
32I used always to be calculating. Now feeling comes in a flood &
33carries me away. You must help me to be calculating We must be strong.
34Tell me about what you feel physically & every whay way.
35
36Good night the other part of me.
37Olive
38
39^Henry I can’t look at my papers yet.^
40

1Aspley Guise
2Sun-day
3
4Yes, you must write to me everyday, when you want, & then let a week
5or ten days go without writing when you want not. If I feel wanting a
6letter badly I will write & ask you for one. And when I want a little
7love, expressed love, I will write & ask for that too. Sometimes I can
8do without it but some-times I need it.
9
10My address in Derbyshire will be c/o Mrs. ^Job^ Walker
11Bole Hill
12near Wirksworth.
13
14I would like to have your critical judgment of my mind or rather of my
15work, which is really me.
16
17What did you think of New Rush. You haven’t told me, & I won’t
18tell you what I think of it till you have. Do you think it would be
19right of me to publish it? I think not.
20
21I will like to see the Indian Review.
22
23Henry, there are some things you have said in your letter that are so
24sweet to me, they keep breaking into my mind so sweetly.
25
26When will I have the diary?
27
28I can’t write many things that I would say.
29
30After reading your article about Hinton last night I thought about him,
31 & at last I am coming to a true critical judgment. I will Good bye
32till tomorrow. Olive
33
34I treasure up all those things you said to me though I don’t say
35anything about them.
36
37Henry, I am going to lie down on my little bed in the corner.
38

1 [top of page torn away] One reason why I am so bad here
2is that I get so little food & such bad food. I am almost starved here.
3 Have you ever found how one works in proportion as one eats? I don’t
4mean quantity. But if the highest creative work is to be done there
5
6 [top of page torn away] When I am striving to kill & crush out all that
7side of my nature as I have been for the last two years & a half, very
8nearly three years now, what do I produce? It was not that I
9deliberately tried to crush it, but it was such agony to me that it
10had to die. A man thinks when he touches a woman it is only her body
11he is touching, it is really her soul, her brain, her creative power.
12
13I am descended from the “Olivers” too. My great grandmother or my
14grandmother (I am not quite sure which, I will ask) was a Miss Oliver.
15That is how I came to be Olive. I have an Uncle called Oliver after
16her, & I am called after him, or rather after a brother who was called
17after him. On a little old family silver jug I have here, are the
18initials C.F.O. It’s very funny. I have an old Uncle called Oliver
19Lyndall still living in the North & I will write & ask him. Perhaps it
20is his mother my grandfather’s first wife who was an Oliver. My
21grandfather was a Presbyterian parson, old Dr. Campbell’s predecessor.
22^He must have been a wonderful old man.^ I wonder what more we are going
23be be alike in.
24
25I think you must be tired of hearing about my not being strong. I
26won’t say anything more till I am. Thank you for telling me about the
27Doctors. I want so much [page/s missing]
28

1[page/s missing]
2
3power. It is putting his fingers into her brain & snapping the strings
4when he draws her to him physically, & cannot take her mentally. My
5Henry, there are so many things I should like to say if this was
6talking & not writing. We shall have so many things to say how shall
7we say them all when we are together such a little time.
8
9Good-bye.
10Your Olive
11

1Aspley Guise
2July 8 / 84
3
4I am so glad I am going tomorrow but I feel weak to pack Yes, I have
5the feeling as if you & I were so young together.
6
7The dream, the faith, that I should find some one just like my self
8was with me all through my childhood. I think one would hardly believe
9how youg young it was there.
10
11You could say what you like about me to Mrs. Hinton or anyone. I Did
12you think “New Rush” not myself? The only part that is is where he
13sits & sorts. If you could have seen my condition when I wrote it you
14would wonder that it have even the little bit of “cleverness” it
15has. Nothing else I ever wrote was “clever”; it was all out
16pouring. I don’t like New Rush at all. I don’t feel as if it
17belonged to me. Some times I feel inclined to publish it for the sake
18of the £15 I should get for it. But you don’t think it would be
19right do you?
20
21I felt sure you must ^suffer^ from neuralgia some times. I am a little
22troubled about your life: that journey to & from London every day by train
23takes more out of you than you think. Please take care of yourself in
24the way of eating. Neuralgia is always a sign of low health. If one
25can keep up the physical side no amount of feeling or thinking hurts
26one. I am at present resolving to take care of my self ^body,^ so must
27you. ^that we may be strong & work.^
28
29I will write to you as soon as I get to Derbyshire. Send the diary.
30
31Olive
32
33^It isn’t Aspley Guise that’s so bad it’s just this spot. Give my
34love to Louie.^
35

1Tuesday Night.
2
3Have finished my packing, am so glad I am going.
4
5Olive
6
7Do you love that Saturday Reviewer?
8
9I am at Wirksworth all right
10-------
11Wednesday morning
12

1Derby Station
2Wednesday
3
4I got here at half past twelve & find I have to wait 4 hours till half
5past four. I wonder whether I shall soon get your diary. Send it at once.
6
7I hadn’t such a bad journey. I had a carriage all to my self so I
8could lie down, & I could have gone fast to sleep, only I was afraid
9we might pass Derby. This station reminds me something of London with
10its noise & stir. Dear old London. You don’t know how happy the time I
11was there looks to me now.
12
13I am getting afraid that the new place will be just like the last.
14
15I wonder if you My head is so bad. There is such a pretty wall paper
16in this room it is quite nice to look at it. Wall papers have so much
17meaning for me. I could give des-criptions of many wall papers I saw
18when I was a child.
19

1Bole Hill
2Wirksworth
3Thursday.
4
5I found your letter waiting for me when I got here.
6
7The poems are all powerful except “Love & Life” which I think weak.
8 I like “The two loves,” very much.
9
10You are right in all you say about Marston. That is just it. You have
11no right to des-cribe him exactly in the same words I des-cribed him
12the other day though.
13
14I felt somewhat ashamed the other day after I had said that about
15sexual feelings. Fancy being ashamed of you. Now I’m not.
16
17About Hinton one reason why I can not feel quite the same about him as
18you do is that it seems to me that all that he says (except about a
19married man having one more than one wife, & that I have thought too!)
20is such old old property of mine. When I come to tell you all my life
21you will see that this is true. What I think is that sometimes he puts
22the true views badly, & not quite truly.
23
24But you are wanting to know about me.
25
26I got here last evening in the rain. This is a beautiful place, & a
27delightful clean little cottage off four rooms on the side of a hill
28over looking the little tiny town of Worksworth. It is perhaps not so
29pretty as some other parts of Derbyshire may by be, but to me who
30haven’t unreadable ^has^ longed so for my old hill life, it is so
31delightful One feels near God here.
32
33My chest is still so very bad. I hope I will be able to stay here. I
34like it so. There are only four little rooms in the cottage. I have
35such a beautiful little bedroom & sittingroom. If ever you should come
36here we will read French together. Only I am sorry there isn’t
37another bedroom in the house. We would have seemed somehow nearer if
38we had been in the same house. But there are plenty of cottages near
39by where I could get you a bedroom if you did come.
40
41I send you a letter part of which will perhaps interest you to read.
42It has made me so happy. It is the first tenderish letter I have had
43from my brother Theo for so many years. He is twelve years older than
44I am & when I was a child I used to worship him, & love him so. When I
45was ten & began to be a free-thinker he drifted away from me. He
46hasn’t cared for me much since because Christianity makes his whole
47life. He used to love me so. One day I will show you some little
48allegories & letters of his, the allegories about me, wonderful when I
49think they were written by a brother of three & twenty or so to a
50little sister of nine. Then he turned away from me so utterly when I
51began to think.
52
53I value this letter very much. It is only the last part that will
54interest you. Isn’t it funny that people I have loved most have been
55^of^ my own family & the people I knew best. It isn’t newness that
56attracts me, it’s oldness. The more I know things the more I love
57them, if they are lovable at all.
58
59How nice it will be to read French with you. If I do get better here
60it will be some time before I am fit for work. It is so beautiful here
61to me Henry. On the hill opposite some great stone quarries. It is as
62though something tore the hill open & said “Here, you shall see not
63only the smoothe but the hard strong stuff that is inside too.”
64Somehow I like quarries. ^so^. Some people think them ugly.
65
66Your little child.
67Olive
68

1Friday Night
2
3I do feel better today. I have been sleeping ever since I got here, &
4yet not fast asleep.
5
6Henry, I am so depressed thinking of my work. You see, dear one, I
7have so cut up & changed the thing that there is hardly anything left
8& I don’t know how to put it together. This afternoon I nearly got
9off the sofa, & burnt the whole MS. I would give hundreds of pounds if
10I had never touched it, & published it just as it was [bottom half of
11page torn off]
12
13splendid scenes.
14
15We won’t think about that any more.
16
17This place is so beautiful. Behind the house is a place called
18“Black Rocks.” I am going to take you to it when you come. You
19will like it so. I do like this Derbyshire so much. I will be so happy
20if I can get well here & work. I is just the place that seems made for
21me. I have such a beautiful bedroom up stairs with a great white bed &
22a top with little brown flowers on it. If you & I were [bottom half of
23page torn off]
24
25right. The people were real in the novel; but they are not real in
26that epitomy.
27
28Dr. Aveling & Miss Marx are coming up to Middleton next week. That is
29about a mile & a half from this I can see the house on the top of the
30next hill. Alfred St Johnston is coming to visit too. At least he has
31written to ask if he can. He is at Birmingham.
32
33My heart is heavy over my work. It is heavy because I am in
34uncertainty, & nothing has the same evil effect on my nature as
35uncertainty. The question in my mind is this. – Is it best to set my
36teeth together & to bring “From man to man”, up to my standard, or
37to leave it & throw myself onto new-work? The last would be easiest I
38could do splendid new work, but something in me a kind of love for my
39work that perhaps no one can understand makes me feel that I must
40labour on at my work till I am satisfied. I think it was the devil
41made me unpick it. Ach, I will set my teeth, & work at it & make it
42something better than it was, eh Henry. I can’t have Bertie &
43Rebekah die. They are as much to me as ever Waldo or Lyndall were. You
44don’t know how real my people are to me.
45
46I am covering this with blots. I am tired I think that’s why. I will
47have your diary perhaps tomorrow
48
49Later.
50
51It is much later I am just going up to bed. What a troubled foolish
52letter the first part of this is. I am ashamed, not that you should
53read it but that I should feel so. Not good work is ever done while
54the heart is hot & anxious & fretted.
55
56It is a great comfort to me that you are feeling so able to work & are
57working. I sort of take it for my work & feel satisfied by it. You
58know Henry all these months when I have been in such suffering, & have
59had that yearing to do something for others that I feel when I am in
60pain I have always built upon the fact, “From man to man” will
61help other people, it will help to make men more tender to women
62because they will understand them better; it will help to make some
63women more tender to others; it will comfort some women but showing
64them that others have felt as they do,” Now if I were to tell it
65fall to the ground I should feel that so much of my life had been
66wasted, gone for nothing. Do you long so too sometimes to lessen the
67pain & suffering in ^the^ world? Especially the greatest agony, despair.
68That feeling is always growing in me & sometimes it breaks over me in
69a wave of passion. It isn’t for happiness or good to myself, or to
70make others merry, it is to lessen the suffering of others that I have
71to live. It is for this that I have lead the life that I have, that
72now when the power of self-feeling is almost worn out in me, I should
73comfort others.
74
75Good night. This is a poor letter but you want me to write just as it
76comes. Your, Olive
77
78Love to Louie & ask her if she hasn’t got one of her likenesses to
79spare for me
80

1[page/s missing]
2
3Sh though mine is so completely blended with my mind, that it is not
4as strong in me. It is not so easily awakened in me, but it is much more
5intense even as a physical feeling I think.
6
7I am very glad you did not enter the church. How could you think of
8it? ^And yet in one way it would have suited you better than any thing.^
9I must have a long talk with you some day (perhaps in a letter) on
10your use of the word ?ol “God” & the old symbols generally. The use
11of them by people like ^you &^ me is never quite true. (That is what
12makes Hinton’s writings so false.) We cannot always stop to define
13what what we mean by God &c, &c, so the best way is not to use the
14terms at all. I have taken care that the word God does not occur in
15this last book of mine; hateful, damned name that it is. A word may
16become so defiled by bad use that it will take a century before it can
17be purified & brought into use again. I’m not explaining what I mean,
18but I think you will understand.
19
20I am now able to understand your feeling for Hinton it was just
21^principally^ the time at which he came to you that has made him so much
22to you, & I have now a new kind of feeling to Hinton myself.
23
24Your passion for that little girl who pulled up her stockings is so
25well to me. You darling!
26
27Yes, you did need nearness to a woman when you were in Australia. I am so
28
29 [top of page torn off] to [papertorn] to you & you to her. I think it was
30good for you both. For me all love was meant to he a curse & suffering,
31 – & yet, ^no,^ not a curse, one wouldn’t have been without it, but I
32hope I shall never love any-thing so again.
33
34You say on one page that you are writing it, & perhaps some one will
35one day read it & understand it, & love you. It [top of page torn off]
36
37^And^ When I was living just like you on a lonely farm & at night when
38my work was over going out to walk under the willow trees or at the
39dam wall, & I used to think “One day I must find him.”
40
41Good bye
42Olive
43
44I am going to keep your diary some time longer because I’ve
45
46not done with it yet. What made you delicate when you went out to
47Australia, my sweet? Goethe has been just for you what he has been to
48me & I think ^it was^ at the same time.
49
50Midday.
51
52I have just got your letter.
53
54Yes, I have felt afraid that in my feeling that Hinton had too much
55power over you I might effect you too strongly on the other side. But
56I think that in after years when you look back we “will” see that I
57have been to some extent right. Hinton, is a great man, the world will
58he better for hearing what he has to say; you are doing good work in
59helping the world to hear it. In truth I do not think it was so much
60dear old Hinton himself as the effect of Hinton’s admirers that has
61not been good for you. I can quite imagine that if I were among people
62who were always telling me I was a second George Sand, I might in the
63end fancy I was & lose some of my own virtues in trying to imitate
64hers. And yet I never would be George Sand, & I should lose Olive
65Schreiner who might be every bit as good.
66
67If you heard me defending Hinton to other people you wouldn’t say I
68“must like him a little”. I love Hinton because he had a great free
69loving soul. I hate his clinging to the old symbols when he didn’t
70cling to the thing meant. & his fear of saying the things he meant in
71naked black & white. Darling, you mustn’t let me trouble you on this
72point. If you feel that I am not good for you in this way you must
73tell me not to write about it any more. Perhaps if all Hinton wrote
74were nakedly published that kind of holding back I complain of would
75be found not to be in the man. Yes, my boy, we are only children
76together, to help eachother to grow.
77
78Why did you tell me about that little cottage, & you all alone in it?
79Now I keep wanting it, & the only thing I can do is take a bedroom for
80you in a little house about a half a minutes walk from this. Yes, this
81is close to Wirksworth. It is the last house on the side of the hill
82above the little town. It is about a mile & a half to the station. The
83woman here charges me 25/- for board & all That’s not dear is it? I
84think the ^best^ plan will be ^to^ arrange that we take our meals together,
85 & you just have your bedroom in the other house. How long could you
86perhaps stay? It would be so much nicer if we could be in the same
87house, some-how eh?
88
89^Yes I want letters, but I mustn’t get them when you are busy.^
90
91Olive
92

1I have been reading Miss Jones’s letter again. I feel so sorry for
2her, but I feel so sorry for you I feel quite sore. When she says
3“you are of kin – whether Olive Schreiner is I don’t know” &c
4what does she mean? Of “kin” with Hinton, of “kin” with whom?
5I hope my darling has not been forgetful to her in her trouble. We
6must bring down our broad desire to help other people, & let it force
7itself down into the little tiny acts with regard to other people, as
8well as in our general thinking & working for their good. But I fancy
9you need less to be reminded of this than I do.
10
11Please write the names of some good books. I don’t know what to send
12for. Have you read the life of Ellen Watson? I wonder if it would help
13Miss Jones if I were to write to her a good deal, nice long letters,
14or if she would dislike it. What do you think
15
16Don’t let the thought of me keep you from going to see her, because
17you knew you are my own boy whatever you are doing. You must do
18what’s right, & what you feel you can.
19
20 [top of paper torn away] I have an idea now that what is the matter with
21me just now is hay-fever. I’ve never been just like this before. Do
22you know of any little quiet, country, sea side place near this part
23of England where I could go, & where you could come for your holiday?
24By the sea I am always so well, & I want to be so well when you are
25with me. This place is so beautiful & the quiet so sweet. I would like
26to live here always.
27
28 [top of paper torn away] good as I can [paper torn away] is best I left
29out those parts. I will make it best. You help me so.
30
31My Dadda writes to me some times, now & then a little note. You
32don’t know how good & thoughtful he is for me.
33

1Thursday.
2
3I have just got a letter from my Dadda. My little nephew is ill &
4wants so much to come & stay with me he keeps saying, that if he could
5be with me he would be quite well. My brother wants him to come to me
6for a fortnight coming. next Thursday, & for me to take him to Buxton.
7Henry, if I were there would you come there too? It would be better if
8we were there quite alone together – but it’ll still bye me & still be
9you. Henry, if you would rather come after he’s gone, you won’t stay
10shorter time because of that? The time you spend here won’t be wasted;
11it will be good for your work. You can do much writing here.
12
13When people I know are ill they always long for me, & I must always
14answer back to their longing. I should like you to see the little boy
15because I love him so much.
16
17Mrs. Walters is coming on Sat to stay with me till Monday. It is she
18who wrote those letters about Hinton. She was so afraid of my falling
19in love with you, that was why she wrote them. You would like her very
20much, she is more like you & me in character than anyone I know. She
21is something like you in the face too. That in Eleanor Marx’s letter
22about friendship is like we think. I am going to try & work to-day. I will.
23
24Do you know that when I went to Dr. Coghill at Venter (the well known
25chest man) he said that if I married I would be quite well. He sent
26his wife to talk to me. She told me her own case which was exactly
27like mine (, & what is funny she said her’s began through being
28starved at school just when she was first a woman) & she said that
29from the day she married she never knew she had a chest again.
30
31It can’t be hay fever. I sat in the hay field yesterday. The food is
32very good here. We shall have such nice little dinners & teas together.
33
34Olive
35

1Monday Night
2
3I am so tired. I did not go to to sleep till the dawn light was
4shining strong in my windows last night. ^this morning^. I walked down
5to Wirksworth this afternoon to get my letters. I have done a little
6good work today & yesterday. Worked with such intense enjoyment, &
7then I know my work is good
8
9The feeling of pleasure thrills all through me.
10
11N Good night
12Olive
13
14I have many plans about your coming. I wonder how you answered Miss
15Jones. Do you write as if you understood what she meant? Tell me as
16much about these things ^as^ you like. I like to know about you.
17
18Tuesday.
19
20I liked the letter I got this morning so much.
21
22You will find that I know nothing at all of ^F^french, but if you will
23teach me a little while you are here I will easily be able to go on by
24myself. It will be the first time anyone has ever helped me to learn
25anything except when I was very little & my mother taught me to read.
26I have never been to school you know or had one sixpence expended on
27my education. When I think of all the advantages ^that^ other people
28have I sometimes feel bitter, or at least I used to, I don’t ^now^
29know. When people say it is unnatural for people placed as Lyndall &
30Waldo were to have such thoughts & feelings, I laugh to myself
31
32It isn’t that one can’t teach oneself everything, one can, but
33it’s at such a fearful cost of strength. That makes me sorry that I
34never had any help. I haven’t told you anything really of my life
35yet, I will when we are together. My work is getting on splendidly Its w
36You will think perhaps that I’m writing sheets & sheets, but I’m
37not. It’s wonderful what a lot of thought & feeling goes just to
38make a few lines when they are written.
39
40It’s not Hayfever, because I can go & sit in the Hay fields. I
41don’t dislike Shiller. He is one of the weak second order of minds,
42but I feel kindly to him. I have not read anything since I came here
43except a few pages of Heine & Emerson. My dreaming takes up so much of
44my time. I wonder if they have medical books at the London. Sometimes
45when I can read nothing else I can lose myself in reading the account
46of a disease & the various remedies & mode of treatment. It seems to
47me that such a marvellous light is to be thrown on the whole physical
48& mental being of man, remotely on the whole universe by the study of
49morbid physical conditions But this doesn’t account for the peculiar
50delight I take in such things. It is strange that every member of my
51family (, except one brother & the sister who died the other day) have
52this feeling. This desire to doctor, this interest in all that belongs
53to the study of disease. In my little mother & in my eldest brother
54tears come into his old eyes now, when he talks of his longing to be a
55doctor & who it couldn’t be. There is something quite pathetic in
56the way in which he potters over his boys will bottles of medicine,
57– a kind of inbred instinct that will out. Really I have not often
58heard of a complex instinct like that running in a whole family, have
59you? I was quite touched when I came to England & found that my eldest
60brother who had left home when he was twelve long before I was born &
61who had never seen any of his friends since had developed exactly the
62same passion that Theo, & Ettie, & Katie, & I had. Alice may have had
63it too, but she never told me of it.
64
65I am going for a little walk [bottom part of page torn off]
66
67for your neuralgia. I don’t think that “will” is Colonial. I
68know Mrs. Brown does it too instinctively. I think I do it when I find
69that it expresses better what I mean than if I said “shall,” & so
70on. When I was little I used to have a great many ways of talking &
71words I used that were different from other children [bottom part of
72page torn off]
73
74tell when [part of page torn off]
75
76^I suppose that’s why so little is known.^
77
78^This book is going to be awfully outspoken An African Farm was nothing
79to it in ?heat. Perhaps I shall have work with the publishers but they
80like to make money.^
81
82Olive
83

1Wednesday
2
3I have read Leckys History of European Morals. That last chapter on
4women, was the first time ^thing^ that I ever heard or knew really
5anything of prostitution. It came on me like a flash, & it has had an
6effect on my whole life. “Is it necessary there should be
7prostitutes?¬ – then let them be set up on high as other good & useful
8things are – But it is not necessary, &, by God, it shall not always
9be!” That was my first feeling. His “History or Rationalism in Europe”
10also had great things for me at the time I read it. Read it if you
11have not. I read “Under-ground Russia” at Aspley Guise. Thank
12
13I shall send for the other books you mention [rest of the page torn off]
14
15The first time she came to see me it made me feel that I didn’t care
16to come any nearer to you or that you should come ^any^ nearer to me. A
17kind of disgust. almost. I do not feel that I am of kin with the
18Hinton school (^though^ I should love Mrs. Hinton ^very^ much, I know, &
19sympathise with her!) & it seems to me that perhaps you were right in
20that feeling of drawing back from me with regard to Hinton, darling, &
21that perhaps I was taking tending (in ^far as I had any influence with you)^
22to take you out of an influence that was good & happy for you, better
23than anything I have to give you.
24
25I have been reading Heine with pleasure; he helps one to forget
26everything, doesn’t he?
27
28I haven’t heard again from Eastbourne, but I think Wilfred is coming
29on Friday or they would have written. Yes, [part of page torn off]
30
31soon as he goes, if you care to come. [part of page torn off]
32
33^or come before. I would take rooms for you in Buxton.^
34

1Thursday Afternoon
2
3I have been reading “Love’s Martyrdom” and “The Two Loves.”
4Do you know that there is great worth in them. I have first seen it
5clearly now. “The two loves” has power, not only power of thought,
6but power of expression, that is to me almost wonderful. It came on me
7just now with a thrill of pleasure when I was reading. The Woof of
8Reminiscence has wonderful word power also. It I think it it is the
9peculiarity of your^self^ & of all that belongs to you, that it ^you^
10im?proves^fold^ on acquaintance, it unfolds. Voice, manner, every thing
11unfolds, & shows more than one ^ever^ thought of. You are a kind of
12sweet surprise. Take great care of ^all^ the sonnets you write. All I
13have seen ought to be published except “Life & Love” That isn’t
14like you If I read it with out knowing it was yours I should never
15dream you had written it It has not that strength which nothing else
16of yours lacks, that strength which is shown most in your critical
17power & in your tenderness. I think you are tenderest ^strongest^ where
18you are strongest. ^tenderest^ I think those last lines of The Two Loves
19are so tender & strong.
20
21Dr. Aveling & Miss Marx have just been to see me. She is now to be
22called Mrs. Aveling. I was glad to see her face. I love her, but she
23looks so miserable.
24
25Henry, what a great & solemn thing love is. I want in my life’s work,
26 if I work much & live long, to show what a wonderful power love has
27over the physical & through it over the mental nature, over what we
28call the soul, the inner-self. In this book I have tried to show it,
29but you see when I wrote it I did not know what the last three years
30have taught. I can only now try to show it
31
32^here & there. Good evening friend.^
33
34Olive
35
36I am going to work some more now.
37
38^I have a funny feeling that I could write in the same room where you
39were. I don’t know if I could. I should like to try some day. Any
40other person stops utterly my mental work, but I was feeling just now
41that if you were lying on the bed behind me I should work just the
42same, better I think.^
43

1Bole Hill
2July 25 / 84
3Friday
4
5I won’t say all I’ve got to say, just cram away for that old exam now,
6darling. I don’t understand your life quite, yet, but it seems to me
7that for the next couple of years your medical studies ought to stand
8a good bit to the fore. You will reap the benefit of them mentally, &
9in increased usefullness to others, & in many ways bye & bye.
10
11Oh, that was a sweet little story that came to me last night. Just
12like the one in the ^school^ Mag it is in character but much nicer. It
13is such a beautiful evening, & such a still light on the grass. Do you
14know that snuffing quinine does me such wonderful good. As soon as
15leave it off my chest gets asthma; isn’t that funny? I am very well;
16^shall^ be such a strong girl by the time you come! Forget me &
17everything for a day or two.
18
19^Your,^
20Olive
21
22^Nice you should do me good.^
23
24^You shall have such a rest when you come here. He shall be petted so.^
25
26^I’m saving it all up.^
27

1Tuesday Morning
2
3I was going to tear up the bit I enclose, but I won’t because perhaps
4you would like to see it. I can’t explain what I mean by this fear not
5even to my-self, perhaps you can for me. I am so afraid of caring for
6you much I feel such a bitter feeling with myself if I feel I am
7^perhaps^ going to. I think that is it. I feel like someone rolly
8rolling a little ball of snow on a mountain side, & he knows at any
9minute it may pass out of his hand & grow bigger & bigger & go – he
10knows not where.
11
12Yet, when I get a letter, even like your little matter-of-fact note
13this morning, I feel “But this thing is yourself.” In that you are
14my-self I love you & am near to you; in that you are a a man, I am
15afraid of you & shrink from you.
16
17^Do^ You know that butterfly that the artist of ^the^ beautiful makes in
18Hawthorne’s story?
19
20Thankyou for that notice about Will Sharp’s book. I mean to get it.
21How is our exam going. ?feeling ?miss It’s this dry-as-dust part of
22the work that must be so horrible. Especially, you see, if you don’t
23think in your future life of making the practise & study of ^medicine^
24it the central point (& I feel most distinctly that your “call” is f
25to literature, just as mine was, in spite of my medical longing).
26
27Yesterday I heard part of Ibsen’s play “Ghosts”, still in MS. It is
28one of the most wonder-ful & great things that has long, long been
29written. I wanted you so too, to be sitting there too ^by me^ to hear it.
30 There was one line that touched the^se^ last three years. It made me
31almost mad. I cried out aloud & I couldn’t help it. Please If there
32had been a hundred people there I could^not^ have helped it.
33
34I have just got a telegram from my brother to say I must be in [paper
35torn away]
36
37is a friend of Mrs. Walter’s. His, from what she tells me, is another
38case in which the sister has been the determining & good power in a
39man’s life. This sister whom I
40
41 [paper is torn away]
42
43Good night
44Olive
45
46Mrs. Walters says that I seem years unreadable gladder younger than
47when she saw me this time last year, like just as if I were only
48fifteen. Do you know it is you who have made me feel so young. Almost
49altogether you. I feel younger much
50
51^than when I was about a child of ten. Your Olive^
52

1 [page torn away] & saw
2
3for my book last night when I
4
5 [page torn away] Please tear up.
6

1Sat. Night late
2
3I have just come home with Wilfred from a concert. I am tired but I
4want to write to you. I have so many plans about your coming, &
5don’t know which will be best. You see at Bole Hill it is nice, & in
6some ways I want so much to be there, but the Avelings being at
7Middleton makes it all different. I am beginning to have such a horror
8of Dr. A-, other-self. To say I dislike him doesn’t express it at
9all, I have a fear, a horror of him when I am near. Every time I see
10him this shrinking grows stronger. Now you see when I am at Bole Hill
11they come every-day to see me. We shouldn’t be much alone, & we have
12so many things to talk about. At Buxton we should find it too
13townified, & besides dearer than you & I like. I think the way would
14be for you to come here on Monday evening, & stay till Wednesday when
15we could talk over going back to Wirksworth, or taking rooms at
16Miller’s Dale or some out of the way little village.
17
18You see, Henry, we have so many things to do & to talk about. It may
19^be^ the last time we are together ^(^(certainly for months,^)^ perhaps for
20years. likely will be I have to stick to my book till the winter (& I
21don’t know that I shall have it ready by November.) Then I shall
22have to go to the South of France or at nearest to Ventnor. And if we
23are at Wirksworth the Avelings will be always with us. I love her, but
24he makes me so unhappy
25
26I think you had better come here on Monday & stay till Wednesday ^eh^? I
27can get you the little room Wilfred has. I wish I had read Bebel’s
28book before you came I couldn’t get a copy. Now until my little boy
29goes I shan’t be able to look at a book or a news paper. When he is
30with me I only play & amuse him, & walk about with him from the time
31he gets up till he goes to bed. Then I am too tired to read or write.
32
33We must read all we can on the woman question, just now it is our
34question. In after years it may be something else. I will tell you
35about “Ghosts” when you come. I touch deals with the question of
36equal moral laws for both sexes, & of physical relation ship even
37between a half brother & sister “when good.” - & with what
38wonder-ful art it deals with the subject! It is a translation by
39Frances Lord. The book is considered too strong even on the continent,
40what with they think of it in England. She is trying to find a
41publisher for it, as she lost heavily on “Nora”.
42
43Do you know that Wirksworth is the scene of Adam Bede & that George
44Eliot’s aunt lies buried there? Ach, I want you to see Wirksworth,
45ugly as it is; we will arrange everything when you come. Wherever we
46are we will rest together. I do tell you about myself. My chest aches.
47Wilfred is 12 years old, & just as tall as I am. His eyes are
48something like his father’s but the lower part of his face is his
49mothers.
50
51Yesterday we were rowing on the lake a in the morning, ^in^ the
52afternoon I took him to see a cavern, in the evening to a concert.
53Today being Sunday I am going to take him for a long walk & tell him
54stories. I am so
55
56You can’t think what a horror I am getting to have of Dr. A. He is
57so selfish, but that doesn’t account for the feeling of dread. Mrs.
58Walters has just the same intuitive feeling about him. I had it when I
59first saw him. I fought it down for Eleanor’s sake, but here it is
60stronger than ever.
61
62G Sunday Morning. Your little letter has come. Yes, when I don’t get
63a letter from you I go about so restless, it makes me bad. I hope you
64will get my book this morning or tomorrow.
65
66^That will do instead of a letter.^
67
68Olive
69

1Buxton
2Monday
3
4No letter from you this morning. I have a bad cold on my chest, & lay
5in bed. Bring something interesting for us to read when you come;
6though with all we have to say, our walks & our French-reading, we
7shall not have much time over.
8
9I should like to know Miss Hadden. Were you ever a wee bit in love
10with Daisy Hinton?
11
12I have to take my little boy to an entertainment this evening. This is
13a very short note, but you would rather have it than nothing I does us
14such good to get letters from each other
15
16Olive
17

1Buxton
2Tuesday Night
3
4Sweet, I am soon going to bed very tired. We went for a drive this
5morning to a place called the “Cat-&-Fiddle.” I must go to it with
6you. It is the first ^& only^ place I have seen in England that gives
7one that feeling – the feeling we both miss so here. It is a bare
8wild mountain top 2000 feet above the see. You have that sense of
9solitude even though there are many pl people near you. This afternoon
10we went for a walk to Miller’s Dale. That too is beautiful, but it
11is the English “beautiful,” not ours. You know Wirksworth isn’t
12beautiful a bit compared to this part of Derbyshire it is quite ugly &
13common.
14
15I am not quite sure if Wilfred will go on Monday, but I think so. I
16took your letter with me & I read it at the “Cat & Fiddle.” & this
17afternoon at Miller’s Dale. I must get that article in the
18Nineteenth. I like Seely so. Now he is a man to whom I feel “a-kin.
19” That is something quite different from merely admiring a writer,
20very much admiring him. I always feel (did from the first moment I
21opened his book) akin to Emerson.
22
23I never read now, never touch a book You can’t think in what a
24completely stupefied state of mind I am. I can’t even make stories
25to myself after I go to bed. Tomorrow we are going to the Valley of
26the Goyte. ?I ?want ?might Goodnight my brother. How nicely I will
27rest when I know you are sleeping in a room not far off
28
29Olive
30
31^I have such heaps of things about Eleanor Dr. A – & all sorts of
32things to talk about.^
33
34Your little comrade.
35Olive
36

1Buxton
2Friday.
3
4I am so glad that exam is over. Even if you haven’t passed it it’s
5something to have got rid of it. But I hope you have.
6
7I think you must come on Tues-day. I have to take Wilfred to Derby on
8Monday afternoon, shall not be back at Wirksworth till late in the
9evening, & I don’t want you to come ^just^ when I am too tired to stand
10or move. I think we had better go to Wirksworth straight.
11
12I didn’t write yesterday because I was very tired. I will explain to
13you about my style when I see you. I never know why I do ^write^ things
14in a cer-tain way when I write them, but I can generally find out if
15think afterwards. I think what you mean is what I called “writing
16ribbed” I don’t know when I invented that term for a certain style of
17writing; I am changing a whole chapter of “From man to man” from what
18I call the plain into the “ribbed” style. Sometimes the plain is right,
19 sometimes the “ribbed.” I think I generally write descriptions in the
20plain, & philosophize or paint thought in the “ribbed.” (You know in
21knitting there are two stitches, one makes a plain surface & the other
22makes ribs; I think I got it from that. Ribbed knitting isn’t smooth
23it goes up & down, up & down).
24
25I wish Dr. A wasn’t at Wirksworth.
26
27Good bye till tomorrow my own friend what a difference you make in my life.
28Olive
29
30If I’m not well enough to go about with you you must go alone for
31walks. I want you to see everything I’ve seen.
32

1Buxton
2Saturday
3
4So glad my brother has passed. I had set my heart on it.
5
6Odd that you have just the same kind of feeling to Miss Jones that I
7have, & it seems so wrong to me, & I can’t help it.
8
9Bring letters of yours & lots of things about yourself, & I will show
10you many of mine. You had ^better^ come to Matlock, not Wirksworth
11station I think, there are so few trains from Derby to Wirksworth, &
12both ^stations^ are about a mile & a half from Bole Hill. Tell me which
13way you are coming, & by what train on Tuesday. If you can tell me
14exactly ^at what time you will come^ & you come from ^the^ Matlock ^way,^ I
15will meet you at the top of the Cromford Hill, if you are walking. But
16I think you will have to drive as you won't he able to carry your bag
17all that way, the road is so steep. I wish
18
19Your sister
20Olive
21

1Boll Hill
2Wednesday Night.
3
4It seems so long since this morning days & days.
5
6Now Mr & Mrs Walker have gone to bed in your room & am sitting here at
7my little table. ?I ?wonder unreadable You have had a wet cold day for
8your journey. I’m afraid you were very tired when you got home. It has
9rained here all day.
10
11Mrs. Walker asked me this afternoon if I was engaged to you. I said,
12no. I haven’t been able to write this afternoon so I have done ever so
13much needle work Tomorrow I am going to get up early & work. I feel so
14happy in mind, only this afternoon when I looked out at the window I
15saw a man on the road from Wirksworth with a black bag in his band & a
16black hat, & tall, & it made it seem somehow as if you ought to be
17coming. I didn’t like it. I feel much less in spirit to work than when
18you were with me, but that will pass tomorrow.
19
20Harry, you must do a good deal of work, & don’t let your reading &
21thinking run too much in one line.
22
23I felt I shouldn’t sleep so I asked Mrs. Walker to give me a whole
24glass of beer to drink before I get into bed.
25
26Good bye, my own friend,
27Olive
28
29Could you find out & tell me what the charge for copying MS. is I know
30there are many people at the British Museum who do it.
31

1Thursday Night ^9.30.^
2
3I have been working since nine o’clock this morning. Have not left
4off even to eat, eat walking up & down. Have ?ha not laid down today!!!
5 Can you believe that? I feel as if I must write to you this evening.
6I have to keep on working or I would miss you. I haven’t been out of
7doors today, but could see such a lovely light on the grass. I wanted
8to go for a walk with you.
9
10Weren’t they glad to see the boy at home. How was the cream? I am
11afraid it was butter. And the eggs. I ought to have packed them.
12
13I haven’t heard again from Blackwell, but I think I shall be able to
14go on Tuesday.
15
16What of the Avelings? Be sure you don’t mention to anyone our my
17idea about the debt, because it might set other people to whom he owes
18money on him.
19
20I am going to read Emerson now. You know he is just like a bible to me.
21 It comforts me so.
22
23I wonder if there will be a letter from you tomorrow. Does it seem
24long to you since you went too?
25
26Good night now, my boy,
27
28Olive
29
30Friday.
31
32I have your letter, & the toothbrush.
33
34Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be sad or afraid.
35
36I think the great difference between us was is that the goodness which
37I only strive after, you have.
38
39There is one word in your letter I can’t make out. I send it to you.
40I am disappointed that Louie was not athome when you got there. I
41wanted her to be there to comfort you.
42
43You seem to have had such a good effect on my mind. I am working
44better than I ever have since I came to England.
45
46I ?wond I think I do understand you.
47
48Olive
49

1Bole Hill
2Friday night
3
4Walked down to Wirksworth this afternoon to buy quinine & see if there
5were letters; was caught in the rain. Have come back, & am sitting in
6my bedroom: by fire burning & gas lit. It looks so nice & bright, my
7heart doesn’t keep getting cold like last evening.
8
9I have been working all day though I have not written much. I have
10been tearing up. I did a splendid bit this evening, though; or rather
11it’s come to me, I haven’t written it yet. My brother wants me to
12go to town to see those Cape people, but I don’t feel as if it would
13be right to leave my work just now.
14
15My stomach is quite right ^well.^ I have nothing the matter with me. I
16haven’t got my library books yet. I like to hear about the little
17things you do in London & where you go.
18
19Sat morning.
20
21Have your little note. Do you know that since I came to England I have
22never felt in mind as I do now. So able for work. Henry, you are good
23for me, about the best thing that ever came into my life.
24
25How is your liver now? You mustn’t fancy that you had anything to do
26with my being so stupid of body the last week. It was only that
27Cromford was too low for me, & I was stupid when you came, my strength.
28 I do feel near you. I can feel your heart up against mine all the
29time. I am glad they think you looking stouter a little. I should like
30to make you quite fat with happiness & sleep (it isn’t eating that
31makes one fat) & I’m sure you would be better for it. Have you
32noticed that all highly nervous people are better the stouter they are
33& worse the thinner they are. I know it’s so with me. Phlegmatic
34people again are nearly always better when they are thin. Of course
35this is just generally speaking. Olive.
36
37^Thanks for the toothbrush^
38
39^I leave for Black Well Farm on Wednesday morning. Had a letter from St.
40 Johnstone this morning. Read a lot of French last night before I went
41to bed.^
42
43^I have Mrs A’s address.^
44

1^My bedroom^
2Sunday Afternoon.
3Sept ^Aug 31st^ 1884
4
5I have just got your Friday evening letter. It is very sweet to me.
6How strange you should have such a longing for music; the day you went
7I kept feeling “Oh if I could hear music, if I could hear music.” & I
8have been feeling more or less the same ever since.
9
10My heart, my sweet heart, has it got dull aching sensation! [bottom of
11page torn off]
12
13your Pocket Book? I think you will have to send a weekly copy of it to me.
14
15I am reading Lange History of Materialism. I like it very much It
16doesn’t exactly hinge in with my work somehow though. A notice of a
17terrible case at the Diamond Fields of abducting young girls for
18prostitution has much more fallen in with it. I haven’t been for a
19walk since you left except that once to Wirksworth. When I feel I
20can’t write any more I go & sit ^walk^ at the side of the house where we
21used to sit. Ach, Harry!
22
23Good night.
24Olive
25
26I shall be at our Farm at 10 o’clock on Wednesday. I don’t hate
27Bakewell, Harry.
28

1 [paper torn away] evenings
2
3 [paper torn away] comfort
4
5 [paper torn away] to you.
6 [paper torn away] I might have
7 [paper torn away] ?here, Henry.
8
9 [paper torn away] Burn this.
10

1Bole Hill
2Tuesday Afternoon
3
4I send you the photo, but you must throw it away when I send you
5another. I don’t like such an unpleasant thing shown, but it
6doesn’t matter if you like it.
7
8You needn’t tear up any mor of my letters if it really hurts you. I
9can’t think that tomorrow I shall be
10
11^going up our road.^
12
13Olive
14

1Blackwell
2Wednesday Ngt
3
4I got here this afternoon. The woman is so horrible: they want me to
5take & pay for the room that I didn’t ?st take. I don’t know what
6to do or where to go. Would you go for me to Eleanor, or rather would
7you find out where she is ^at once^ & send this letter to her. I have
8written to both the addresses I thought would find her & got no answer.
9 It is to ask her for the address of those rooms Miss Harkeness had.
10Also if it wouldn’t be too much trouble could you get me the
11addresses of some rooms some where in the part Miss Jones used to live
12in. But don’t trouble about this as I will very likely find rooms in
13Ventnor. Henry I just feel in despair. I am so weary of roving about.
14I shall do no work I shall do no good in the I world if I can never
15find a place to rest in Now, for the next week or ten days till I am
16settled I shall not be able to put pen to paper. I feel so weak & I
17feel so tired, love. Put your arms round me. Yes, I know you do & it
18helps me so. I am unwell & I have such pain in my body. I feel so weak
19as if I wanted someone to stroke my hair. Oh I haven’t any where to
20go to I must have a place somewhere if it is only one tiny little room
21& no one shall turn me out. My comfort, my boy, you do let me rest my
22head against you. Please write to me. Above all things any rooms you
23get must be quiet quiet quiet. I only want to rest I don’t want any
24thing else.
25
26When the woman was talking to me I began to cry & I’ve I been crying
27ever since. I can’t stop my self. I wonder if my physical state has
28anything. I’m not so weak generally, as to let anyone see me cry. I
29have been wanting you more all these days than I have let myself know
30I have been trying to forget it & work. I passed our caves. Harry they
31didn’t look like when we were there. It was in us the beauty. Your
32little sister wants to know how your
33
34^mother is & Louie’s hand. Good night. When I go to bed I shall think
35how you love me.^
36
37Olive
38
39^Wednesday afternoon^
40Have arrived at Blackwell. Written at Blackwell.
41