1 De Aar
2 June 30th 1912
3
4 Dear old Boy
5
6 Thanks for your letter. Of course each person's "diary works" (I mean
7simple, spontaneous, straight forward records of what one sees, feels,
8& does & thinks) will differ with the individuality of the person. The
9charm is that it is an expression of their individuality. A guide book
10has no charm because it expresses no individuality it is just a
11collection of facts. If Barrow writes a book the thing his
12individuality notes are names of mountains & rivers, language, words,
13also gypsies, tramps thieves & scenery to a small extent, with a word
14picture of his mind thought & feeling. When Darwin writes he notes all
15plants, animals, scientific speculation turn up in his mind at every
16moment, nature impresses him with great cosmic feelings: his books are
17greater than Barrow's because a greater soul - but Barrow's also have
18their value & charm.
19
20 You could write a book most engaging & splendid if you wrote more as
21you write letters & more spontaneously. Any one of your letters to me
22where you've told me just a little about your travels in Spain say, is
23worth the whole of your book. The letters live, the book seems
24artificial. You express in the book what you've really seen & thought
25but in a stiff artificial manner. There is not enough of yourself in
26all of your later writing. If I were very ill & you knew that my life
27depended on q my being amused & interest, & to help me you wrote an
28account of your a fortnight spent in Paris, just who you saw where you
29went & felt interest, what you felt about your food & your room: & how
30the pictures impressed you, it would no doubt splendid. Your short
31hurried letters ^even^ are 100 times more interesting than your books.
32
33 I could write the most marvelous books in that way, compared to which
34all my other books are nothing. I do see the actual world about me so
35intensely the men & women I meet print themselves on me, agonize me if
36they are antipathetic, give me bliss if there are beautiful.
37
38 The sc atmospheric effects of every day I note intensely the changes
39in the sky the weather the scene: all nature is immensely important.
40My feeling to this awful sandy desert, the strange passionate love I
41feel for the pepper-trees I have planted, & especially one rose bush
42that I nurture & care for before my door. My difficulty is that I dare
43not write the truth! I would be so afraid of paining human beings.
44Character! character! character! is what cuts deep into me. The
45character people I meet on the train, of the people living in de Aar,
46of my different servants - I could write books about them alone - &
47most easily. But dare I, with my terror of inflicting pain? - I can't,
48that's why I can't write my life! My
49
50 You
51
52 You who are not so terribly moved by all persons you come into contact
53with - could write much more easily just what you feel & think about
54the things you see. Of course you do lack descriptive power with
55regard to material things. I doubt whether in a few lines you could
56make me see an old ruin on a hill as Barrow does so that I actually
57see it. He was of course born the artist. - that is what the matter
58with him - unlovable, in many respects an ignorant & narrow man - he
59was an artist! The few right words in which to pain a thing he saw
60always came to him, because he saw so clearly & intensely. Life was
61always shaping itself into pictures to him. But you could write most
62valuable books if they were more like your letters. There are such
63wonderful little touches - so often in your conversation - now & then
64in your letters, in which you throw a whole world into a short
65critical or descriptive sentence - t as where you once said of Karl
66Pearson's wife when you first met her that she seemed a good sort of
67woman, "but the kind of person who would finish off a man!" C I can't
68write more now.
69
70 Cron is still away at the Victoria Falls. He returns the middle of
71this week. The weather is a little better, the sunshine through my
72window is dancing on the sheet as I write.
73
74 Things in South Africa grow darker & darker. Sauer & Burton the two
75only liberal men on the native question have been turned out of their
76offices in the ministry, & the most bigoted, narrow native hater in
77South Africa Hertzog put in as minister of native affairs. There are
78terrible things coming soon
79
80^in this poor accursed land. We have also passed a bill for forced
81conscription.
82
83Olive^
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85