1Mentone
2
3I am very glad to hear about Greenwood.
4
5I shall never be of much use to your paper, but you & it will be
6followed with my loving sympathy in your growth.
7
8I am returning to Africa in August, And may then send you a series of
9letters on the Cape politics & affairs ?given as they appear to a
10Colonist after ?about 8 years absence.
11
12I will perhaps re-visit the Diamond Fields, & go on to the Gold Fields
13& further north yet, ^if I can manage it.^
14
15I had a terrible illness about two years ago, low fever, & very nearly
16died. I shall not fuly pull together till I get back to my own
17countrie. One sees “God” on those great plaines & one’s soul rests
18completely in him.
19
20You underline the word un-married with regard to yourself, implying
21that to be married has greatly strengthened & helped you. I do not
22doubt it. I believe in marriage. The man who has a wife & children
23always to turn to must be much stronger to fight the outer world. It
24is the perfect the natural condition. But it is for those who are
25called.
26
27Some years ago I couldn't see a little tiny babe without an
28inclination to burst out hysterically crying, & to see a happy husband
29& wife with their children seemed to wake in me the same unaccountable
30feeliting feeling. Now: I must I have entirely conquered it. I
31know my work & have accepted my little part in life. Of course all
32this is private. The real thing I am going to the Cape for is to see
33my brother's two small babyes & play with them.
34
35Olive Schreiner
36

1 The Homestead
2 July 1st 1896
3
4 Dear Mr Smuts
5
6 Thankyou heartily for the letter I got just now. I respond sincerely
7to its sympathetic attitude. With regard to the native the four later
8articles of the series will explain it as they all deal more or less
9with it. All I would ask now, is, why you should think it a necessary
10corollary that, if the dark & light races do not cross in blood there
11must of necessity be hatred & bitterness between them? I hold (of
12course I may be mistaken) that so unlike are the black dark & white
13races in this country, that were they equals in education & in social
14rights, & were they absolutely mingled together politically, in the
15matter of marriage the white would still prefer the white & the black
16the black, & fusion would go on very slowly. It is exactly because of
17the terrible chasm which in the minds of many men divides them from
18the dark races that the mixture of bloods in its least desirable form
19goes on. It was not when the native races were free & richly endowed
20with social and political rights, that the great fusion took place, &
21I believe that exactly in proportion as we raise & educate the native
22races ^& endow them with social and political rights^ such fusion will
23become rare. Where it does occur, it will be as the result of a vast
24affection and sympathy, & will so lose its worst features. llllll
25
26 No, my papers are not the result of marrying a political husband!
27These articles were all written exactly as they now stand four years
28before I met him for the first time!!!
29
30 He sends friendly greetings to you. He went to hear your lecture, &
31his remark when he came back, was; (I unfortunately unable to go!) –
32"He is very earnest & sincere, but he doesn’t know Rhodes!" I will
33also allow that when the first news of the raid reached us, one of his
34first remarks was, -"What will Smuts say now!!!" To me, the forefront
35of all Mr Rhodes’s offences, has been his attitude towards the Dutch
36who loved & trusted him. Many men are devoted to the winning of money
37& fame for themselves; but few have deliberately stabbed to the heart
38a whole people who trusted in, & followed them. The position of the
39Dutchmen who have changed their attitude towards Mr Rhodes during the
40last few months is a matter for anything but ridicule to me. It is a
41matter of profound shame that the action of an Englishman should have
42made it necessary for them so to change.
43
44 Both my husband & myself will be delighted to see you if ever you
45should visit Kimberley; let us know if ever you come up, please.
46
47 Yours very sincerely
48 Olive Schreiner
49
50
51

1 Aug 8 / 96
2
3 Dear Mr Smuts
4
5 I have been in bed almost the whole month or would long ago have
6written to thank you for your kind letter. I’m glad you liked my
7husbands speech I didn’t like your leader in the Telegraph at all as
8you will have expected: but I like an open enemy (politically) as you
9have always been, & it will give me great pleasure if ever I have the
10chance of meeting you. ^(We can have a political fight!)^ I will
11
12 I am just starting off for the sea air at the Kowie, which I hope will
13pull me together & fit me for work.
14
15 Yours very sincerely
16 Olive Schreiner
17
18 I thought it was perfectly right for you as my political opponent to
19turn my article about as you did; but not quite right ^generous^ of the
20Editor to give it you to write on after what had passed between us. I
21hope you didn’t mistake the distinction!
22
23 ^I still regard the Telegraph as the best paper in South Africa &
24should do anything I could to aid its circulation. I don’t think one
25should ever allow any personal pains to touch ones impersonal
26judgement.^
27
28
29

1 Primrose Terrace
2 Berea
3 Johannesburg
4
5 Dear Mr Smuts
6
7 Some time ago my husband told me that Mr Rous had mentioned to him
8that you regretted he had entered the a lawyer’s office here as you
9would have liked to see him in the public service, & if he were
10willing would be glad if he would now enter it.
11
12 I may tell you that I had one of the bitterest struggles within myself
13that I have ever had before I could feel that it could be right that
14my husband should enter the Transvaal service, whatever use I believed
15he might be of to South Africa by doing so. Of all the lies Rhodes &
16his followers have spread about me none has cut me so deeply as the
17lie circulated in England that I had received £4,000 from the
18Transvaal Government for writing Peter Halket. It cut straight at the
19use & value of what I have written & of what I may yet write. Further
20the idea that an artist should for money set pen to paper & prostitute
21their intuitions by writing to order at all, is an accusation in my
22eyes, far worse even than murder. It is a moral & spiritual murder on
23one’s own soul which one would commit. I knew if my husband accepted
24your offer though at the greatest sacrifice to himself (& thought I
25should never have touched one farthing of his salary as I support
26myself by my own work) that yet, the Rhodes party would have made it
27an excuse for repeating their unholy lie & injuring the usefulness of
28what I may write in the future, yet further. It was only after a very
29stiff struggle with myself that I came to the conclusion, that if my
30husband felt he could be of any use in the anti-capitalist fight here,
31nothing ought to stand in his way.
32
33 Yesterday my husband showed me a letter he had received from you in
34which you spoke of the wish of the Transvaal Government to help us! My
35idea has always been to help the Transvaal, & not that it should help
36me! I feel that in the history of the world no nobler or more gallant
37fight has been fought than that of this little Republic with the
38powers which seek on every side to engulf it. But the freedom &
39independence of the Transvaal has for me a much more serious meaning.
40I look upon the Free State & the Transvaal as the two last little
41sluice-gates we have left keeping out the flood of Capitalism which
42would otherwise sweep in & overwhelm South Africa. The little fight of
43Doornkop is to me the most memorable, not only in the history of South
44Africa, but of this century: there for the first time in the history
45of the world, troops armed, fed, paid, & led (or rather misled!) by
46the capitalist horde, met the simple citizens of a state & were
47defeated. The average Boer fighting at Doornkop no doubt only thought
48he was fighting for his little state, just at the Dutch of Holland
49when in the 16th century they fought Philip, no doubt believed they
50were fighting merely to free their country from a tyrant, & had no
51idea they were leading in humanity’s great fight for freedom of
52thought and enlightenment! God’s soldiers sometimes fight on larger
53battlefields than they dream of. To me the Transvaal is now engaged in
54leading in a very small way in that vast battle which will during the
55twentieth century be fought out - probably most bitterly &
56successfully in America & Germany - between engorged capitalists & the
57citizens of different races.
58
59 It is this that makes our little struggle here something almost sacred,
60 & of world-wide importance. Doornkop was a stab in the vitals of the
61international capitalist horde, from Roths-child & Rosebery to Rhodes
62& Harris. No doubt for the present they may beat us; but there are
63more Doornkops coming in other lands, & another fifty years will see
64the battle won. Feeling as I do on this matter you will understand how
65intense is my desire to see this independence & complete autonomy of
66the Transvaal; (the day when federation maybe is desirable may come,
67but I hope it is yet far distant) - & who glad I should be to assist
68the Transvaal government in the fight; but under no circumstances & no
69condition could I ever consent to accept the least consideration from
70it. The only thing the Transvaal Government could do for me, would be
71to enfranchise all the wives & daughters of the Burgers, & who
72constitute the real back-bone of the country. But that they are not
73likely to do!
74
75 Please give my kind regards to your wife whom I should very much like
76to meet. I am sure I should sympathize with her from what I have heard
77of her. I am sorry my health does not allow of my going over to
78Pretoria.
79
80 Yours faithfully
81 Olive Schreiner
82
83
84

1 Friday
2
3 Dear Mr Smuts
4
5 I don’t think I shall be able to go to Bloemfontein as I’m too
6busy writing. I am writing an article on the situation which I hope
7will may open the eyes of the English public to the true condition of
8affairs a little. I will be able to say in it all I would have said to
9Milner if I had met him personally, & will send him a copy. If it is
10too long for the ^news^ papers here, I shall have to print it in
11pamphlet form, but I hope it will appear in the paper on Monday.
12
13 Yours sincerely
14 Olive Schreiner.
15
16
17

1 Tuesday
2
3 Dear Mrs Smuts
4
5 Thank you so much for your letter. Mr Esselen has asked us to come
6over & stay with them from Saturday to Monday Morning, but if I
7can’t sleep at Mr Esselens owing to the house being too low can we
8come up & sleep with at your house? ^I don’t know where his house is,
9& it may be in the damp part of the town.^ We will come over some other
10week to stay with you.
11
12 I am anxious for tomorrow’s news that I shall find it difficult to
13sleep tonight. The plotters here are in great hope that war will come.
14
15 Give little Goosie a kiss from me. I hope he is quite well again.
16
17 Yours lovingly.
18 Olive Schreiner
19
20
21

1 Strictly Private
2
3 Dear Mr Smuts,
4
5 1) Do you think there would be any use in my going to see Sir Alfred
6Milner? I have letters of introduction to him, & many of my dearest
7friends in England are his. & In a letter of his, which I saw
8the other day he said that one of the things he had most looked
9forward to in coming to South Africa was seeing me, &c. If I could
10have an hours conversation alone with him I feel there are one or two
11points I might make clear to him. I should especially dwell on the
12nature of the resistance England has to expect if she tries to crush
13South Africa. I could also explain to him that the mass of
14Johannesburgers are increasingly against war. There are many English
15men here who five years ago would have fought the Transvaal Government
16who would now like to shoot the Leaguers for making trouble. Even in
17the last six months the tone here has changed very much. If I do go of
18course if I do go to Bloemfontein to meet him, I shall be most careful,
19 not to mention to anyone that I am going there with the intention of
20meeting him, as those about him would prevent my doing so. If you
21think there might be use in my trying to see him at Bloemfontein,
22could you give me a free railway pass for the journey? If you think
23there would be no advantage in my going let me know.
24
25 2) If the anniversary of Gladstone’s birthday or death day is near,
26would it not be well for the president to grant any concessions he has
27to make on that day, connecting them with Gladstones memory, sending
28home wires to Mrs Gladstone & the family, & if possible, making the
29day a public holiday in Pretoria & Johannesburg? This would be felt
30very deeply by the Liberal party at home, which is not dead though out
31of power for the moment. What we have to convince England of is that
32we are not to be coerced, but that we are not unmindful of any
33sympathy & justice which she has shown or can show us. I do not know
34whether this idea is work-able: the effect would be exceedingly good
35if it were. We cannot win the capitalists to our side; we can win the
36mass the thinking English people in England & Johannesburg.
37
38 3) Doubtless you know that the Leaguers boast that they have bought
39traitors in the Johannesburg fort, who will betray it to them in time
40of war. If war should break out would it not be well at the last
41moment to send new men there who cannot have been bribed. There were
42twelve apostles; but one sold his master for thirty pieces of silver.
43
44 Don’t trouble to answer this unless you think there would be any use
45in my going to Bloemfontein to see Milner. I know how busy you are.
46
47 Yours sincerely
48 Olive Schreiner
49
50 ^Of course you know Mul Myburg and the Leaguers here are most anxious
51the franchise should not be granted.^
52
53
54

1 Box 406
2 Johannesburg
3
4 Dear Mr Smuts
5
6 It was a great pleasure to me to meet your wife. My heart has seldom
7gone out so to any woman at first meeting her. I am coming over to
8Pretoria on Friday next with an American friend Mrs Chapin. We shall
9be at the hotel. Would you & Mrs Smuts be able to come & have lunch
10with us at mid-day? I have asked the Reitzes. If you can come would
11you name the time that would be most convenient for you & Mr Reitz. I
12know you are too busy to spare much time, & Mrs Chapin is very anxious
13to meet you. She leaves for England in a few days. She is a great
14friend of ha the Governors & in constant correspondence with
15him; she also knows the Chamberlains with whom she will probably stay
16on her return to England; ^as she did before she came out here,^ yet she
17is an American & I believe her sympathies are largely with us. I tell
18you all this because anything said will go straight to Chamberlain -
19Mr Bene Milner; & it might be well to impress her with the fact
20that while we don’t want to fight if Chamberlain is determined to
21drive us to war, it will not be the walk over the field that they
22dream of! A well-known man ^from Cape Town^ with whom I dined the other
23evening scouted the idea that 9,000 (nine thousand) English troops
24could not walk over the Transvaal and Free State! And I think it is
25the widely spread idea that if the war does come it will be a
26comparatively light matter, which makes many so eager for it.
27
28 I know that Mrs Chapin has been asked to investigate matters while
29here & report to Chamberlain & Milner, so it is not unimportant she
30should be rightly impressed.
31
32 Yours sincerely
33 Olive Schreiner
34
35 If you should be coming to Johannesburg I shall be very glad to see
36you, at any time. There is much I should like to discuss with you.
37Please give the enclosed note to Mr Reitz, & explain why I want him &
38you to meet Mrs Chapin.
39
40
41

1 Box 406
2 Johannesburg
3
4 Dear Mrs Smuts
5
6 Thank you very much for your letter, & the book. I began reading it
7last night when I went to bed & finished it before morning.
8
9 What I feel most is a great sympathy with the writer’s view of life
10& love. I suppose she it is by a woman. I am keeping it a couple of
11days longer for my husband to read.
12
13 If we should be able to come over to Pretoria, my husband & I, next
14Saturday afternoon to stay with you till Monday afternoon would it be
15quite convenient? If it would, I’ll wire on Friday afternoon if we
16are able to come. My heart has been troubling me a bit since I came
17back, & I’m not sure I shall be able to come. But it would be a
18great pleasure to spend a day with you & little Baas Koosie, a baby is
19a great joy to me. My little girl died when she was two days old.
20
21 I think we shall not go to the Free State. My husband would have all
22the mechanical editing of the paper, proof correcting &c to do, & he
23feels he could not do justice to paper with so little time for leaders
24&c: the salary is only £400 so he could not afford to pay £250 out
25of it for an assistant. If they are willing to give him he will go but
26not otherwise. It is just to help the South African cause that he wants
27to go! Here he can do nothing, as by the terms of his agreement as an
28articled clerk he must take no part in politics. I would rather stay
29here, but he chaffs so much against his inactivity here that if it can
30be arranged we shall go. We shall know by the end of the week. Don’t
31mention the possibility of our going to anyone, as my husband fears
32the men with whom he is will make a difficulty about letting him go if
33they know the purpose for which he is leaving. They are "Reformers".
34
35 Please give the enclosed to your husband.
36
37 One reason why I should like to stay in Johannesburg is that then I
38shall see more of you.
39
40 Yours most sincerely
41 Olive Schreiner
42
43 ^Mrs Smuts^
44
45
46

1 Box 406
2 Johannesburg
3 Monday
4
5 Dear Mr Smuts,
6
7 I am coming to Pretoria for the day on Friday bringing over two
8cousins of my husband’s Mr who have come up from the Colony on a
9visit to the Transvaal. They are two of the wealthiest & most
10important men in the Hope Town district, having much influence with
11the farmers as well as town’s folk, & I want them to see things in a
12true light while they are up here, as every little tells.
13
14 They are strongly on "our side" & are very anxious to meet the
15President even if it be merely to shake hands. Do you think it could
16be managed? I have written to Mrs Reitz asking her, ^to try & arrange it,^
17but it has just struck me she may be from home, & perhaps, if she is,
18or can’t arrange it, you might be good enough to do so. I know how
19very busy you must be now with Raad sitting, & shall not wonder if you
20can’t. I shall come over by the ^train which arrives in Pretoria at^
2111.36, & leave again the same evening.
22
23 If I could have a few minutes talk with you I would be glad, as I
24would like to know your opinion of a plan I have for forming an
25"Uitlander’s Peace Association" in Johannesburg in opposition to the
26League. The mass of Johannesburg do not want to fight: & it is only
27necessary to organize this public feeling in some way to make it
28effective.
29
30 Yours sincerely
31 Olive Schreiner
32
33 My husband is unable to come over, I am coming alone.
34
35
36

1 2 Primrose Terrace
2 Box 406
3 Johannesburg
4 June 13th 1899.
5
6 Dear Mr Smuts
7
8 I am going to Paarde Kraal on Saturday as I want to write an account
9of the meeting. My husband can’t go with me. Is any friend of yours
10going from Johannesburg whe with whom I could perhaps go, as
11there will I expect be a large crowd & I may not be able to get near
12the speakers ^if I am alone.^ If it had been unreadable enough I think it
13suitable I shall send the account to one of the English papers.
14
15 I wish I could have had a longer talk with you. I am feeling a little
16hopeless about Milner; but things may be better than one thinks. I
17think Vessels’s speech paper read at the meeting the other night did
18much harm here. I can’t understand a South African taking such a
19stand, one can forgive anything to a man who has been only a few
20months in the country.
21
22 Love to your wife & boy
23
24 Yours ever
25 Olive Schreiner
26
27
28

1 Tuesday
2
3 Dear Mrs Smuts
4
5 Many thanks for your letter. I am coming over to Pretoria on Thursd
6Friday with two dear friends Miss Greene & Miss Molteno (sister of the
7two Bond members at the Cape). They are both intensely on our side.
8Miss Greene is an English woman who has been only 12 years at the Cape,
9 but I think she feels more the injustice & evil of Englands conduct
10towards the Transvaal than any of us! She is quite ready to fight for
11the Transvaal!! They have come up just to see how things are going.
12They are such sweet simple women I’m sure you will love them. Can we
13all three come & have dinner with you on Friday. Don’t mind saying
14if it will put you out, but they want so much to meet you & your
15husband. We shall come by the train which reaches Pretoria at ^12.40^ &
16shall come up to your house soon after. If we have They I hope
17are such dear simple souls, who hate dress & fashion as much as you or
18I do. I know you will love them.
19
20 I’m so glad the little son is better. I was so afraid he was going
21to be ill when we were there.
22
23 I am not at all restful about public matters; we may give, & give,
24till we have nothing left to give, & then have to fight in the end! As
25long as we have this accursed gold they will never leave us in peace;
26but time is with us, & every six months or year we can stave off war,
27makes our position stronger.
28
29 Yours ever lovingly
30 Olive Schreiner
31
32
33

1July 7th 1899
2
3Dear Mrs Smuts,
4
5I’ve been meaning to write ever since we were at Pretoria, but Miss
6Greene was very ill when we came back (she only got out of bed to go
7over) & my dear friends only left the day before yesterday. They so
8much enjoyed their day in Pretoria: but Johannesburg they hated as I
9think any true-hearted English person must. Here you see the English
10race at its worst. That is what saddens one so who knows the other
11noble & generous side of the English spirit.
12
13 I saw Onze Jan when he passed through, & was much grieved to see how
14ill & old he was looking.
15
16 I hope our little Coosie is still looking so bonny. Thank Ella for her
17letter which I was glad to get to-day. I don’t know when I shall be
18able to come over to Pretoria again as I must settle down to my
19writing.
20
21 Yours ever lovingly
22 Olive Schreiner
23
24 ^Did Mr Esselen get his books?^
25
26
27

1Aug 8th 1899
2
3 Dear Mrs Smuts
4
5 I am sending you the book I mentioned by my friend Ed Carpenter that I
6am so fond of. I fancy you will like it. I have been ill ever since I
7came back from Pretoria that day, never able to lie down at night with
8asthma, or I would have come over to Pretoria.
9
10 I am feeling so anxious & almost hopeless about public matter. We are
11like sheep surrounded by Chamberlain, Rhodes, Uitlander wolves; but
12sheep can sometimes give a good kick when they are fighting for their
13lives.
14
15 Much love to you & the little son.
16
17 Yours ever
18 Olive Schreiner
19
20
21

1 Dear Mrs Smuts
2
3 I was so sorry I couldn’t come to see you, as ^I wanted,^ but I was
4ill the day I was in Pretoria. I think I shall try going for a week to
5Bloemfontein next week, as ^the Doctor says I must go.^ I don’t think
6there can be war now; Chamberlain cannot be so absolutely mad. The
7mass of the English people are certainly strongly against it, but they
8don’t make themselves felt as they should. I have got scores of
9letters like the enclosed from every part of England & Ireland. But
10somehow I have a feeling that whether we fight or don’t things will
11come right: only we mustn’t give up too much: there are worse things
12than fighting even.
13
14 Much love to you.
15
16 Olive Schreiner
17
18 ^This is a letter from my dear friend Miss Greene who came over with me.
19 There are many English people who feel as strongly as she does, ^^but
20the scoundrels are in power! It is hard not to wish Chamberlain would die.^^
21She was so delighted with the portrait of old President Kruger & his wife.^
22

1 Dear Mrs Smuts
2
3 Thank you for your kind letter: if it were possible I much should like
4to come to Pretoria. Thank you so much but the doctor will not allow
5me to go over even for a day. He says it was the last day I spent
6there made me so bad.
7
8 I shall perhaps leave this week on a few ^two^ weeks visit to my
9husbands cousin farm in the Colony. but I am so afraid of war breaking
10out while I am gone. I have such a strange feeling that I want to be
11here in time of war that there is something I could do if I get better.
12 But if war does come I don’t see how it can be for another 2 months.
13 They cannot fight till they have the troops from India here, unless
14they have a larger body in the country than they pretend.
15
16 A great friend of ours from England Mr John Hobson arrived here
17yesterday. He is going late to Pretoria. He is strongly on our side, a
18man as true & honest as steel. He is going to Pretoria later. He has
19come out to study the South African question & write on it. Would it
20be possible instead of having me for you to invite him to spend a few
21days with you? He is a very simple dear old fellow, would give you no
22trouble; & I want him really to get to see & know our people in
23Pretoria which he won’t do if he goes to an hotel. He is one of the
24most brilliant writers in England, was at one time the Editor of the
25Progressive Review. He can & will do our cause great service.
26
27 Good bye. My love to you all, & thank you for your loving wish to have
28me. I am so ill now I should only be a trouble to everyone if I could
29come.
30
31 Olive Schreiner
32
33
34

1 My dear friend
2
3 I am sending back the book it was in the desk in my husbands study, he
4thought I had sent it, & I thought he had. I send you with it a little
5book which I love very much called "Englands Ideal by my dear friend
6Edward Carpenter. I think you will like it; let me know what you think
7of it when you have read it. You must try for baby’s sake not to
8feel the hard times through which we are passing, as your good health
9means his.
10
11 What is your little sisters name. I want to write it in a book I want
12to send her.
13
14 Yours ever
15 Olive Schreiner
16
17 Tell your husband I will show him the answers I get from John Morley
18&c today, when they come. They may be interesting: but it may be all
19over with us one way or another before they come.
20
21
22

1Sep 24 / 99
2Private
3
4Dear Mr Smuts
5
6 I have had a cable from the New York Journal asking me take the post
7of war correspondent to that paper, ^in case of war.^ It is one of the
8most powerful in America & if possible we ought to have someone with
9our Burgers in case of war who will report our view side fairly. I
10shall take the it ^offer^ if I am at all physically able. Will you wire
11me a reply telling me, in the first place, whether the Transvaal
12authorities will give me facilities ^for gaining information, &^ for
13going with the men ^Burgers to the front:^ &, secondly, where in case wh
14war is proclaimed you think I had better go at first, to Bloemfontein
15to Pretoria or to the Natal frontier? If you wire "yes" to the first
16question; & give the name of a place as answer to the second I shall
17know what you mean. I shall receive £110 a month which will pay my
18travelling expenses, but it would greatly add to my usefulness if I
19could receive advice as to where I could be most useful. All I fear is
20that if I am in the Transvaal the other war correspondents who are
21with the English troops will send off news long before unreadable I
22can, ^as our Transvaal wires are sure to be cut,^ poisoning the public
23mind. Please advise me by letter, as well as wire, & tell me where I
24can be most useful. I am so sorry to hear you have been unfit. I hope
25you are up again in strength.
26
27 I sent an article on the "Boer" to a New York paper two weeks ago at
28the request of the editor; but I fear it is too late for any writing
29to be of use now. Any information you may give me will be kept
30strictly private of course, not even to be mentioned to my brother or
31friends in Cape Town. I am better but one would give much for a little
32more physical strength at this time.
33
34 Olive Schreiner
35
36 Please address the wire
37 Olive Schreiner
38 Strydenburg that will be enough & the letter to
39 Karree Kloof via Kran Kuil.
40
41 Please show my letter to Reitz & Grobler, & would you or Reitz please
42send me a letter stating who I & my husband are; that if travelling
43through the Free State in time of war, the Burgers we may come across
44will know who we are & what our object is, & ^please^ sign it legibly.
45They might in some out-of-the-way place mistake us for "Roi-neks"! &
46stop us.
47
48
49

1O Karree Kloof
2Via Kran Kuil
3Sep 24 / 99
4
5Dear Mrs Smuts
6
7 You are often in my thoughts at this time. If war breaks out perhaps I
8may see you soon.
9
10 I am much better though not yet quite strong after the miscarriage I
11had the last week at Pr Johannesburg. I knew I should never go my time
12in all that sorrow & darkness.
13
14 Give my love to Mrs Roos.
15
16 You see the better half of the English nation is moving for us now,
17but I fear me it is too late.
18
19 Love to you & your little sister & Koosie.
20
21 Olive Schreiner
22
23
24

1 Hanover C.C.
2
3 Dear Isie Smuts
4
5 It was indeed a joy to me to receive your letter. My thoughts have
6always been with you & yours, especially when I heard the news of your
7sweet little Koosie’s death. I am thankful to know you have got Ella
8with you. Give our warm greetings to your husband if write to him.
9Your good news with regard to this is very comforting. Is your Brother
10quite well? The one I met at your house.
11
12 Yes, dear friend, how well I realize your feelings with regard to the
13three little ones who have been taken from you. I always feel that if
14my little girl had lived I could have borne all. For the six months
15while my husband was in England I was alone on a farm in the Victoria
16district. When he came out he returned we came up here & were here for
17a few weeks & then he went down ^to Cape Town^ & could not get a pass
18from the military to return, so I was here quite alone again for thre
19six months. Then I became so ill that with my heart that the doctor
20here got a pass from the Commandant who kindly allowed my husband to
21come up to me & we have been together again for some weeks. He will
22soon have to go down again to try & earn something, & I will have to
23stay here as I cannot go to the coast on account of the asthma & my
24heart.
25
26 You know that the Uitlanders burnt everything we possessed before they
27left Johannesburg in October 1899, & it is almost impossible for my
28husband to get any work now, & I cannot write any more. I wrote
29several long things & sent them to England, but the publishers would
30not take them as they are boycotting me.
31
32 Please write to me soon & tell me how it goes with you all. You
33don’t know how often I am thinking of you all.
34
35 Yours lovingly
36 Olive Schreiner
37
38
39

1 Hanover
2 Sep 1st 1901
3
4 Dear Isie Smuts
5
6 Thank you with all my heart for both your letters. I did not answer
7your first because I was too ill. I am much better now. Thank your
8sister & father-in-law deeply for their kind wish that I should go &
9stay with them on their farm; but I could not get a pass now for
10Malmesbury district, & it is too near the sea eaven there for me
11to live. I have to stop up in these high dry parts. My chest is much
12worse than it use to be when I lived at Johannesburg, & I always
13spitting blood.
14
15 As to money matters, I have at just had an old article of mine on the
16Woman question accepted by a womans paper in America, for which I am
17promised £100, so we shall be able to manage well till the war is
18over & my darling husband can find work again. Thank you from my heart
19for your loving wish to help us.
20
21 Please send me the large photographs you mentioned. They will come
22quite safely: the military authorities only object to letters which
23refer in any way to politics or public matters. Thank you much for the
24two little photographs you sent me. Your little son had beautiful
25large eyes just like yours. If you should be writing to your husband
26tell him I send him a heavy handshake across the distance. I am so
27glad Ella is with you to comfort & help you. I have a little dog all
28the seven months I was here alone, she comforted & helped me more than
29most people could believe a dog would. My darling husband has now ^been^
30down in Cape Town, but the military authorities have kindly given him
31a pass to return to me: he is ^to be^ here tomorrow morning; I feel as
32if I couldn’t sleep tonight waiting for tomorrow morning to come.
33
34 I hope I shall see you again someday my dear brave friend. You & yours
35are always in my thoughts
36
37 Yours ever as of old & unchanged
38 Olive Schreiner
39

1 Hanover
2 Dec 7th 1901
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so glad to get your short letters yesterday the Photograph’s
7of your darling Baby & of Ella & yourself reached me at last. They
8seem from the post marks to have miscarried & gone to a place called
9New Hanover in Natal. Perhaps that is why I have never got your long
10letters. Address Cape Colony very clearly when you write; & please
11write soon & tell me just how it goes with you all. I am glad the boys
12are well. My love to you all. I value the photographs very much.
13Baby’s is beautiful. But yours made me very sad you have got so thin
14& sad-looking. I think we shall many of us hardly know each other if
15ever we meet again. We are still at Hanover, & all things are going on
16in the old way with us. There is no fresh news. Give my love to Ella &
17please write soon if only a few lines
18
19 Yours ever Olive
20
21

1 Hanover
2 Jan 24 / 02
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 The little shawl for the head will do just as well in fact I only
7didn’t want a very bright colour. Thank you so much dear I shall
8value it so. Crochet is just as nice as knitting to me.
9
10 Do write again soon & let me know how you are. It is such joy to me to
11see your handwriting.
12
13 I am so glad Ella is able to get on well with her studies.
14
15 A friend of mine here is very poor & is expecting a little Baby & if
16when you have time some day you would make a tiny little thing, a pair
17of socks or something of that kind for me to give her I know she would
18prize it greatly as having been made by you. She is a woman you would
19love if you knew her. I am going out tomorrow to buy some little bits
20of stuff for dresses for it. // Cron & I are both well, but my heart
21has been bad again the last two weeks.
22
23 Good bye. I was so thankful to hear you were all well. Love to Ella.
24 Olive
25
26

1 Dear Isie
2
3 I was so glad, so very glad to get your letter this morning. I am
4writing at once I got all the parcels, the Tam-o-shanter, shawl &
5Babys things. I wrote at once to thank for them, though no letter came
6with any of the parcels I of course knew they were from you. You
7can’t think of what use the shawl & Tam-o-shanter are to me: every
8evening about 8 my husband & I go to the fountain to fetch water, he
9carries the water & I go with him & I always wear your things.
10
11 I am sorry to hear Ella has left you, & yet so glad she will see all
12the family. I do hope to hear you have been allowed to come to the
13colony soon, but I fear there is as little hope of my seeing you here
14as in Natal. It seems almost impossible to realize that if we live the
15day must come when we shall all meet in joy & peace. The friend of
16mine for whom you made the Baby things has a lovely strong little son.
17She begs me to ask you whether she can not give your names & your
18husbands as God parents to the child, Cron & I are going to be, & asks
19what your full names are if you are willing.
20
21 I am so glad the ^two^ children are well. How you must long to see them
22all dear. My heart has been very bad again lately; my feet &
23hands are much swollen & it is difficult for me to walk, more than
24just getting through my house work. When the war is over & I can
25travel about & get change of air & rest perhaps I shall get better. I
26want so to live on a few years now. Please write to me soon. I am so
27thankful to think you have kind friends in Natal & so are not utterly
28alone.
29
30 Good bye dear.
31
32 Yours, very lovingly
33 Olive Schreiner
34
35

1 Hanover
2 June 4th 1902
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so very very glad to hear from you again. Please write soon &
7tell me how all goes with you & whether there is any chance of your
8seeing your husband soon. Also please send me your mother’s address.
9I want to write to her & ask her to do something unreadable for me.
10
11 On Monday morning the guns fired here & we were told it was because
12the Boers had surrendered, & there was going to be peace. Since that,
13the last three days, I am able to hear nothing. Of course the village
14is full of reports. Some say the Boers have got their independence &
15the Transvaal flag is flying at Pretoria. The jingoes say the Boers
16have been beaten absolutely & had to surrender. One doesn’t know
17what is true, & what is not, & ^believes every one lies.^ One sees no
18^English^ papers so it will probably be months before we know the truth
19here. I heard your husband passed at de Aar close to this yesterday.
20What would I not have given to see him for half an hour. I have not
21seen the face of a friend except my husband’s for so many long
22months, but while I have him I should be so absolutely contented when
23I think of all of you. I was one year & two months without seeing him
24& you have been two years separated from your husband & he was in the
25greatest danger ^all that time.^ I don’t know how you have lived
26through it, dear one. I hope you will be so well when the meeting time
27comes. Let me know that I may share your joy.
28
29 Good bye dear. The world seems rather dark just now. But the sun will
30rise at last. Give my love to Ella.
31
32 I am afraid it will be very long before I can get a pass to go to Cape
33Town, but some day if I go perhaps I shall see her.
34
35 Yours ever Olive
36
37 Give our affectionate remembrances to your husband when you write to
38him.
39
40

1 Hanover
2 Jun 4 / 02
3
4 Dear Friend
5
6 I hear you are about in this part of the world & I am longing to see
7you once more. I heard from Isie yesterday & I know it would be a joy
8to her if I could tell her I had seen you & you were looking strong &
9well.
10
11 I am sending this line to Major White at the station & asking him very
12kindly to forward it to you if he knows where you are. I would come to
13the station or anywhere where I was allowed just to shake hands with
14you: but if you could come here for a day ^at our house^ it would be a
15great joy.
16
17 Yours Your little son will be with you no more when you & Isie form
18your home again: but it be such joy to me to know you are together
19again.
20
21 My husband joins me in warmest & most heartfelt greetings
22
23 Yours ever
24 Olive Schreiner
25
26
27

1 Hanover
2 June 15 / 02
3
4 Dearest Isie
5
6 How my heart aches to think that just now when you ought to be so well
7to go through all that has to be gone through & to go to meet your
8husband you should be ill. Please write & tell me how you are getting
9on if but a post card.
10
11 I wrote to our English officer at Hanover Rd & ask him if he would
12give me permission to go there or anywhere where your husband was just
13to see him for a few moments. He wrote & told my your husband had just
14left this part to go on to Cape Town & perhaps from there to Port
15Noloth, to get the commandos to surrender, so I could not see him, but
16he said he would send on the little note I wrote to him.
17
18 I don’t feel as if I ever wished to see Johannesburg or even dear
19old Pretoria again. But perhaps you will be moving down to the colony
20some time & then I shall see you, as you must pass at Hanover Rd & I
21know you will stop here & see us. Good bye dear my heart & my thoughts
22are with you. I am so thankful that your husband & brother are still
23alive.
24
25 Olive
26
27 I think I told you my husband is trying to get some work here as a
28general agent. Next month we shall move into a little cottage of our
29own. Its rather a tumble down place, but it will be so nice to have
30more than one room. We can’t get any servants here as the natives
31Boycott us, we have even to fetch the wall water & scrub floors
32ourselves so I can’t do any writing. I am sorry because there is so
33much I want to write & life is so short it will be over so soon. If
34only one could write one would feel there was still some reason for
35ones going on living.
36
37

1 Hanover
2 June 17 / 02
3
4 Dear Isie,
5
6 I find I shall have to go to Johannesburg to see if I cannot find any
7traces of the things which were looted from my house, & also to look
8through the charred remains which my brother-in-law had removed to see
9if there are not bits of my MS &c. When will you be back in Pretoria.
10I would like if possible to put off my going for a few days till you
11were back so that I might spend a couple of days with you. Please
12write & tell me when you will be there. I long to see you. Please let
13me know how you are getting on after the operation.
14
15 Yours lovingly
16 Olive
17
18 I have written to General Lyttleton himself, so I think I shall be
19sure to get a pass.
20

1 Hanover
2 July 11 / 02
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I like to think that by this time you have seen your husband: but am
7so sorry to know from your letter that you must still be weak &
8suffering, if the doctors will not allow you to go home yet. But you
9must not hurry. A little haste after an operation may make all the
10difference between health & invalidism for life. Please tell your
11husband how very very glad I was to get his letter, -- but talking
12would have been so much better. Letters are poor things when the heart
13is full. I hear Commandant Malan is coming into Hanover next week, & I
14hope I shall see him.
15
16 I shall not be able to come up to Johannesburg now will next month, as
17my chest has been a bit bad & I must wait till the weather is warmer,
18I don’t think I shall be able to stay longer than one day in
19Johannesburg & one day in Pretoria; but I do hope you will be there by
20that time, even if I see you for only a couple of hours.
21
22 We are moving into our own little cottage next week I hope, which will
23seem grand after living in one room for nearly two years. There is
24much, much in my heart to say but it must wait.
25
26 I have written ^out^ two little kind of dream allegory sort of stories,
27one called "My Dreams", which I wrote in Cape Town at the end of
28October 19 1899. which I think you will like. I suppose myself to be
29in bed, & to have three dreams following each other like a succession
30of pictures, & another called the "Angel of Freedom" which I wrote on
31a kopje here about three ^six^ months ago. I have also three stories
32written in my head but not set on paper yet though I can repeat them.
33The one is called "The last of the Vander Spuys unreadable of ^of the Van der Spuys."^ & the
34mottor is "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened unless
35it die." The scene of that, is in the North Transvaal, about two years
36ago. The second is called "Where is the lad?" & the scene is laid in
37the Priska district, about a year & a half ago. The third is called
38unreadable "Gerbrech, or the Queen’s cannister." The cannister, is
39one of those little, common tin ^tea^ cannisters, with Queen
40Victoria’s picture on ^it^ which little Boer girls used often to prize
41so on out of the way farms. Imagine the scene to be somewhere in the
42Colesberg district, about a year ago.
43
44 The last is called "An African Woman" & is the story of a young girl &
45her lover & why she renounces him. Some day when I’ve a servant & a
46little time I’ll write them out, & later yet publish them together
47as a book.
48
49 I do hope dear that you will soon be able to write to me that you are
50going home.
51
52 Give both Cron’s warmest greetings ^& mine, to your husband. I think
53you will get stronger quickly after you have seen him.
54
55 Olive^
56

1 Hanover
2 July 15 / 02
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I fancy by this time your husband may have been & have had to go to
7Pretoria again to his work. You did not say whether he would be able
8to stay with you till you were able to move.
9
10 I think I shall be leaving this for Johannesburg about the 15th of Aug.
11 that is a month from today. The doctor thinks it is too cold for me
12to stand the journey now: so you will be sure to be home by the time I
13come. My husband is very busy; ^he is managing the case of^ one of the
14young men of our district who is to be tried for murder in connection
15with the taking of a train near to this a year & a half ago. He was
16one of the rebels who surrendered with Fouches in Cradock the other
17day. He is in prison here. unreadable Three Hanover men were executed
18with regard to the taking of the same train. My husband gett
19gets a good deal of legal work here, but ^many^ people are so poor that
20for much they can’t pay anything: but he likes helping them. We have
21not got into our little cottage yet. Some day if you are going to Cape
22Town to visit your mother you must unreadable stop at Hanover on the
23way. Try & find time just to send me a card to let me know if you are
24getting stronger. Did you get the note I sent you a couple of days ago
25telling you that I had heard from your husband.
26
27 Yours ever,
28 Olive
29
30

1 July 30 / 02
2
3 Dear Friend
4
5 I hope I shall be able to leave this about the 16th for Johannesburg,
6but have not been able to hear of any place I can get a bed in. Do you
7perhaps know the address of any Africander boarding house where I
8might get a bed for a couple of nights? If so please write at once &
9give me the address. If I could only get a bed I could go out for my
10food.
11
12 Thankyou for your letter I will answer it in person. Will you be in
13Pretoria if I came over for a day about the 2 19th or 20th?
14
15 I have had two letters from Isie this week. It is a bitter
16disappointment to me that I can’t see her. If it were possible I
17should like to go to Maritzburg to see her. I think only a woman can
18understand what the disappointment must have been to her of being so
19ill when you returned. We have General Olivier here just now, & we had
20Malan here last week as a witness in the case of a ^Hanover^ rebel who
21is being tried for his life & whose case Cron is defending: but he was
22here as a prisoner under guard, & is now in prison at Nauwpoort
23awaiting his trial. He ^(Commandant Malan)^ strikes me as a most
24remarkable man; not cultured, but one of the most strongly marked
25individualities I ever met. It seems strange that he should be in
26prison & Olivier walking about here, free, & they are both Transvaal
27Commanders! – but there are some things "that no feller can
28understand" as Lord Dundreary would say; in fact, a good many just now.
29
30 When I write to you may I address your letters General Smuts, or must
31it be Advocate? I would write you a long letter but that I hope to see
32you so soon & writing is a poor matter.
33
34 Give my love to Isie when you write. I have spent many anxious hours
35thinking of you during the past.
36
37 Olive Schreiner
38

1 Dear Isie
2
3 I was so glad to get the joyful news you were better & going to your
4home.
5
6 I meant to leave for Johannesburg on the 15th (next of this month, but
7I have got my chest bad since I moved into our little cottage which
8doesn’t suit me as we get no sun in the bed room, & its damp. I must
9put off going till I’m better. I’m going to sleep in the dining
10room & hope I shall be able to leave about the 20th. I got your
11husbands kind wire saying the Rev Meiring would receive me as a guest.
12Thank him very much: it will be so nice to be there, an not at a jingo
13boarding house. I will wire to him when I am leaving. What a terrible
14thing a body is when it drags one down so. Its months now since I put
15pen to paper except to write a few notes, & to take those notes in
16court.
17
18 Cron wrote answering your husbands questions as to Commandant Malan.
19We hear he is out on bail in Cradock now. When he was here I was only
20allowed to see him for 15 minutes, & with soldiers at the window, many
21people could not even get a pass to see him for a minute. I hope you
22will soon get quite strong now you are at home. I don’t fancy I
23shall be able to stay more than one day at Pretoria, & we have so much
24to talk about. I will come straight to ^you if you will have me. Please
25thank Mr & Mrs Meiring very much for asking me.^ [page/s missing]
26
27
28

1 Hanover
2 Aug 16 1902
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I hope to leave this on the 21st for Johannesburg.
7
8 I shall stay at Mr. Beyers, & shall write to you or wire when I leave
9for Pretoria. I do hope I shall be able to stay more than one day, but
10can’t reckon on it.
11
12 I hope I shall find you quite strong comparatively, I long to see you so.
13
14 Olive
15
16

1 Sunday night
2
3 Dear Isie
4
5 It was a bitter disappointment to me not to be able to come over this
6morning I was so knocked up I couldn’t come, & it would have been no
7use if I had so staid in bed till this afternoon. I am going to try &
8get my work, sorting out bits of photographs & books &c alone on
9Tuesday & to come over on Wednesday. I am so sorry to think perhaps
10some of you took all the trouble to come to the station to meet me. I
11am longing so to be with you. Johannesburg is always very sad to me.
12
13 I will wire you my plans & then I will realy come whatever happens. I
14hope you are better.
15
16 Olive
17
18
19

1 Sep 15th 1902
2
3 Dear Isie
4
5 I have been in bed ever since I came back; am going out today for the
6first time that is why I haven’t written before. My little visit to
7you seems a beautiful time of rest, the rest of seeing friends.
8
9 I hope you will soon be strong dear. I hope some day you will have
10another little one to comfort your heart, I shall feel almost as glad
11as if it were mine. Good bye. My love to you all.
12
13 Olive
14
15 Why do you always call me Mrs Schreiner then of course I have to call
16you Mrs Smuts. All my friends call me Olive.
17
18 My husband whent left for Cape Town the day before yesterday
19where is going to visit his mother for a few days & attend his
20brother’s wedding. I am so glad he is having a little change from
21the hard work here, in sad little Hanover.
22

1 Hanover
2 Sep 26th 1902
3
4 Dear Friend
5
6 Will you do me a very great favour.
7
8 Please write & tell me exactly what you payed on my luggage at
9Pretoria station, &, if possible get me a written statement of the
10amount from the clerk. I know how very busy you are & will be glad to
11pay an law attorney in Pretoria for getting it if you are too busy. In
12fact it might be better to employ an ordinary attorney, if Jingo so
13much the better. I
14
15 I want to return you the money of course, but that is not the
16important reason why I want it. When I got to Hanover Rd Station I
17showed it to the ticket to the station master & he said I had been
18charged about 3 th times too much on the luggage. I asked him to
19return me the ticket. He appeared to do so, but I now find that what
20he returned to me was my passenger ticket & not the luggage ticket. It
21was simply part of their whole plan as they charged me £7.10. too much
22on my passenger ticket the last time I traveled to Graaff Reinett. I
23can’t explain to you why I want so much to have it but I will gladly
24pay £10 to the attorney in Pretoria if he can get it for me. He must
25see the station master himself who is a kindly & gentlemanly man, who
26without whose help I should never have got away.
27
28 The subordinates absolutely refused to give me a ticket; they told me
29my pass from General Lyttleton was so much dirty paper, that I would
30never be allowed to go out of the Transvaal with it, & had not the
31station master insisted they would have given me no ticket. Even after
32I was sitting in my carriage just before the train left a filthy
33little fore-man came in & shook his fist at me & jeered at me & told
34me I would never be allowed to leave the Transvaal &c.
35
36Don’t please take any action in the matter as soon as I I am better I
37will see write to General Lyttleton about it. This is not a solitary
38case, or it would not matter it is a system on the railways among the
39subordinate officials. I shall never forget the kindness of the
40station master. If you've any diff Perhaps it would be better
41as keeping you quite out of the matter if you just sent me the name of
42an attorney (not Hudson Findlay, who evidently doesn’t want to have
43anything to do with me) to whom I could write to get me a statement of
44the amount you paid. The station master at Johannesburg when I put the
45bicycles on the train told me there would be no duty on them as they
46came from the Colony.
47
48 The people here are very anxious Cron should stand for Parliament; at
49this this by election. I shrink so from Politics that I shall be sorry
50if he stands, unreadable for my own sake.
51
52 Politicians & priests always fight with "reservations". Cron is so
53straight forward I should be sorry to see him become a real politician:
54 I hope even if he is returned he ^never^ will.
55
56 No I never want to see Pretoria again. I only want to see you people.
57
58 Olive Schreiner
59
60

1 Hanover
2 Sunday night
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I hope you got my last letter all right. I have yours & Daisy’s.
7
8 Cron is still away on his visit to Cape Town but returns tomorrow
9morning. I wish he could have stayed longer but there is too much work
10waiting for him here. He has looked wonderfully tired & aged ever
11since he returned from England. I hardly think you would know him. Boy
12Pienaar is out of prison on £5000 pounds bail!! When he is to be
13tried I don’t yet know. Perhaps Cron will have heard in Cape Town. I
14get long letters from Miss Molteno every week. She is staying at the
15Hotel in London where the Generals stay: the letters are very
16interesting. Have you read a truly fine article in the Speaker for Aug.
17 23rd on "Dignity". You would both enjoy it much. It expresses exactly
18my feeling & I am sure it would yours. I put all my little war
19treasures in my work box. Some one tells me that some of the dear old
20prisoners at St Helena have made me a very pretty broach, but I
21haven’t got it yet.
22
23 I have a very good little Bushman boy now, who washes all my pots &
24cleans the floors &c. It seems like heaven to have him: I could get
25time for writing now; but somehow it’s curious, nothing seems to me
26to matter any more. Every thing. I don’t mean that intellectually I
27have lost my hope in the future either for humanity or for our own
28land. But for the first time in my life nothing seems to matter to me,
29& one can’t write while one feels like that.
30
31 I enclose a cheque for your husband for the money he paid out for my
32goods at the station. Some day I’ll tell you what a time I had with
33those clerks. How they bullied & unsettled me. If it hadn’t been for
34the dear old station master I don’t know what I should have done.
35They over charged for the luggage too, more than twice too much, but I
36shall get a refund from the traffic manager in Cape Town. The spite of
37these unclean little officials is something wonderful. I did not do
38anything about their conduct at the station, because I was so anxious
39he should know nothing of it & not be mixed up with them in any way. I
40am dreading being exposed to the railway again next month when I have
41to go to Cape Town for two days to see my dear old Mother, who is
42growing very weak & old. I shall not stay in Town more than two days,
43but shall be staying with Anna Purcell, so shall be sure to see Malan
44who lives next door. It will be refreshing to see them all. Hearty
45greetings to your Husband & Daisy.
46
47 Olive Schreiner
48
49 ^P.S. I quite forgot to tell you when I was up that my friend Mrs
50Viljoen for whose baby you sent the things called her baby Jan
51Dela-ray De Wet, after your husband Delaray & De Wet. He is my God son
52& a lovely little fellow. He is always still wearing the little things
53you sent.^
54
55
56

1 Hanover
2 Monday.
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so glad to get your letter this morning. No my heart is not at
7rest about Boy Pienaar. He is still out on bail for £4.000 awaiting
8his trial. Van der Berg has not been tried yet, & the two Nieuwhouts
9are still serving their hard labour term at Kimberley. I am going down
10to Cape Town by the mail train next Tuesday & shall see General
11?Settle about them, & the governor, & if they are not released at once
12I shall write to the English papers. It is all very well for us to sit
13here happy & contented, but what of two perfectly innocent men who are
14doing hard labour, to whom every day seems a week!
15
16 Did your husband get the cheque for £2 17s which I sent him in a
17separate envelope from my letter? I think Cron is safe to be returned
18to Parliament by this division, as the Africander Party have chosen
19him, & it does not seem likely the Jingoes will put up any man at all.
20
21 I wish Daisy had been leaving a little sooner then we might have
22traveled down together from Hanover Rd. No I never, never want to see
23Pretoria again it’s a hateful place! You & your husband must come
24here & see us. The friends here would be just delighted to see you.
25It’s so nice & cool here in summer too: it would do you good. Are
26you feeling better, & getting a little fatter.
27
28 Good bye, dear.
29 Love to you all
30
31 Olive
32
33
34

1 Hanover
2 November 28 / 02
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so glad to hear from you. I should like to be one of the
7visitors to the trees, & the tree owners! But I don’t want ever to
8see the Transvaal again!
9
10 Have you seen Hobson’s new book on "Imperialism" It is first class &
11you would much enjoy it.
12
13 I think Cron is quite sure to be returned, but we shall not know the
14results till tomorrow or Monday.
15
16 I had a very delightful little time in Cape Town. It seems like a
17beautiful dream. I saw one of your Uncles there, one I met one evening
18in your dining room. I hope he is quite well. Tell your husbands
19sister I hope I shall meet her some day.
20
21 When Cron & I were going up to attend a meeting at Colesburg last week
22we met General de Wet in the train, & had ten minutes talk, we were so
23busy talking that we didn’t feel the train moving & had to jump out
24while it was going or we should have gone on to Norvals spo -pont. He
25is an exceedingly strong man, & as straight as strong. He impressed me
26greatly, but one doesn’t love him as one loves Malan. He (Malan)
27will be here again this week to give evidence in the endless case of
28Van der Berg. I went to see the Governor & Sir Gordon Sprig & the
29Attorney General about getting the two Neuwenhouts out of of prison as
30every one knows they are perfectly innocent & were never near the
31train. It was like throwing oneself against a stone wall. I wish I had
32gone to see Lord Milner about them when I was in Pretoria, I believe I
33could have got him to set them free; but I felt so dead when I was
34there. I think my interviews with them have however hastened the trial
35of Van der Berg.
36
37 Miss Greene has been very ill in England. They were to leave on the
3815th ^of November^ for this country again, so must be on the water now.
39
40 My little Bushman boy has gone so I’ve no one to help; if Cron
41werent so sweet & contented with what I give him to eat I shouldn’t
42manage at all.
43
44^Are you getting stronger? Much love to you all. ^
45
46 Olive
47
48 ^I saw Onse Jan when I was in Cape Town, he looks very old & changed, I
49should not have known him. Do you take the South African News. It is
50very interesting just now.^
51

1 Hanover
2 April 27th 1903
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 How can I thank you enough for your letter & the two wires I got today.
7 I would like more than you can think to be with you in your dear home,
8 which seems like a home to me too. But I can’t stand the climate at
9Pretoria; the last time I was there, I was six weeks in bed when I got
10home, & whenever I’ve gone out from Johannesburg in the winter its
11had the same effect on me. If only you lived in Bloemfontein! I wanted
12to go there but I hear there is not a house or room to be had. I
13don’t know where I shall go. I have spent £4 on advertising already,
14 & have had only one answer from a farm near Beaufort West, so I
15suppose I shall have to go there, though the people are great jingoes.
16If it wasn’t for my husband I should go to Italy & spend the rest of
17my life there; but I should always be fancying he was ill & perhaps
18needing me. I’d have my body brought back to this old country; but
19life is very hard here now, & I can do no more good here. When to keep
20silent is all you can do for your country, you may as well be silent
21in one place as another; & I would copy out & finish off one of my
22novels & so earn money if I were in Italy.
23
24 Thank you so much for your husband’s photo. Many of the folk here
25have been to see it. It’s very good, but a little "kwaai".
26
27 If Mrs de Wet (the General’s wife) is still in Pretoria please give
28my my kind regards. I should like so much to have a photograph of her.
29I hope her daughter’s heart is better. Give my love to Daisy when
30you write please. I hope she is getting all right, & will get quite
31strong. We are I am going down to Grahamstown to Jan Van der Berg’s
32trial on the 11th of May; they will do all they can to get him off &
33prove him not guilty, & so make it appear that our innocent men were
34present when the train was wrecked. If they do I don’t care what
35anyone says or how the politicians may weep, I’ll show the whole
36thing up in the English news papers. I never get any time for writing
37now; when my work’s done I’m just glad to get to the bed & lie
38down. But perhaps I shall be able to write a little during the winter
39if I get a warm place.
40
41 We are having a tiny little cottage build, the whole not much bigger
42than your dining room to move into when the parliament is over. There
43is not even a room to be had here. Miss Molteno & Miss Greene wrote
44this week that they were coming up, but but I had to wire & tell them
45not. I can’t understand what is the matter with country: it seems
46all gone wrong. It will be fifty years before its fit for a decent
47person to live in. We are going to have a public meeting here on the
489th.
49
50 I hope you are keeping strong.
51
52 Affectionate greetings to you all; & deep thanks for your really
53wishing to have me. I could have cried when your wires came today; it
54seemed so nice any one should care to have me.
55 Yours ever
56
57 Olive Schreiner
58
59 Have you read a nice book of poems by Earnest Crosby called Swords &
60Ploughshares, ^there are some good poems on South Africa in the book.^
61

1 Hanover
2 May 22 / 03
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Thank you for your letter. I was down in Grahamstown for six days at
7the trial. It was a hideous farce. The war was "cakes & ale" compared
8to the peace.
9
10 Of Don’t you believe a word you see in the papers about it. It’s
11all untrue. Hamlet with Hamlet left out. I’ll tell you about it some
12day. The whole jury was English & Grahamstown jury. There was one
13Dutch man & he was challenged, I believe because your husband had been
14to his farm when he was in the colony; but am not sure of the
15correctness of this statement. Lombard was his name. "The more you
16refuse to pay your debts, the bigger your debts grow."
17
18 My husband was much better the last two days before I left, though too
19ill to go. I found him when I returned very very ill, for four days he
20was unable to move & I had to feed & nurse him like a little baby.
21Today he is much much better able to sit up in bed & help himself. The
22doctor says he must go to Cape Town at once as it is rheumatism so I
23am taking him down on Tuesday, & we shall arrive in Cape Town on
24Wednesday with the mail train. If my husband che remains ill of course
25I shall stay, but as the doctors think he will get quite better as
26soon as he gets to the coast I shall return to Beaufort West. I shall
27board at first with Danie Theron’s sister Mrs Kriel, & then try to
28go out to some farm. I shall go for some time to Commandant Malan’s
29farm to help him with his book. I am going to write a preface for him
30& help him revise it. Then I am going to send it to England to be
31published. What a dear fellow he is! A man with a real touch of genius
32& yet so child like. He & several of his commando whent went with
33me to Grahamstown to give unreadable evidence that the men from de
34Bael never joined the commando & were never with them, but nothing
35helped.
36
37 When you write please still address here as I will have my letters
38sent on to me, till I know for certain where I shall be. Emily
39Hobhouse is here: I had a note from her this morning.
40
41 Yes, it would have been splendid, but if I could have gone to Gen de
42Wet’s unreadable last unreadable but I wouldn’t like to trouble them. If I ever am
43passing there however I should like to go & spend a day at their farm
44to see them all.
45
46 Love to you all
47 Olive
48
49 ^I have to pack up all this my things & be out of this house too by
50Tuesday, & pack my things away in a room as our little cottage is not
51half built yet. I wonder if you can read this I’m writing in such a
52hurry.^
53
54

1 Address
2 P.O. Uitkÿk
3 near Frasersburg Rd
4 Cape Colony
5
6 Dear Isie
7
8 I got your letter just before I left Beaufort for General Malan’s
9Grandfather’s farm where I spent two delightful days. It is away
10among the most beautiful mountains. The old Grandfather is 84 & almost
11childish though he must have been a wonderfully fine man in his youth.
12But a most beautiful & interesting young aunt of Malan’s who is a
13widow keeps house for the old man & looks after him. She & Malan & the
14old man forming the family. It is beautiful to see "our" Malan at his
15farm work. Im so glad he’s there & not in a town. I took his aunt
16back ^with^ me to Beaufort for a few days, as she had been there once
17before the war. She has had a hard time doing all the working &
18washing & housecleaning all through the war for the old man & all
19Malans little brother’s & sisters who were with her all through the
20war. I wish you would see her. She is such a beautiful strong woman, I
21mean strong in heart as well as in body. One doesn’t wonder at Malan
22being what he is when he has such female relations.
23
24 Miss Emily Hobhouse spent two days with me in Beaufort. You will see
25her in Pretoria soon. She gave me £10 ^of the money she has brought out^
26to buy a washing machine for the wife of one of our men who was shot
27in Hanover & who has to make her living by washing. I am very glad
28about it.
29
30 Now I have come out to a farm called Uitkÿk belonging to a Mr Le Roux
31where they take boarders. If I don’t get asthma here I shall stay
32here for a couple of months & try to do a little writing. It is a nice
33place with a beautiful view of the mountains, now all covered with
34snow.
35
36 My Husband writes me that he is much better. But he looks terribly ill
37& aged.
38
39 My dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are spending a few days
40with me here: it is so delightful to have them. I shall miss them much
41when they go. I have got mY three meerkats & my little dog with me.
42
43
44^I wish I could see you; there is so much I should like to say, & to
45hear. Writing is no good. Much love to you all. ^
46
47 Olive Schreiner
48
49
50

1 P.O. Uitkÿk
2 near Frasersburg Rd
3 Cape Colony
4 June 28 / 03.
5
6 Dear Isie
7
8 Thankyou for your long letter & the pleasant messages. Also for the
9magazines I got last night.
10
11 This is a beautiful place to me, very bare, open, Karroo, but the air
12is wonderfully fresh & clear & we can see the far mountains, always on
13every hand. Yesterday my husband came for the day from Cape Town. He
14left again by the afternoon train but it was very nice to see him, it
15makes this place seem more home like. The Le Roux’s are very nice kind
16people & I couldn’t be more comfortable boarding anywhere than here.
17Mrs. Le Roux who was a Miss ?Fütch says she remembers you as a little
18girl at the school at Stellenbosch when she was there: two of her
19brothers died fighting on the Transvaal side; one was shot & one died
20of disease: Yes, I always feel more significantly with the Transvaal &
21Freestate than this Colony. This old Bond is a stick in the mud
22
23^?fast of organization; but one must take life as it comes. Good bye my
24love to you all
25
26 Olive Schreiner^
27
28 PS. Do you know Dr. Kolk did not write those poems, but some one else
29who does not at all wish their name known. It was a great surprise to
30me when I found out Have you perhaps got another copy of Songs of the
31Veld you could send me? I want one so much to send to Mrs Malan^’s^
32aunt Mrs. Van Heerden, & I can’t get a copy in Cape Town.
33
34 Good bye again
35 OS
36
37 ^I shall perhaps be going up to Bloemfontein for a week or ten days
38before I return to Hanover in August. I wish the air at Pretoria more
39like the air at Bloemfontein. I have about 12 stories most of them I
40made during the first year of the war. Since the peace all life seems
41to have died out of me.^
42

1 Hanover
2 Aug 30 / 03
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Your letter was sent on to me here. All my heart goes out in love &
7sympathy towards little Sannie. I know what a joy she will be to her
8father & mother. I am so glad to know you are getting on well; but
9please send me a line to say just how you both are. It was such a
10surprise & joy to hear of the coming of your little one.
11
12 I am now in Hanover. I got here a week ago meaning to spend one day
13here & then go on to Bloemfontein, but I got unreadable ill here &
14have not been able to go on. I hope I may be able to go at the end of
15this week. I think Cron will be going up to the Pretoria for a few
16days & will pass Hanover Rd on Saturday the a 5th & it I will join him
17at Hanover Rd & go as far as Bloemfontein. I am staying in bed &
18trying to get better. Our little home is not yet nearly finished; & it
19was a great disappointment to me when I came here as I expected it to
20be quite done. I have just had a letter from Malan’s aunt Mrs Van
21Heerden. Her old father for whom she has kept house & whom she had
22tended for years like a child is dead. I do hope she & Malan will not
23have to leave the farm, that some arrangement will be made by which he
24& his aunt can stay on the farm. I had such a delightful time with the
25dear Le Roux’s at Uitkÿk; it was like being in my ^own^ sister’s house.
26They took me to Prince Albert & we spent a delightful two weeks there
27with the ?Lütys & I got to know a very sweet little woman Mrs Du Toit
28the wife of the Dutch Minister there. She was a Miss Goosen of the
29Free State, & was sent away by the Military. Her sister-in-law Mrs
30Fouchè who was Sophie du Toit, is coming here as the wife of our new
31minister Fouchè.
32
33 I am long so terribly to see my husband. I have only seen him twice in
34the last three months. I am trying to be well to catch the mail train
35on Saturday. It is my heart that is so troublesome. I want to try &
36get a servant in Bloemfontein too.
37
38 Give many kisses to little Sannie. I know what a joy she must be to
39you all.
40
41^I hope I shall see her some day.
42
43 Yours ever
44 Olive^
45
46 ^Please drop me a line to say just how you are.^
47
48

1 Hanover
2 Oct 22nd 1903
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Its very funny that just this morning as I was thinking that as soon
7as I’d put the dinner on I would write to you, Cron came in with
8post & Sannie’s little box of cherries. Give her a kiss for each
9cherry. They were very sweet coming from that dear old garden in
10Pretoria. That house & garden are the only parts of Pretoria I like
11now.
12
13 How does Sannie grow? Do you know that you owe me two letters? But I
14believe if I had Sannie I shouldn’t write to anyone, I’d be so
15busy over her. We’ve moved into our little house as I told you. But
16I like it so much. It stands just on the out skirts of the town & you
17can see the veld all roun. If you go to Cape Town do, do, do come &
18stay with us for a couple of days on the way. I can get you a nice
19bedroom near to this in the house of my friend Miss Viljoen in whose
20house I had my room during Martial Law; & if you’ll put up with my
21cooking for the sake of giving me pleasure, I’ll be so happy. I’ve
22got a little Bushman girl now of almost 11 who cleans the pots &
23fetches water, & it is such a splendid comfort I’ve even even begun
24to write a little again.
25
26 Public affairs are so sickening to write about. Some people say if you
27get up to the top of the hill what matter whether it be crawling on
28your hands & knees or walking upright. But to me it seems to make a
29great difference. There is some talk of sh Cron’s standing for
30Beaufort West. The leaders of the party wanted Venter & du Vaal to
31stand here, so though Cron had a big majority of voters he with-drew.
32Good bye. Tell me about Sannie.
33
34 Love to you all
35
36 Olive
37
38

1 Hanover
2 Oct 30 / 03
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Thank you for the biltong. We get none here now as the soldiers nearly
7exterminated the bucks in this part of the world, so it is specially
8welcome. I would have written to thank you the day before yesterday
9when it came but by my heart has been laying me up again. I write for
10two days & then comes a long spell when I can’t. Cron has written to
11the government & from it we have got permission to take up the bodies
12of our three friends buried at de Aar, & have them buried here at
13Hanover the only condition is that there must be no demonstration at
14the funeral, a condition we shall see is strictly observed. Do a The
15friends of the men are very poor the widow & 6 little children of one
16we have almost entirely to support as she is very ill. The other dear
17old man ^the father of Nieuwhout^ is very old, he works hard to support
18himself & his invalid daughter. I am collecting money to pay for
19fetching the bodies from de Aar, bring them here by train & cart &
20getting coffins &c. I wondered whether it would be possible for your
21husband or any of the friends in the Transvaal to make a small
22contribution. I am sure I can raise all the money here, it will be
23about £216 (sixteen pounds) but if a little were contributed by
24friends in the Transvaal (with or without their names being given ^just^
25as they liked) it would touch the dear old parents & friends here very
26much. But be sure not to send anything if you think it best not. There
27may be objections which I don’t see.
28
29 Do all of you come here if you can. I shall like to meet the two girls
30& shall find them a bed room, perhaps not so close as y at Miss
31Viljoens, which is next house but one to mine, but they won’t mind
32walking a little way. I’ll send 2 carts to the station quite as
33easily as one. I do hope it will have rained by that time, otherwise
34we shall have nothing but meat & rice to offer you. There are I think
35only about two cows in the Hanover district, people have sent all
36their cattle & most of their small stock to the Free State. But butter
37we get up by parcels post from Cape Town! Fruit & vegetables we never
38see & a terrible frost last week killed everything that was beginning
39to sprout in the village gardens – so you mustn’t expect much in
40the way of meat & drink – though ever so much in the way of loving
41welcome. Please write to me some time before you come if you do see
42any chance of breaking your journey here, because letters from the
43Transvaal seem often so delayed. Miss Viljoen is delighted to think
44you will perhaps sleep at her house. Good bye.
45
46 Olive
47
48 ^Give my best love to Ellen Burger. I am always meaning to write her a
49long letter but the time never seems to come.^
50
51

1 Hanover
2 Nov 21st 1903
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Many thanks for your letter & the enclosed cheque. We have changed our
7minds about having the funeral here. We are going to buy the little
8bit of ground in which ?Islow lie, & enclose it, & at some future
9date. I hope it may be before very long set up a large monument to
10them. I have not cashed the cheque till I heard whether you would be
11willing it should be spent on ^buying^ the ground &c. It is now private
12property. No, I can’t go to Gordon’s Bay; Thank you so much for
13wanting me to. But I can’t go close to the sea. I shall however be
14in Cape Town for a couple of days early this next month, staying at
15Mrs. Purcells for three or four days. Is there is any hope of your
16being down there by that time? I want to see Sannie so. You might be
17coming into Town to spend the day with us. I shall only be in ^Cape^
18Town a few days. It would be so nice if I could join your train & go
19down with you. But my going depends on when the committee in Cape Town
20comes to a decision in Cape Town about Cron’s standing for
21Parliament or not. I want to go to Cape Town while he is away visiting
22Prince Albert. If he stands I can’t bear to leave him alone here.
23
24 Good bye dear friend. Greetings to all the good friends at Pretoria.
25
26 Olive Schreiner
27
28

1 Hanover
2 Jan 9 / 04
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Do let me have just an answer on enclosed bit of paper as to how you &
7the little ones are. I know it is so impossible for you to write put
8just answers to the enclosed questions. You know you ought never to
9have let us all come & fill the house when you were in such a delicate
10state, with your hands so full. But some how I can’t help being
11anxious especially about Santa. Has she cut her teeth I wonder. We go
12down to parliament on the l before the 10th of March when parliament
13opens. I do wish there was a chance of your all being down at
14Stellenbosch then.
15
16 Good bye, my dear friend
17 Olive
18
19

1 Hanover
2 Feb 12 / 04
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so glad this morning to get the really beautiful photo of you
7three. It’s so good. Dear little Sannie with her big eyes looks so
8sweet one wants to get hold of her & hug her here a little & her
9mother looks so happy & satisfied. I think this dear little daughter
10is consoling you for all you passed through.
11
12 I was so sorry I couldn’t come to see you at Gordon’s Bay, but I
13dare not go near the sea there, or I have to hurry back up country.
14
15 Cron returned yesterday from Beaufort West. He had been gone 6 weeks &
16a half electioneering, except when hers returned once for two days,
17because the doctors wired for him to come & see me. I didn’t know
18anything about it or I wouldn’t have let him come. It’s so nice to
19have him back. Tomorrow I suppose we shall hear the result of the
20election.
21
22 My little Bushman servant was taken ill with typhoid fever the day I
23returned from Cape Town & three members of her family have died of it
24in the last five weeks, so I’ve had no one in the house all the time
25Cron was away but now I’ve got a little Africander girl of about 12
26to help me, a very nice little thing. I am so glad to have her. Her
27father drinks a great deal & they are very poor with six little
28children; so she is glad to come & I hope she may stay with me. I like
29so to have people about me whom I can realy get to love & feel are
30part of the household.
31
32 I’m so sorry Daisy has no prospect of having a little one very soon,
33but so very glad you all like her husband so much.
34
35 About those men at de Aar for whose funeral you sent the money, –
36Mrs. Nienaber the wife of one of them is going to marry Mr. Nieuwhout
37the father of another of the men who is buried at de Aar, & she wants
38us to wait till the wedding is over before we do anything about
39burying them. The idea is now to buy the bit of ground they are buried
40in at de Aar, & go & have a funeral over their graves, & to get
41General Malan & some of his men to come. You We are having a terrible
42time here with typhoid & a curious type of stomach complaint from
43which I also suffered. Many ^white^ children & four adults, unreadable
44quite a dozen natives have died of the last after being only from six
45to twenty four hours ill, & we have had 23 ^white^ people down with
46typhoid during this month. It makes one think of what the camps must
47have been like. We have four Trained hospital nurses here from Port
48Elizabeth; the doctors wired everywhere to get some more but we could
49not. However its going over now, mine was one of the last cases. They
50think its the water supply that is wrong; but all kinds of new
51diseases seem to inflict us since we had the big military camps here
52just outside the village.
53
54 I see dear old Stead is coming out. I shall be so glad to see him. I
55shouldn’t have thought one could long to see one’s friends as
56I’ve done in the three years I’ve been in Hanover. Except when my
57sister came for one day, I’ve not seen the face of a friend in
58Hanover in all the three years. It’s so off the line that people
59can’t come. When Cron is away I sometimes pass weeks here without
60speaking to a human creature except the little boy who brings the
61wires. It’s rather sad in these little up country Towns now, the
62reaction after the war. Danger & suffering held us all together, &
63founded a great common bond. Now it is the usual little up country
64life, quarreling about the water rates, or the ?school & every man
65fighting for his own hand.
66
67^Much love to you all & good bye. I’m so glad you had such a good
68time in the Boovenland. ^
69
70 Olive
71
72 Did you see my dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Green & Anna Purcell
73when you were in Town I saw you were at Miss Eloff’s wedding.
74
75

1 Feb 22 / 04
2
3 Dear Isie
4
5 I am leaving this on the 1st for Cape Town. Cron is going down to
6parliament & I am going down with him; but shall probably only stay
7for a few days, as I can’t stand the air there.
8
9 Most of our people are very down spirited. I am not more so than I
10have been for the last two years. I have always seen that these things
11& probably many much worse must happen before the day breaks. I cannot
12think how our leaders can have miscalculated so! It has also seemed to
13me they were living in a fools paradise. Of course things will come
14right in the end: the long long end. We are going to have the funeral
15here on the 21st ^of March^ after all. I have had the coffins made. I am
16sorry I shall not be here. I am buying some crape &c for Mrs. Nienaber
17& the children for that day.
18
19 I wish so very very much I could stand the climate at Pretoria & come
20up to stay with you for a little time. I must try to find some farm
21where I can go n. I wish you were in Town now that I could see Sannie.
22Isn’t she like your husbands mother? It seems so from the
23photograph? Every one says she was such an exceptionally sweet woman.
24
25 Good bye. Greetings to you all.
26 Olive
27
28 Tell your husband his little letter to my husband, & what he said
29about the passing of a redistribution bill here, did ?my ?heart good.
30
31 ^If you write while I am in Cape Town address c/o my husband House of
32Parliament, as I don’t yet know where I shall find a boarding house.
33Mrs. Purcell with whom I always stay is away at the sea side.^
34

1 Hanover
2 June 19 / 04
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I hope you will see my husband, he is in Pretoria now I think. It was
7such a happy happy time to me in Cape Town with my dear friends Dr. &
8Mrs. Purcell & their little boy. They were living quite close to the
9boarding house where I stayed at Tamboer’s Kloof. I was not able to
10go to Stellenbosch. I went to Wellington once for a day, & that made
11my chest so bad I did not venture on Stellenbosch. It seems I am never
12to see it. In Tamboers Kloof I am always quite fit. I saw old Stead
13when he was there. It’s strange that even the pro-Boers don’t seem
14really to understand us.
15
16 I hope little Sannie is doing very well. General Malan spent 5 very
17delightful days with us at Cape Town. He is absorbed in his farming.
18He’s a splendid fellow I wish I could have come to Pretoria too &
19have seen you all & little Sannie Good bye, dear Isie
20
21 Olive
22
23 ^Did I ever tell you what a comfort that biltong you sent me was to me
24when there was so much typhoid here? I used to give it to the people
25when they were getting well & were very weak. I was almost the only
26person who had biltong in the village, & it did many folks good.^
27
28

1 Hanover
2 July 22nd 1904
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 I was so glad to get your letter with its good news of little Sannie &
7all the rest of you, except poor Daisy. I wish I had known she was in
8Tamboer’s Kloof I would certainly have gone to see her often.
9
10 Our old President is gone! I had no idea I would feel his death so
11much as I did. Botha’s few words on him as reported in the papers
12were I thought very fine. Yes, we will keep silence. I wish I could
13come to Pretoria to his funeral.
14
15 Cron only stayed a few hours in Pretoria, did not even sleep one night
16there so had no time to come & see you. Thank you very much for having
17meant to send me the oranges & lemons. I told him to buy me some up
18there: but he forgot in all the business & worry of Johannesburg. We
19can now easily get things from the station as the poor men here have
20now got waggons & mules, but the pity is that now they have the
21waggons & teams there are no goods to carry as traid here as
22everywhere else is very slack: & there is no money. We paying for the
23war in a new way. Cron is away from home again down in Cape Town on
24business & I & my little Kaffir boy of nine years old are here alone.
25Did I tell you I’d got him from the reformatory in Cape Town. He
26can’t do much in the way of work, but he carries in the coals for me
27& cleans the pots which saves me a great deal, & he is a dear little
28fellow. It is so nice to have a little loving human being about the
29house as Cron is away all day. If you have Sannie’s photograph taken
30again please send me one.
31
32 My dear friends Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are going to England this
33week, & may be away for more than a year. Though I so seldom see them
34it will be a great loss to me. I like to know they are in Africa; I
35have so few friends here. All my old English friends in South Africa I
36have lost, & one doesn’t make new ones in their place. The only one
37of my
38
39^old friends who has stuck to me through all is Lady Innes, & I feel
40grateful to her for it. Though there isn’t much sympathy between us
41now our ideas on the public affairs in this country are so different.
42You & your husband & the Purcells & Miss Molteno & Miss Greene are
43nearly the only friends I have in South Africa, unless I enclude
44General Malan & his sweet & beautiful aunt. Did I tell you Malan spent
45a few days with us in Cape Town. I always have such a wish he could
46meet your sister Ella & they could fall in love with each other. But
47these things never turn out as you wish: & it is a mistake ever to try
48to make them! Good. bye. Give little Sannie a kiss for me. ^
49
50 Olive Schreiner
51
52 ^Did I tell you that when we reburied the men from de Aar here, all the
53flesh was quite gone from the bones, but the ropes were there still
54undecayed tied round the bones of the arms & legs; & there were still
55bits of the chairs to which they were tied when they were thrown into
56the holes. There were over 1000 people at the funeral.^
57
58

1 Hanover
2 September 3rd 1904
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 Just the day after the beautiful fruit arrived I had to start off on a
7long journey to fetch my dear old fathers remains to rest by my
8mothers in Cape Town. I only returned the day pefore before yesterday.
9I took a bag full of the fruit with me, & we enjoyed it much. You can
10get plenty of oranges here but such wretched little sour things, only
11good for cooking. I have still some of the nartjes quite quite good,
12only dry.
13
14 Thank you very much dear Isie for writing me for the 16th of December.
15I don’t know when I have wished so much for anything as to be there.
16But is it true that cheap ticket will be given by the English
17government costing only £1 return from Stellenbosch & Cape Town? In
18that case I shall not be able to come, as the trains will be too
19crowded & I My heart is a bit bad now & I shouldn’t be any good when
20I got there if I came in a crush with no place place to lie down. It
21doesn’t seem to me likely that the British Government should try to
22collect thousands & thousands of Africanders in Pretoria on that date,
23but it may be so! Please let me know if your husband knows anything of
24the matter, as everyone here is very anxious to hear the truth. Thank
25you so much dear Isie for offering the room & to pay my expenses but I
26fear I shant be able to come but I think my husband will unreadable
27try to. That funeral seems to me so much more than a funeral. It
28should be a testimony that the love of freedom which lived in the old
29man’s heart is not really buried with him but lives on in the hearts
30of the thousands of South Africans who follow his remains.
31
32 Next Thursday ^Tuesday^ I leave for Cape Town to attend the re-burial of
33my dear old fathers remains beside my mother’s; whom he always loved
34so tenderly & devotedly. I & my sister felt we couldn’t rest till he
35was sleeping beside her. He would have wished it so. I shall not stay
36in Cape Town very long, & Cron will send on all my letters to me at once.
37 So just address here.
38
39 Thank you so much for the picture of little Sannie. She looks
40splendidly strong & happy. I don’t mean only physically strong, but
41she has such a strong little face, in her picture, mentally as well.
42When I was in Eastern Province I meet some old friends English farmers
43who fought all through the war on the English side. They are very
44bitter, one & all, at the way they have been treated, much more bitter
45than the Dutch; & they all say without exception "Never will we take
46up a gun for the British Government again." It was rather interesting
47to be among them. I think it is so well that Jameson & his party are
48in power now: they are wonderful educators. I should like very much to
49meet Botha & de la Rey. One would see all our leading people if one
50came up to the funeral.
51
52 // I am so glad Daisy has a little one. Perhaps she will get quite
53strong now. Much love to you
54
55 Olive Schreiner
56
57

1 Oct 1st 1904
2
3 Dear Isie
4
5 Two dear old friends of mine Dr & Mrs Brown have just arrived in Natal
6to visit their daughter there. They are strong pro-Boer, & have
7suffered much for their views in England. They are old friends of the
8Steyns. Dr Brown has now retired from his pro profession, & they have
9come back to visit South Africa, where he practiced as a Doctor for
10some years as a doct in the Frazerburg district. Mrs Brown is South
11African (a cousin of Judge Solomon’s) & as all her family are very
12strong on the Jingo side she has been much divided from them. You
13would all love them so much if you knew them. They talk of visiting
14the Transvaal soon & then coming on to Hanover to stay with us for
15some time. I am writing to you about them because if they come to
16Pretoria I want you so much to see them, & perhaps you could introduce
17them to some of our friends there. Could you drop them a line perhaps
18to their daughter’s address (Mrs Brown, care Mrs Dick, St Thomas’s
19Rd, Durban, ^Natal^) asking them to let you know when they come to
20Pretoria so you can meet. They are such beautiful, simple, lovable
21souls, & know how much you & your husband would like to see them, or I
22wouldn’t ask you to take the trouble.
23
24 I hope Sannie is still growing & thriving. It would be so nice to see
25you all. My dear husband is well & sends many greetings.
26
27 Yours ever
28 Olive Schreiner
29

1 Hanover
2 Oct 31st 1904
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 We will both accept your kind invitation & come up to the funeral if
7you are quite sure you can make room for us. I don’t know why I have
8such a curious wish to be there; it’s long since I wanted anything
9so much. I know what crowds there will be in the trains & how now more
10dead than alive one will get there, & yet I mean to come; I really
11don’t know why! because absolutely one will see nothing but a big
12big crowd swarming about every where, & I have seen so many. It’s an
13idea I suppose. We have had a little nice rain here; not enough to
14make anything green yet, but enough to lay the dust & put a little
15hope into many of our poor farmer’s hearts. I am so glad your mother
16will be there: I have wanted to meet her, but it seems I shall never
17get as far as Stellenbosch. Will Ella be there too? I hope so. This is
18just a line to tell you
19
20^that if you are quite sure you can have us we are coming. Yours with a
21kiss for little Sannie ^
22 Olive
23
24

1 Hanover
2 Nov 20th 1904
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 No, I wouldn’t think of letting you pay for my coming up; it is good
7enough of you to be willing to give me a room when every place will be
8so crowded. If you can give me us even that outside room Mr. Roos had
9it would be quite right. I shall only be able to stay the one day I
10fear. Cron says I am mad to think of going that I want to be buried on
11the same day as Oom Paul! But I mean to come; even if I can only stay
12the one day. I want so much to see Botha & de la Ray. It’s perhaps
13the only chance I shall ever have. I cat I can’t get a cart to take
14me over to the station when the train passes with the body as everyone
15wants their own carts & won’t even let me hire one for 40/-
16shillings. But there’ll be such a crowd, I don’t suppose I should
17be able to get near the train if I went. I do hope little Sannie is
18quite better again. It is this awful drought that makes everyone feel
19so bad. We are always watching the sky, but the clouds come & melt
20without any rain. I hope Ella will be able to come to Pretoria after
21all. Love to you
22
23 Olive Schreiner
24
25

1 Dear Isie
2
3 I have decided to leave this by the mail train that passes here on
4Tuesday ^the 13th^ & gets to Pretoria on Wednesday midday. I must go by
5the mail as the others will be too crowded. My husband says he is
6afraid his business will keep him here. I hope very much he will be
7able to.
8
9 Have you seen that disgraceful notice of Kruger in the Fortnightly for
10Aug by Professor Dicey, - Rhodes’ great friend? Well, - the great
11man lives, & the small man dies! Time puts all things right.
12
13 I do hope that little Sannie is quite well again. Perhaps it was only
14the smell of the new paint: I got very feverish & had a sore throat a
15couple of months ago, & the doctor said it was only the smell of this
16room which we’d just had repainted.
17
18 My little story "Elandslaagte" is done; but the boy is so slow
19typewriting it. If he’s got it finished I’ll bring it up to
20Pretoria to show you.
21
22 Its beautifully cool here now, we had sharp frosts two weeks ago that
23killed nearly all the fruit & vegetables here, & we’ve got locusts &
24the drought goes on. It is a hard time for our poor farmers. Several
25have turned insolvent; & many would go if any one pressed, but
26fortunately so far people are waiting, & not pressing more than they
27can help. It will be so nice to see you all. I am so glad your mother
28will be there. Perhaps I shall have to stay till Monday, as people
29seem to think all the trains will be full on Saturday & Sunday.
30
31 Much love.
32 Olive Schreiner
33
34
35

1 Hanover
2 Dec 26 / 07
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 You will have wondered at not having heard from me, but since I came
7home I have been ill, & in Johannesburg the four days I spent there I
8was so over run with visitors I had not one second. Twenty minutes
9before the train started I had to ask some people to leave that I
10might pack my things.
11
12 I can’t thank you enough for the very, very, happy time I had with
13you. It is years since I felt so strong & well & enjoyed any holiday
14so much. The only draw back was that little Santa was not well enough
15for me to romp with her, & the thought that it couldn’t be good for
16you to have that great house full of us in your delicate state. I
17think you stood it all just wonderfully. I always feel a woman ought
18to have six weeks of perfect quite & rest after the birth of her baby,
19just to think of it & enjoy it, & nothing else. I wonder if you could
20spare the time, or get Mary Reitz just to send me a post card to say
21how you all are. I shall be so glad to heart Santa’s teeth are
22through. I keep seeing her face with its big blue eyes, & it’s
23wonderful little smile. I wonder if she is so beautiful when she is
24well! Please give my love to your dear mother if she is still with you.
25 I shall certainly go to Stellenbosch just to have the pleasure of
26seeing her again. I should like to know more of Garfield too. He looks
27to me almost as interesting as Ella, but I had no chance of talking
28with him. It’s so beautiful to me that the quite young generation of
29Africanders seems growing up with so much promise. Garfields face is
30like Ellas; its the face of someone who really can think. Most people
31just live without thinking. I spent an afternoon at Johannesburg with
32Malan’s parents. His sister is such a beautiful girl, strong & sweet
33in character, exactly like her brother. All the sons & daughters
34resemble the mother who is a very fine woman. The father is quite
35common place, & one wonders how he comes to have such remarkable
36children till you see the mother. I had a very very happy time in
37Johannesburg too, but didn’t get to Roodepoort to see my little name
38sake. I am afraid the child will be disappointed as I promised to go,
39but I had not a moment to spare. We had a very trying journey down:
40not a place to lie down in, over 230 passengers on the train, & not
41one mouthful of food to be got from the time I left Johannesburg at 8.
4220. one evening till I got to Hanover Rd at 8.10 the next. Except some
43soda water which I got out of the train & bought at Bloemfontein. The
44unreadable passengers ate up all the food on the train, before we
45could get any. When we got to Hanover Rd the cart I had ordered had
46gone back again, would not wait as the train was some hours late, & I
47had to sit out on the platform till half past ten the next morning.
48But all the rest of the journey was so delightful I am very thankful I
49went. Please tell your mother Mrs. Malan is going to have a photograph
50of her sons taken for me & sh & I will send her one with all their
51names written below. The youngest was only 14 when he joined at the
52beginning of the war & all the brother’s fought to the end. The old
53lady is so proud of them, & well she may be! All good & loving wishes
54for you all for the new year.
55
56 Olive.
57
58 ^Malan of Ons Land got into the train at Bloemfontein but I was so
59tired & there were so many people I couldn’t look for him. His wife
60is a very sweet woman: you would like her much. I wish you would be
61down at Stellenbosch when parliament meets. Is there any chance of
62your being down there?^
63
64
65

1 Do you know two things you said to me at Pretoria were a comfort to me.
2 One was that you mentioned something about the different relation one
3had to have ^for^ to people since the war. It has distressed me so much
4that the people who were everything to me during the whole war, more
5than my brothers & sisters when I had to try & help to get them out of
6prison, or to help them get food, seem nothing to me now, & I am
7nothing to them. They pass me in the street almost without saying good
8morning. I sometimes feel there must be some fault in me that it is so.
9 But perhaps we are all feeling the same! We were all like
10ship-wrecked people on a raft at sea together, now we have landed &
11each one falls back into his own line of life, & the bond that held us
12together is gone!
13
14 The other thing was that you said something that made me fancy see you
15& your husband knew about the miserable things some of our own people
16(at least Africander people) are saying about the Generals, about
17their taking all the money & not giving it away &c, &c. It has made me
18more angry than anything that ever happened in the war, when they
19speak so of all the Generals but especially of your husband. I have
20often wondered if he knew about it, & yet I couldn’t write to him
21about it, because I myself hate so much to hear anything unloving
22people say of me. You have to forgive them, & sometimes it hurts & is
23hard to do so. Yet I often had a feeling I ought to write & tell your
24husband. After all one mustn’t feel these things. That it has been
25given them to be leaders in a great cause, is matter for much
26gratitude, that nothing that can be said or done should touch them.
27This bitterness of attitude towards their leaders; & the desire of
28each man to be first, seem to me the things we really have to fear in
29the future of our people. It seems to me the motto of our Africander
30or South African nation should be the little line I wrote in your
31sisters album, "And he that is greatest among you let him be as the
32servant of all." It’s the finest text in the bible I always think.
33
34 Well, you are having a very ?long letter this morning, dear Isie, but
35I am writing it in between, while I run into the kitchen every now &
36then to stir the ?leen brad & the sheep tail I am melting out on the
37stove; & now it is time to set the table for dinner.
38
39 We are going to have some of the apricots your mother sent me from
40Stellenbosch for dinner too. Good bye. Don’t forget just to answer
41my questions, & just to close the envelope & send it to the post. I
42know it must be quite impossible for you to write letters now with the
43two babies. How rich you are, dear!! Health, & children & true friends
44seem to me always the only wealth one has really any joy out of. I
45haven’t the two first, but I have the last if ever a person had.
46Give our affectionate greetings to your husband.
47
48 Olive
49
50
51

1 Eastbergholt
2 Tamboer’s Kloof Rd
3 Tamboer’s Kloof
4 May 13th 1905
5
6 My dear Isie
7
8 Nearly every day for months I’ve been meaning to write to you but
9I’ve not been writing to any one of late. I am better now again. I
10hope I may still get over to Stellenbosch to see your mother before I
11leave. I am so sorry to hear Daisy’s little baby is gone. I am so
12glad to have her address. I am writing to her. I will go & see her if
13she can’t come to see me.
14
15 Thank you so much for the beautiful tin of biscuits you sent me. I
16thought as they came from Stellenbosch they were from your mother; but
17when I wrote to her she said they were from you. We still had some to
18eat in the train on the way down. I am so glad to hear of little Santa
19running about & doing mischief – no doubt she doesn’t look so much
20like an angel as when I saw her – but that’s better!
21
22 I sent you a letter yesterday in the news. I wasn’t well enough to
23re-writ revise or reread the proofs & there are a lot of
24printers-errors as in "Forges Valley" for "Valley Forge" &c but it
25doesn’t matter. My husband has just returned from Hanover where he
26had to be for a couple of weeks on business. We shall go up four ^weeks^
27few from to-day I expect. I have not got Cato’s photo yet. I shall
28never forget the surprise she gave me when I saw her in your arms!!! I
29want to ask you a question Isie: of course you need not answer it
30unless you feel you can, & like to just take no notice of it. When I
31was in Pretoria you said something to me about people saying I only
32liked unreadable de Wet & not Botha or de la Ray. I didn’t have time
33to ask you more then as the nurse came in, & the next day I left. But
34someone from Bloemfontein told me the same thing, that I had said de
35Wet was the only real general, that Botha & de la Rey were no generals!
36 – can you think of anything so mad! – & they wouldn’t tell me
37the name of the person who had told them! I had said: If you could
38tell me who told you I should be very glad, because I am in my own
39mind thinking it is a certain person who did it deliberately from spite
40& I don’t like to think so of any one; & may be quite unjust to them.
41 And it’s bad to feel you may be unjust to any one. I’m sure its
42no Dutch Africander; that I know. Not only have the greatest
43admiration for all the the three generals but I really am not in a
44position to say which was the best general. If I had to chose a great
45head general for a war out of the three I should probably chose de la
46Ray. But I realy have no means of judging as under martial law I never
47even saw the papers, & to determine which was the greatest you would
48have to know the exactly the difficulties each one had to contend with,
49 & the relative means at his disposal. de la Rays men all say he was
50best, Bothas men that he was, de Wets that he was! And I don’t
51believe any of us knows!!
52
53 Of course personally I have a feeling for de Wet I can’t have for
54the others because I know him personally & have had long talks with
55him, & I’ve never exchanged one word with either of the others &
56only shacken hands once. Just as I love your husband better than all
57three, not because I say he is always a greater leader but because he
58is my friend. It always seems so small to me, this drawing comparisons
59between men who have to the last of their power fought for their own
60country. I no more believe all the lies told by Africanders about
61Botha & de la Ray having taken the money that ought to have gone to
62the people than I believe the story that your husband walked off with
63£25,000 which he has kept for himself. A student of history knows
64that is always from the hands of the people for whom a man has
65sacrificed himself & risked all that he receives the hardest blows. I
66have never felt any thing that the Jingoes said of me in the
67very least but when Dutch Africanders have come to me & demanded money
68from me, & when I said I really hadn’t any more to give, have said
69that of the thousands I got from the Transvaal government for writing
70for them before the war & since, I ought to have plenty to give them
71– I have felt a little pained. Oh Only the other day before I left
72Hanover a rich Boer woman flaunted into my little room & began talking
73of the money I had made out of the Trans-vaal & by show being on the
74Africander side. You know you can’t answer such people – you just
75let them talk on. You can’t answer such people. Not only did I lose
76all the little I had in Johannesburg & have my little house ^in
77Kimberley^ blown to pieces with boems boms & looted by the English
78between the many so that I was left without a penny in the world,
79but even the money with which my husband went to England to speak for
80the Republics was given him by an Englishman relation of mine who did
81not wish his name mentioned, but every act of kindness & consideration
82I have ever received in my life except from you & your husband & your
83dear mother & my friend Miss Viljoen, has been from English people. I
84have not one smallest tiniest thing to thank Dutch Africanders for.
85You may say my husband earns his living now among Dutch Africanders
86– & a poor little living it is – but I have never taken one
87sixpence of my husbands money since I married, I support myself
88entirely by my own writing & pay every week half of all the household
89expenses, so they cannot even throw it in my teeth that I am earning
90that from them. My dear old brother died in England five years ago &
91left me a couple of hundred pounds & on that & the proceeds of some
92articles on the woman question which I have published in America I
93have been living ever since. The living of my husband & myself in
94Hanover even this included doesn’t come to more than £10 a month; &
95all he gets in parliament & a third of what he gets in Hanover has got
96to go to pay a competent assistant, whom he would not need if he were
97not away at parliament for three months. I am telling you all this not
98because it matters at all, but simply that you may know how impossible
99it is I should believe any of the lies they tell of the Botha & de la
100Ray & your husband.
101
102 // I’ve seen Malan & his wife once since I was down here. Their dear
103little boy ?Jacquie has quite hopeless heart disease but the baby girl
104is fine & well. Yes I wish so much I could up to Pretoria a little
105this winter, but I can’t. It is bad that we always are here in the
106winter & you in the summer. I’m so glad it’s going so well with
107the two little daughters.
108
109 Your very loving friend
110 Olive Schreiner
111
112 ^This letter is private, just for yourself & your husband. Dont show it
113to Miss Hobhouse or anyone.^
114