1Middelburg
2Feb 13 / 93
3
4Dear Lady Constance,
5
6I was so glad to hear you had such a good voyage home with “plenty of
7room” on the ship. It must have been beautiful to get back.
8
9I’ve been travelling ever since you left. I’m quite strong now, almost,
10 & I want to be quite fit when I get home, so I’m going to travel a
11bit more.
12
13I wrote you a very foolish letter; but you know sometimes one is so
14tired one doesn’t know what to do I had got to the end of all hope &
15faith in our South African politi-cal world, & as that is the world in
16which I have through my sympathies been living for the last three
17years it seemed to crush me. Now I have got past that point: I
18recognize facts - & don’t care. That is recognize it is the
19?inevitable.
20
21Low as the atmosphere of political life is & must be everywhere where
22representative institutions exist, I think it is lower at the Cape
23than elsewhere.
24
25I have found one very splendid & able young man in the Eastern
26Province; who when he enters political life may “stand” but the
27probability is he will fall.
28
29I shall I think be sailing on the 28th of April. I dont know what my
30address will be in London but I shall have time to send it you before
31I come. It will be quite beautiful to see you again there. I can’t
32realize it.
33
34Yours always
35Olive Schreiner
36
37I’m sending this to Adela because I don’t know your address
38
39^Still address Matjesfontein^
40

1New College,
2Eastbourne.
3 ^
4Wednesday
5Tuesday^
6
7Dear Con, Any time after 9.30 I shall be at Morley’s Hotel. If you
8could meet me there & go with me at 11 o cl ten to eleven to Water loo
9I might have a few moments for a quiet talk.
10
11Yours Olive
12
13I send a letter just got ^from Seymour Fort. Show it Adela if you think
14well Ol.^
15

1Dear Con
2
3Thank you for your letter. I shall write tomorrow. I send you my
4friends photo-graphs to see Please return them.
5
6Yours
7Olive
8
9The face is not so hard as it looks in the picture, because the moment
10he speaks it lights up & becomes gentle
11

1New College,
2Eastbourne.
3Monday
4
5Dear Con,
6
7Your letter was very sweet. Did you get the two photographs I sent you.
8 Please return them. You can tell your dear mother what I told you,
9but ask her not to mention it even to Lady Loch. I shall tell her
10myself when I get out. I hate so that every thing sacred should be
11written about in the papers. Good bye Con. I shall sleep Sat Friday
12night at Morleys Hotel Trafalgar Sq. to be ready to start by the 11.40
13for South-ampton on Saturday. If I could see your face, if it were
14nothing more, before I sailed I should be glad
15
16Olive
17

1Dear Conny I send you a letter which I want you to read. I got it last
2night. Show it to unreadable Adela or not, as you think best. It ends
3in a characteristic way without any name.
4
5Please do just as you think right about showing it. I’m writing to him
6today, & telling him I’m going to show it her &c.
7
8If you think best return it to me, & don’t mention it to her.
9
10I shall be staying at 61 Chester Sq from next Monday, for one week.
11Will it not be possible for you to come & see me there. It’s so near
12you. I shall have a nice little sitting-room to myself, where I can
13have my friends all alone.
14
15OS
16

166 Marina
2St Leonards-on-Sea
3July 28 / 93
4
5Thank you so much for giving that picture to Alice Corthorn. I value
6so much every thing that brings beauty & fresh tenderness into her
7life. She has to fight life so single handed. They say there’s a very
8good description of her in a novel about women medical students which
9has just been written; have you seen it?
10
11I hope it is resting you very much to be in the country. I spent one
12day in London, & it seemed to take away all the life from one in a few
13hours. I am beginning to feel more & more the terrible-ness of men
14herding together in those great cityies where not one of the
15conditions for a joyous beautiful life are present.
16
17I’m so glad to be in this place; it’s not Matjesfontein, but even here
18lying in the ?stones on the bank one could enjoy ones friends
19
20Oh I wish I had you here if only for one day. We couldn’t see each
21other in London because when we did meet we were both too tired. I
22suppose it’s a thing there is no hope of???
23
24I have got a large journal of Seymour Fort’s about his travels ^in
25Mashona land.^. I wonder if there would be any harm in letting Adela
26see it? My feeling is so strongly its best for her to know as much
27about him as possible. It’s so terrible this way we women dream &
28dream of things absent & unattainable. We are stronger than men before
29the actual, but it’s these dreams & unsatisfied yearnings that take
30all the life out of one.
31
32There is so many things I want to talk about but they are not things
33one can write of
33
34Good bye.
35Olive
36
37I shall be here till the middle of September
38

1Millthorpe
2Holmsfield
3nr Sheffield
4
5Dear Conny
6
7I thank you so much for your letter. I am sorry I’ve been ill, & so
8not able to write to Adela. Tell her when you write how it is.
9
10My plans remain still uncertain. Perhaps the man who is my friend will
11come to England, perhaps I shall go out to him; at the Cape, & perhaps
12I neither will ever happen. One can but wait on from week to week till
13the path is made clear, yes, till one sees what is right. It has been
14so hard to come to the point at which I can feel that if it necessary
15one is glad that any path should prove right.
16
17I am perhaps going to Italy soon. Will Adela still be there next
18month?
19
20Have you read any of Ed: Carpenters books. “England’s Ideal”, & his
21book of poems “Towards democracy.” They are both very beautiful. I
22wish you knew him & he knew you. He is one of the greatest & most
23beautiful souls living now. He lives in a little cottage not far from
24here, with some of his working men, friends.
25
26Your letter was very valuable to me. It’s so beautiful when one gets
27back to nature, & the big power of healing returns to one.
28
29Good bye.
30Olive
31
32Of course you won’t mention my possible return to the Cape, as not
33even my mother knows of it.
34

1New College
2Eastbourne
3Sep 23 / 93
4
5Dear Con,
6
7I shall be coming up to see Adela if possible some day after the
8second of October. I can’t quite yet say which day. But could you if I
9let you know some days before hand let me see you there too. I don’t
10suppose we shall ever meet again if I go out to the Cape now, & I’d
11like to see you.
12
13It would be beautiful if I could have you here for a day in the quiet
14of the country & I love this place with its quiet old downs, but I
15suppose there’s no hope of that.
16
17I sail on Saturday the 7th of October. My going out is not a secret.
18But no one knows that I am likely to be married a few weeks after I
19get out there, & please tell no one, as there is one thing which might
20possibly cause me to change my plans.
21
22I shall live on a very solitary desolate farm far up in the karroo; if
23I do marry: & if I don’t I shall buy a little farm & live there by
24myself.
25
26Dear life is very curious; it seems as though something over which one
27had no control led one forward.
28
29Thank you again for your last ^letter. Olive^
30
31^Please give my love to your mother & tell her I’m going, & say if
32there is any little parcel she would like sent out I’d like to take it.^
33
34Won’t you give me your photograph
35

1Thomson’s Hotel
2Middelburg.
3Oct 31 / 93.
4
5Dearest Lady Loch
6
7Today you will get back to Cape Town. I wish so much I could have been
8there to welcome you, but my chest was so bad I had to leave. I have
9been in bed ever since I got here, but this fine air will soon make me
10all right.
11
12I saw Con & Adela the day I left London. It was a real sorrow to me
13that I could not get out into the country to see your sister. I think
14Adela is much stronger than when she was at the Cape. You would hardly
15recognize her for the same person!
16
17I am greatly concerned about affairs in the North. I wish to God Sir
18Henry had the power to carry out his own ideas in more matters than
19this. We should be a more just, & justly governed people. All men &
20parties seem under some hideous spell which no one seems to have the
21courage to break.
22
23Did you read a paper by no on Politics Ethics, ^& organization^ by my
24friend Cronwright lately in the Midland News? If not should like to
25send you a copy.
26
27I do hope the change to Kimberley has done you great good & that
28you’ve entirely got rid of this terrible influenza. The Dr here says
29it has been influenza & not asthma at all that I’ve had; & every one
30here has been having it.
31
32Please forgive this stupid s-cribble, but I couldn’t wait till I was
33well to write.
34
35I was so glad to get your note on board. Thank you so much for the
36lovely flowers.
37
38Yours ever lovingly,
39Olive Schreiner
40

1The Homestead
2Nr Kimberley
3Feb 3 / 95
4
5Dear Con
6
7I could not help a great feeling of joy for you when I saw in the
8paper that your friend had gone home. When any one is going to marry a
9person whom all their friends are very anxious they should marry & to
10whom all external & material circumstances point as the person they
11should marry, I always feel a little doubtful & fearful lest it should
12be circumstances & not natural fitness which is drawing them together;
13though they themselves may not know it. I feel you are on the right
14path just because there isn’t this external pressure. Nothing should
15guide one in such a matter but that deep internal instinct, “This is
16right!” Every day when one is married one realizes that only some
17subtle relationship between the two natures causing each to call forth
18what is best in the other makes the married relation right. Its not a
19question of what the world calls happiness or pleasure – it’s
20something much deeper.
21
22What you say in your letter is so profoundly true. It isn’t only a
23question of the virtues of the other nature; its quite as important
24how their weaknesses effect you, & if they also bind you together. I
25hope you will be able to marry before very long. The sad thing which
26one has to face in the world is this that if people are separated for
27great lengths of time both go on developing on different lines, &
28therefore in the end may not be suited to each other as once they were.
29 I cannot however say I have found this from my own experience; where
30the friendship was one founded on natural affinity & not on
31circumstances.
32
33It’s very beautiful sometimes after ten or twelve years to meet again
34the men or woman who were bound to you by a subtle sympathy, & to find
35that though externally you are both changed, the same subtle bond
36makes you belong to each other still. I always feel with regard to my
37husband that if we were put into separate worlds for ten years & all
38remembrance of the past blotted out in both our minds, when we met we
39should “find each other” just as we did the first time.
40
41I am expecting my little baby in April, & am very glad about it, but
42its a very solemn sort of gladness. I find that even before it’s born
43all one’s self seems to have slipped away, & the child taken its place.
44 You have such a curious anxiety for its future.
45
46I have got ‘The God in the Car’ but I can’t read it, anymore than I
47could “The Heavenly Twins” or “The Yellow Aster”. I don’t know why I
48can’t read the ordinary novel, it’s a simple impossibility. I have
49tried to analyze just why it is, & I can’t. It isn’t a ?singn of
50intellectual superiority, because Darwin & Huxley both loved the
51ordinary novel, & many of the finest minds find refreshment in
52skimming through them, while it is agony to me. To read th one of
53Haggard’s novels would be as agonizing to me as to sit in a room &
54hear Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ai played over & over. They are not art to me.
55That awful necessity which hovers over the true artist, & which makes
56you feel of his work “He could no other-wise; God help him! Amen!” is
57wanting in them to me. They may be written with the highest & noblest
58motives; but they were not necessities; they were made up! I think one
59feels that necessity in even such a simple little thing as George
60Sand’s La Petite Fadette, but I can’t feel it in many of the most
61successful works of to-day.
62
63Please write to me & tell me if there is any immediate opening out of
64your plans & future. I some how have a feeling that your friend’s
65going home may tend to this.
66
67I have not seen the Lochs since they came out, & shall not be going
68down to Cape Town till September.
69
70Adela will have told you that Seymour Fort has gone home. I wonder if
71they will meet. I think it would be well if her father were willing:
72but I would be very very very sorry, if the old romance woke up in
73Adela’s heart again. I don’t think it would.
74
75Good bye. Please send me some news of yourself when you are able.
76Olive
77
78Are you still sometimes writing for “The Saturday”. Two of my friends
79are on the Staff now; but I never see it
80
81Yes, two people who love each other can be so perfectly happy on so
82very little, & with so little. The grand Kimberley Daiamond folk are
83very much amused with our establishment when they come out here: but
84its really a lovely little house with a big verandah all round & blue
85sky showing through ^all the big glass doors^
86
87P.P.S
88Thanks so very much for telling me about that asthma cure. I have sent
89for it to America, & will let you know how it works
90

1^It’s one of the first stories I made for myself when I was a child. OS.^
2

1Dear Con
2
3We are leaving for England next month, so I won't answer your letter
4as fully as I other wise would. We shall not arrive later than the
522nd of Jan; and may be there as early as the 14th. I am waiting to
6find which steamer will likely be the emptiest!
7
8Thank you for the picture. I think it is beautiful, but it makes me
9too sad.
10
11//There is a great tragedy in the lives of modern women that women of
12the old style perhaps know nothing of: It is the tragedy which arises
13when a man cannot really love a woman because she is too much his
14superior; intellectually and emotionally she moves in a higher world
15^than^ that in which he can move. I^t^ would kill him to live always in
16her atmosphere. A sparrow cannot live up in the air where an eagle
17breathes easily!
18
19That is the tragedy which lies as the key note of my two unpublished
20novels. In the first the woman marries & then for ten years you have a
21picture of her life, “trying to be more what he would like, than what
22she is”, & then in the end even that mighty passion for the man is
23worn out, & her soul is free.
24
25The other novel is just the story of a woman who loves a brilliant &
26immensely wealthy politician, & the reason why, though he loves her
27(in his way), she can't marry him.
28
29I would rather be the second woman than the first. Perhaps you will
30say all this has nothing to do with you but I think it has.
31
32I can't tell you how much I want to see you.
33
34My address in London will be Alice Corthorn's
3519 Russell Rd
36Kensington
37
38Do try & be in Town when I am there. We shall only be there a few days
39& then go on to Italy; to return to London in May.
40
41I have had three very trying mis-carriages, & want to get good medical
42advice also to publish a little book, that is very near my heart,
43which I have just finished.
44
45I hope you will like my husband. He is very good for me, because he
46always makes me feel he loves best what is best in me, not what is
47worst. I think that is why I am so happy with him.
48
49About Adela we will talk when I come. I quite know and most fully
50realize that she now understands Fort's feeling towards her; but ^what^
51she doesn't realize nor understand in the least his character. That's
52the point! I'm always afraid in a fit of indifference to some other
53woman who may be holding him, he might rush & throw himself at her
54feet, & then, not knowing his character, she would th would she be
55strong & wise enough to repulse him? If she did, she would just laugh
56at him goodnaturedly & go on. I regard Seymour Fort now simply as a
57big joke. I never take him seriously^!^ as it
58
59When once a good woman has seen into the depths of a man's soul, &
60seen nothing there; then his power to touch her is gone forever. He
61might have been dead & buried for a thousand years for anything he is
62to her. One would like to take him & plant little flowers all over him,
63 like a grave.
64
65Goodbye. Tell my darling Adela I am coming soon.
66Olive
67
68PS I wasted the best years of my girlhood over one man. I didn't want
69to marry him, he was supposed to be dying to have only a few months to
70live when I first met him, & I worshipped him. This went on year after
71year. I never met him, and I believed nothing anyone told me of his
72nature. He is a most remarkable man with real genius and almost a
73European reputation. Every one said he was selfish & mean, but I never
74believed it, because I didn't know him! One day a letter was shown me,
75at his request, in which he talked slightingly of a woman whom he was
76bound to be loyal to. In f Do you know, from the moment I read it he
77was dead & buried as though he had never existed for me, & I was free.
78
79After ten years' separation I met him again last time I was in England.
80 And he wanted to make friends with me. I simply laughed at him & said,
81 “You are dead, I don't have dead men ^for friends.”^
82