1To Mrs. R. Cawood.
2Victoria Hotel, Cradock, 5th May.
3
4I don't know when I felt more lonely in my life. I wish you were here
5my dear old friend. I don't think you can understand how much you have
6brightened and gladdened the year I have past at Ganna Hoek. Give my
7love to the dear little people.
8

1During the last six weeks I have been very unhappy, not knowing
2whether to answer your letters on political matters or not. Would it
3not, my dear little Mother, be much better to drop all references
4direct or indirect with regard to politics between us? During the last
5fifteen years, both in England and here, my work and my interest in
6life have been mainly political, yet I do not think six times, I have,
7in all these years, mentioned politics to you, because I felt you were
8not sympathetic to my view; and I believe that where, with regard to
9either religion or politics, parents and children, or even brothers
10and sisters, are not agreed, they should avoid these subjects. I have
11held this all my life. The tender love existing between mother and
12child and brother and sister need surely never be ruffled by these
13things.
14
15The news of the Jameson Raid reach Cron and myself the first morning
16after we got to the Kowie. Cron has never seen you since, and I only
17saw you for a few minutes, and then, though you and Lily were
18discussing political news, I said not one word. When I got to
19Middelburg I sent you my usual daily line referring to nothing
20political, and Cron did not write to you at all as he was too busy.
21You then wrote me three letters on politics. I took no notice of the
22first three, as I was determined not to discuss politics with any
23private individual. Apart from anything else I have no time for it:
24but in your third letter you said (I quote from your letter), speaking
25of Jameson’s Raid, “there are even some wretches here who say that
26Will and Rhodes knew of it, and had to do with it” - and you went on
27to write as though Will were being attacked as being against the
28Transvaal - and you added that “he, Laing and Frost - a noble three”
29would stand by Rhodes.
30
31Now I had not heard from Will for some months at that time. But from
32private information from people in Cape Town, and from much personal
33intercourse with many Boers and bitter opponents of Rhodes, and above
34all from Will’s letter in the paper, I knew that no one was blaming
35Will, or thinking that he knew anything of the attack by the Chartered
36Company on the Transvaal, and I had been told by those who ought to
37know that most probably would be asked to be Prime Minister when
38Parliament met.
39
40I wrote telling you this, and asked you to send my letter to Will, as
41I never like discussing members of my own family even with others of
42the family unless they know what I say, and I wanted Will to know how
43full of admiration I was at his not entering the new Ministry. I wrote
44this letter in the tenderness of my heart to comfort you. You wrote of
45his sacrificing the “emoluments of office” by standing with Rhodes and
46I told you that, so far from the “emoluments of office” being a gain
47to Will, it was a monetary loss to him, and a heavy one, to be in the
48Ministry.
49
50I thought I should get a letter full of joy and tenderness in a few
51days. To my astonishment I received a long letter in which you asked
52me how I dared to insinuate that Will was on the side of that wretch
53Hofmeyr. To this letter I never replied, nor to any of your other
54letters on politics.
55
56Dear Mother, I have no time for long political discussion; can they be
57of any use when we are at the opposite extreme in regard to our views
58of what is for the true good of the country? You must not feel pained
59if I do not take notice of what you say.
60
61A few days after you wrote a letter to Cron about Hofmeyr and wrote on
62the outside do not answer. I told Cron it would be best to take no
63notice, but he said he thought he ought to answer it as you had begged
64him to He and I have not once written to you on political matters, not once.
65
66Dear little Mother, are not there hundreds of fair and beautiful
67things we can write of, leaving politics out? I have surely as much
68right to be on the side of the Transvaal Government as you have to be
69on that of Rhodes: have I not, little Mother?
70
71I used to feel it so bitterly when people would insist upon attacking
72you on your change of religion, but surely, surely, politics need far
73less to divide a mother and daughter.
74
75You have said in your two letters that I was allowing Cron to warp my
76mind and degrade my character. I can only think that you refer to the
77fact I am in politics opposed to Rhodes. Now, dear little mother, I
78will just shortly tell you the whole story of my relation with Rhodes.
79
80Six years ago in England I first heard much of him from two intimate
81friends of his. He had just given £10, 000 to the Irish cause. He was
82represented to me as a millionaire who was going to devote his life to
83the freeing of the Irish peasant from the landlord, to the education
84and development of the Native races of South Africa, and to the
85benefit of all poor and down-trodden people generally! As painted to
86me, he seemed the ideal of human greatness and one of my great wishes
87was to meet him. Living quietly at Matjesfontein, I had been in Africa
88nearly a year before I met him. It was the beginning of the
89disappointment. As long as he and I talked of books and scenery we
90were very happy, but, when he began on politics and social questions,
91I found out to my astonishment that he had been misrepresented to me;
92especially when we got on the Native Question, we ended by having a
93big fight, and Rhodes getting very angry. All our subsequent meetings
94were of the same kind. I think Rhodes liked me for the same reason
95that I liked him, because of his life and energy, but we never once
96met without a royal fight. I have copies of all the letters I ever
97wrote him, and they are one long passionate endeavour to save him from
98what seemed to me the downward course. I have felt so terribly about
99him, when he was acting in a course that seemed to me most
100disastrously wrong - I have gone out of the House of Parliament when
101he was speaking, and written a note and hired a boy to take it over,
102imploring him to abstain from damning his own soul as it seemed to me
103he was doing. With all his genius, with all his beautiful wonderful
104gifts, to see it going so!
105
106A little time after this I gave up all political hope of Rhodes. It
107was an affair with Logan and Sivewright and Government ground and
108other public matters, and it would take too long to explain, but there
109came a day when Rhodes and Sivewright were on the Matjesfontein
110railway station; we had a talk, and my disappointment at Rhodes’
111action was so great that when both he and Sivewright came forward to
112shake hands, I turned on my heel and went to my house. Some days after,
113 Rhodes passed and called as usual to see me. I heard him knocking at
114the door but did not open it. Some time after, ^This is four years ago now^
115I went to Town and he invited me to dinner but I declined. He then
116gave Mr. Sauer (who was then his closest friend and who used to drive
117home with him in his trap every night) a message to me, asking me what
118was the matter. I told Sauer to tell him that in political matters I
119was absolutely opposed to him, and was going to fight him on every
120point. He twice invited me to his house again, but I refused both
121invitations. I have never seen him to speak to since, and only bowed
122to him last year when he and Will were in Kimberley.
123
124Now, dear little Mother, this all happened long before I ever met Cron
125or knew that such a person existed: how then can he have had anything
126to do with my political opposition to Rhodes?
127
128So far from my having opposed Rhodes more since I was married, it is
129only the last two years that I have taken no part or interest in
130political life, and, except that one little pamphlet on the political
131situation, I have not touched politics. Four years ago I did all that
132lay in my power to induce Sauer and Innes to leave Rhodes and come out
133of the Ministry. I was most active in my opposition to him then; since
134I was married I have said or done nothing with, regard to Rhodes.
135Since Jameson’s Raid I have had letters from papers asking me to write
136and send wires containing my views, I could have made much money, of
137which I am in need. But I attacked Rhodes frankly and fearlessly and
138endlessly when he was in power, and therefore I can afford to be quiet
139now. So far from hating Rhodes I have the greatest sympathy with him
140in many directions. With regard to religion and many other matters I
141am deeply in accord with him, while, with regard to politics and
142public life generally, I am as absolutely opposed to him, and
143therefore must always combat him; and I believe that Rhodes recognizes
144the sincerity of my attitude towards him. In the last week of this
145December he sent a message to me through Mr. Sauer, that when he was
146in Kimberley he had ridden past my house, and wanted to come and see
147me, but he felt he would not be welcome. So far from my having hatred
148towards him, there are few men in the world for whom I have such
149intense sympathy. Surely, my dear little Mother, you can distinguish
150between personal feeling and political opinions. Have they anything to
151do with each other?
152
153As far as Cron goes, how can he be actuated by personal feelings, when
154he has never even been introduced to Rhodes, and knows nothing of him
155but his political career?
156
157I have never read to Cron the things you have said of him in your
158letters to me. He has loved you so whole-heartedly and loyally that I
159couldn’t wound him so. Never in one instance has he said one little
160disloyal or unloving word of kith or kin of mine. He still feels anger
161against a woman because she dared to discuss Will personally in his
162presence. And for you he has a curious veneration and love. When Miss
163Molteno went to see you she wrote: “Your little mother is just as
164beautiful and geniusful as your husband described her.” If he had ever
165said one little word or done one little thing ungenerous towards you I
166could tell him what you say of him, but I can’t wound another person
167so. Whatever your views with regard to politics or religion, it would
168make no atom of difference to us. Cron’s favourite brother is strongly
169against the Transvaal Government and for the Chartered Company, but do
170you think that makes any difference in our feeling towards him? Do you
171think that I could love you one dot more if you were on our side in
172this matter? Do you think I would ever care one straw what your
173political opinions were?
174
175I have written this long letter, my little Mother, because I want you
176to know that at least on my side the political views of my friends
177make no difference! One of my dearest friends is a niece of an Irish
178landowner. She says she wishes Ireland could be put under the sea and
179all the Irish drowned; I would give my life for the Irish peasants! Is
180the fact that we differ so bitterly on this one point any reason why
181we should not be close friends on the number of subjects on which we
182do agree? Need we always bring up the Irish Question? Life to me would
183not be worth living it I felt my love grow less to my friends on
184account of their views with regard to public persons and political
185situations. Because I know my dear old Theo is on the other side I am
186careful never to mention politics when I write to him, just as I avoid
187religion with friends who do not share my religious views.
188
189Goodbye, my own little Mothie. You must not mind if I don’t refer to
190politics again.
191
192Your little daughter,
193Olive.
194

1Yes, Chapman & Hall did send my MS. back to me, and Chapman asked me
2to call and see him. When I came he said he wanted to publish the book,
3 but he wanted me to make an alteration in it, just to put in a few
4sentences saying that Lyndall was really secretly married to that man,
5as if she wasn’t married to him the British public would think it
6wicked, and Smiths, the railway booksellers, would not put it on their
7stalls! Of course I got in a rage and told him he could leave the book
8alone, and I would take it elsewhere. He climbed down at once, and
9said it was only out of consideration for me; I was young, and people
10would think I was not respectable if I wrote such a book, but of
11course if I insisted on saying she was not married to him it must be
12so. He certainly never mentioned his reader in this matter; and I
13can’t believe Meredith, who was an artist, would ever have made the
14suggestion to Chapman.
15

1May I state there is no foundation for this statement. I only had the
2honour of meeting Mr. George Meredith once for four or six minutes
3while I was waiting in a publisher’s waiting-room to see the publisher.
4 The person who showed me up said the gentleman there was Mr. George
5Meredith, the firm’s reader. On the table when I went in was an open
6illustrated paper with pictures of the Boer and British Amajuba
7troubles in the Transvaal. As I stood at the table looking at the
8picture the gentleman made some remark to me about it. I was at that
9time feeling very hotly on the matter, and stated my opinion that the
10Boers were a noble race, and had been most unjustly treated by us. To
11my astonishment the gentleman entirely agreed with me, and spoke even
12more warmly than I had done.
13
14When in a few moments a messenger came to tell me the publisher was
15ready to see me, he looked very intently at me and said that he
16presumed that I was a young writer, and that there was one piece of
17advice he always felt compelled to give to young authors - never to
18make any agreement with a publisher without putting down everything in
19black and white, and always to get some friend who was a competent
20business man to make the arrangements for them. I then went out to the
21publishers’ office and never saw Mr. Meredith again. I was unable to
22act on his very valuable advice, as all my business arrangements with
23the publishers were then already completed and the book in their hands.
24
25Not only was my book not mentioned between us, but we referred to no
26literary topic - at that time I knew him only as a publisher’s reader;
27and it was only some time after, when a friend sent me a book of his
28poems, that I found out that he also was a writer. Not only did Mr.
29Meredith not write to me, but I have never seen his handwriting, nor
30has any communication, directly or indirectly, ever passed between us
31except for those few moments.
32
33My book (the original of which I still have) had been so carefully
34prepared by me, before I sent it up to London for the publishers to
35see, that it was published without the omission or addition of one
36sentence, or, I think, of one word or stop.
37

1My dear Mrs Cawood,
2
3I have got your letter with the stamps. I wanted you never, never to
4pay for the books; but, as you would not like that now, I will keep
5the money, and when Juta sends the account I will pay for them.
6
7I got a letter from Annie. I did not know whether it would be right to
8answer her: at last I decided not to write, but to send her my
9likeness: I knew you would not like her to be pained; and I do not
10think I did wrong.
11
12I do not at all blame you for not loving me any more. We cannot help
13love’s going, any more than we can help its coming; and when it is
14gone, it is better to say so.
15
16For myself, I have always liked you not for anything you were to me,
17but what you were in yourself, and I feel to you as I have felt from
18the beginning.
19
20Therefore, believe me to remain, if not your friend, one who loves you,
21Olive Schreiner.
22

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 14th Feb.
3
4I often - no, I don't often, but I did just now - wonder what all my
5work would be like when it is done. It's funny how one works on
6blindly in the dark, following an instinct, never knowing what one's
7work will be like. It's really not stranger than when bees make their
8nests; it's exactly the same thing. ... I am going to dedicate my sex
9growth book to you, I think. I'll never leave off loving you.
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 10th Feb.
3
4I am getting strong like I used to be at the Cape. I am somewhat
5curious to know if I could keep it up in England, or if the first
6twenty-four hours there will reduce me to my maudlin sympathetic
7condition. It's easy to be strong when there's no one you think it
8your duty to love.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 9th Feb.
3
4I've a little Dream about Poet and Thinker. It's good, at least true. .
5.. This house is full of prostitutes. No one talks anything but French
6at the table and the conversation is too awful for words. I profess
7not to understand, and I don't when people talk in such a way, but I
8can gather what it is. Something like in the worst of Zola's novels.
9The woman who sits next to me is a very pretty woman of thirty. I
10fancy I might get a little power over her at last; at first she made
11fun of me and made all the men say rude things to me; now, according
12to her orders, they all bow to me, and she's always trying to please
13me. I feel affectionate to her. She's just about the same kind as Nana,
14 but I see what old Zola couldn't see, that she's yet a woman. This is
15a low hotel; no respectable people come here, and no English. Don't
16say much about it in your letters because they might open them, and
17then come up and murder me. I'm at the very top of the house.
18

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 5th Feb.
3
4Harry Boy, it's a lovely morning, I'm going to work, but am shuffling
5out of it for a few minutes by writing to you. I'm in a hurry for your
6Criminal book to be done. Yesterday I was reading in my Zoology (that
7fertile source of ideas) and looking at the diagram of the nervous
8system in vertebrates and invertebrates. Well - a new definition of
9genius, artistic genius at least. People of genius are those
10individuals in whom the sympathetic or instinctive nervous system is
11particularly well developed, or, rather, combined with that
12intellectual cerebro-spinal system peculiar to the higher vertebrate
13in a peculiar way. They are both highly developed and both strongly
14act on one another in case of artistic, and, I think, all genius. The
15man in whom the brain system alone is great and active is a man of
16talent, a thinker but not an artist. The man in whom the sensory
17automatic sympathetic system of abdominal nerves alone is highly
18developed and active is a fool. In the great artist his brain governs
19but his sympathetic system does the work, artistic work. This is why,
20after artistic or in any way creative work, your back gets tired, not
21your head - Don't you see, the sympathetic system has to pass through
22all the stages that your brain, which. has the power of overlooking
23them, may become cognisant of them. The brain seizes and guides. and
24chronicles the sympathetic system for its own purposes, as an artist.
25But it can't guide more than a very little way; it mustn't interfere
26when the thing is working; or it spoils all. What is called
27inspiration is somehow explainable in this direction. I haven't got
28the true theory, but I know I don't do any of my best work in my brain,
29 by the process that is called thinking. It is as little thinking as
30your pinching my finger and my feeling it is thinking. I have millions
31of ideas always coming into my head that I would like to brood over
32and work out if life were longer.
33

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 1st Feb.
3
4Havelock, I am so well and happy I can't understand it. It feels as if
5I don't mind anything; not anything anyone could say or do. I suppose
6it's my work makes me so happy. You know there's one little line in my
7Prelude, not in what you saw, that I love so. When you read it you
8must guess which it is. If you don't find out I shan't ever love you
9because it is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It surprised me so
10when I saw it. It's a tiny thing. ... I wanted so much to get into the
11Endell Hospital, but they don't answer me.
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 19th Jan.
3
4My Havelock, I am writing to you from simple outgoing of the heart
5this afternoon. It's a perfect day, the first like this we've had for
6a long time. I've not been working. I've had too much pain and
7headache, but I'm better this evening. ... I think no one would ever
8understand what I have suffered from my periods the last two years and
9a half. The only time I have quite escaped the agony was when I took
10that opium pill you sent, but I suppose that was chance. You must
11study this matter of women's suffering some day. Something ought to be
12done for us. ... Yes, it's best I go to the Cape, dear. Then after 5
13or 6 years I may come back to Europe. ... Harry, one does get to a
14kind of Heaven at last, a Heaven where one doesn't care.
15

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 7th Jan.
3
4Is it you putting old Stead up to say I'm like Tolstoy! It's an
5extraordinary thing when there's no man in Europe I hate so much.
6

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Mentone, 4th Jan.
3
4I've had such a happy day, working all the time. People think I have a
5sad, lonely life, but I believe I'm the happiest person in the world;
6whether my work is artistic or scientific, I feel as if I were in
7Heaven when once I am absolutely in it. The terrible part is to think
8I will ever have to publish it.
9

1To Mrs. Mary King Roberts.
2Mentone.
3
4With regard to my view of the marriage question, it is very simple and
5just what it always has been since I was thirteen and began to form a
6view at all. The one and only ideal is the perfect mental and physical
7life-long union of one man with one woman. That is the only thing
8which for highly developed intellectual natures can consolidate
9marriage. All short of this is more or less a failure, and no legal
10marriage can make a relationship other than impure in which there
11isn’t this union. How we should arrange that this great pure form of
12marriage may be oftenest and most perfectly reached seems to me a
13great problem.
14

1To Mrs. Mary King Roberts.
2Mentone.
3
4Our first duty is to develop ourselves. Then you are ready for any
5kind of work that comes. The woman who does this is doing more to do
6away with prostitution and the inequalities between man and woman, and
7to make possible a nobler race of human beings, than by all the
8talking and vituperation possible. It is not against man we have to
9fight but-against ourselves within ourselves. We have to rise. ... It
10seems to me you and Dr. Roberts have such an ideally beautiful life
11with one another; there is so much you can give him, and so much he
12can give you. I think marriage is much the highest condition
13physically and mentally, though it is not attainable by many of us in
14the present condition of society. ... To help any woman to be
15independent, that is the real Secret of Freedom. Please don't give up
16your longing to be materially independent because your husband is
17noble and generous; you must be lovers and friends and companions
18right on to the end of your lives, and not sink into the sad old
19groove. It is this which matters, not whether one signs one's name in
20a register or not. ... Please don't mind all I've said in this letter.
21

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 23rd Dec.
3
4The enclosed is from the Swede. I value the love of people who don't
5know who I am and love me just in an instinctive way because they
6can't help it. ... You will see shortly in the Pall Mall Gazette how I
7do the "damned fine horse"! But you are not to "let on" to anyone that
8it's me.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 22nd Dec.
3
4Don't speak about those Dreams to me. I'm mad enough about it, as it
5is. I wrote the last down dash in a hurry one night, and told Miss
6Müller to send it back to me in proof to re-write. Instead of that she
7prints it just as it is - perfect nonsense - and old Stead takes it
8over! She writes to say she couldn't wait for my proof. Ah, well, the
9will of the gods be done!
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 18th Dec.
3
4I have quite made up my mind to go to the Cape next winter, but don't
5talk of it; things are never done that are talked of…. I can
6understand everything people say in French now, even when they talk
7fast. Do you know any good natural history books and travels? Those
8are the only two things I like.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 14th Dec.
3
4Havelock, don't you know of anything I could take to strengthen my
5nerves? It's no good taking bromide; it simple weakens one yet further.
6 What is given for hysteria? (Awful sensitiveness in lower part of
7body.) Isn't valerian a good thing? ... If I tell you something you
8are not to talk of it to anyone. I'm coming to the Endell Street
9Hospital in May for three months. I must get some hard work which will
10not allow of my thinking or feeling.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 10th Dec.
3
4There's a Swede at this hotel who is in love with me. He puts little
5flowers by my plate every day. He's like one of Ibsen s characters. He
6is always talking of the “ideal marriage” and the “ideal wife." He has
7all but proposed to me, and so I am keeping out of his way. He has
8such a beautiful childlike nature. Even a German isn't like that.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Mentone, 8th Dec.
3
4It's such a beautiful day here, quite perfect. I wish I could work. I
5ought to, but I have no nerve power. So stupid people always feel. We
6just sit and look in front of us and see nothing, and feel quite happy.
7 ... I went such a superb walk last night up among the olive trees
8beyond the house, and when you get to the top such a view, Monte Carlo
9and Monaco and the great still bay, I watched the sun set behind
10Monaco. Do you remember that poem you sent me? It just expresses what
11Mentone is: “To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace.” Alassio
12is quiet but not peaceful. It's the perfect motionlessness of the sea
13here that gives this wonderful sense of calm. Goodbye, dear. Tell
14Symons I'm going to write him a long letter about his poems, they are
15too good, that is the fault I have to find with them, too much thought,
16 too little feeling, too perfect in form. They are wonderful for so
17young a man. He may be a great writer and a great man, but he will
18never be a great poet. You can tell him this, as I mayn’t be able to
19write for sometime.
20

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 29th Nov.
3
4This house is unhealthy, the doctor says. How splendid it would be to
5have Louie with me for a week, and you. I have been ten days lying
6here, without seeing a human creature whom one could speak to really,
7unable to work, without anything to read - think, think, think. Do, do,
8 do send me something to read. If I could afford to go to one of the
9larger hotels I should soon be well. It was really the house and the
10good food that kept me well at Alassio before.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 17th Nov.
3
4I made a little Dream to-day, which I've sent to Miss Muller for her
5paper. Shall send it you. I've got such a curious agony of loneliness
6on me this evening, though I'm writing, as if something terrible were
7hanging over me.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 15th Nov.
3
4Yes, I get plenty to eat, etc. Yet I stop weak. ... You know either my
5Mary Wollstonecraft is very, very bad or very, very good. I don't know
6which. My story work I always know exactly the value of. You don't
7know what it is I am feeling after and will grasp at last. I'm going
8to think the matter out to myself and then turn it into allegories and
9stories. ... I have had a crime story, two, in my mind for years. In
10one the woman - oh, there's the lunch bell, and I'm so hungry.
11

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio (about same time).
3
4When I've finished this book and the next, I'm going to sit on the
5seashore day after day and play with the sand and do nothing else.
6

1To Mrs J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, 15th Nov.
3
4I wish I could be as well anywhere in England as I am anywhere out of
5it. I was quite well when I lived with my brother in his great warm
6comfortable house, but when I live by myself I seem to break down. I
7can't make it out. ... It's not raining to-day, and I'm going to rush
8about on the sand on the seashore a little. There are no respectable
9people here, it doesn't matter how one dresses; it’s delightful! (My
10bill is only 35s. a week, everything included.)
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 9th Nov.
3
4My whole theory is Crime is disease, treat it as disease.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 11th Nov.
3
4I've been working hard at my Mary Wollstonecraft all day. What
5troubles me is that I have too many ideas. You say, why do I spend so
6much time over it? How can I do otherwise? Whatever I write, it must
7be the best I can write, given that time and these circumstances. When
8I die the angel of death will find quite pure in me the power of
9thinking and of seeking that was born in me. I have not once defiled
10it. If I was writing for ten thousand pounds or for three and sixpence,
11 my work would be just the same. Perhaps when it's done you'll wonder
12that it took so long and see nothing in it, but I see. I expect when
13it is done I'll throw it in the fire.
14

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 7th Nov.
3
4How splendid your Ibsen Introduction is! The only bad line is about
5Congreve, and I believe it gave you more satisfaction to write than
6all the rest. You simply grunted with satisfaction. ... I feel so
7loving to everyone. I love Mrs. - . I'm going to begin loving everyone
8again. That's the worst of me.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 2nd Nov. (second letter).
3
4Please order for me a copy of your Ibsen and send it to my brother
5Fred in time to reach him on the morning of the 7th which is his
6birthday. If you have one of Zola’s novel in French you might send it
7me. I read only to deaden myself and stop myself from thinking;
8puzzling over a difficult French book could not do that. But I must
9learn more French because I am probably going to Paris next year; so
10please send it. … My Mary Wollstonecraft is going on. It is all poetry
11from the first to the last, except a few sentences. There are six or
12seven allegories in it; I’ve tried to keep them out, but I can't. I
13have come to the conclusion that only poetry is truth. That other
14forms are parts of truth, but as soon as a representation has all
15parts, then it is poetry. As soon as there is the form and the spirit,
16the passion and the thought, then there is poetry, or the living
17reality. I don't mean that I attain to true poetry - all I mean is
18that what makes a man strive after and seek to see the thing in that
19way is that it is the reality. It's the other that's fancy and fiction,
20 and this that is real. It's so easy for a mind like mine to produce
21long logical arguments, or strings of assertions, but when I have done
22it I feel, such a “valch” against it: that is only the material; it
23has to be combined and made alive. I know I shall die a beggar in my
24old age. You will have to support me. I shall write slower and slower.
25... I am very happy, as happy quite as I used to be in Ganna Hoek.
26

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 2nd Nov.
3
4I am well and working, don't sometimes remember for two days who I am.
5The being able to breathe makes all the difference. The Kaffir woman
6said God couldn't be good because he made women, but I say because he
7made asthma.
8

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, Oct.
3
4All goes splendidly with me. I am working hard and very happy. Nothing
5but work makes life beautiful. I am staying at a cheap little
6out-of-the-way Italian hotel. No English here!! And the servants can't
7even talk French. There's a big neglected garden where I can walk
8about and write. It's much nicer than the other semi-civilised end of
9Alassio. We are quite wild here.
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 28th Oct.
3
4I am very happy and peaceful here. This relief from physical agony is
5so glorious. It's so funny to think you can, all of you, open your
6eyes wide in England and lie down at night just as I can here. Oh, I
7should like to show you Alassio. ... I always knew you would be
8successful, and, success is the one thing you needed. You need a great
9deal of it. It will help you, not hinder, as it does certain meaner
10natures.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 26th Oct.
3
4I am working, so of course quite happy.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 22nd Oct.
3
4Mrs. Bland (“E. Nesbit”) was so kind to me before I left London. I
5don’t think I should have got away without her. She came the last
6morning to finish packing my things and see me off. Do you know, she's
7one of the noblest women? I can't tell you about her life, because I
8mustn't, but it's grand. The last night she lay by me on the bed and
9drew me very close to her and pressed her face against mine, and, do
10you know, I have felt it ever since. I am going to get better. ...
11Canon MacColl has written to say Gladstone wants very much to know me.
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 18th Oct.
3
4Dear Havelock boy, I am very loving to you. Please write and tell me
5about work and books and so on, when you have time, and the names of
6really good books when you come across them. ... I have been very ill
7since I left London, but this evening the cough is better and the
8tiredness. You would like this hotel, it is uncivilised and wild. ...
9Harry, isn't it funny to grow old, and have all your life passed,
10nothing in the future?
11

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2St. Albans, Oct.
3
4My chest has been much worse this time in England than it ever was
5before. … I got an old woman at Harpenden to pack my things, but it
6ended in my giving them nearly all to her!
7
8A friend came and brought me here. I don’t know what I should have
9done without her. It’s terrible to think of all the people who must
10die in England this winter because they can’t get away.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
225, Montagu St., W.C., 7th Oct.
3
4You know I love you, but my power of expressing any feeling but pity
5is gone. There isn’t one human being to whom I feel that tender
6outflowing of love I used to feel to all the world. If you can come on
7Wednesday afternoon we can have a nice cosy talk before the fire, and
8tea, and, if you like, I’ll ask Alice Corthorn, and, if you like,
9Louie can come too, it would be nice to have a long talk together.
10It’s just possible I may start Wednesday morning.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 5th Oct.
3
4Louie was, as she always is, so splendid, and I was so horrid. Come
5and see me early in the morning. I feel so loving to you, I wish you
6would all come and live in town.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 3rd Oct. (second letter).
3
4Oh, it is awful to be a woman. These women are killing me. Give my
5love to Louie, but I don’t want to see her or any other woman. I want
6to live alone, alone, alone. I don’t say the fault is not in myself,
7but they are doing it all the same. When I am in Italy I needn’t open
8any letters they write me, eh? Old Chapman has offered me £100 for
9African Farm for two and a half years. I must take it to escape abroad.
10 I wonder if I shall ever come back to England among these women again.
11 One must die at last, eh Harry? Oh, please see that they bury me in a
12place where there are no women. I’ve not been a woman really, though
13I’ve seemed like one.
14

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 3rd Oct.
3
4I have bronchitis. I am very ill. If I am not better to-morrow I must
5get someone from London to take care of me and help me pack. Would
6Louie or Laura care to come? Wire reply, and I will wire whether I am
7better or not. You will promise me not to press it. I can get a nurse,
8and there is an old woman here will do all the real work, but I feel
9helpless. Wire to Symons can’t come to-morrow.
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 14th Sept.
3
4My sex book would do for your Science Series. It is a purely
5scientific collection of facts. But it can't be done for two years
6more, at least. I think it will be very good. ... Will you send me all
7Heine's poems? I will take care of them. I love them so. You must read
8Scherer's History of German Literature, most fascinating.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 13th Sept.
3
4You can come and see me if ever you feel inclined. Tell me the day
5before, so that we can have a nice duck. ... I am working hard. When I
6die you can have a post-mortem and open my brain, and then you'll see
7how I’ve suffered all these years.
8

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Harpenden, 13th Sept.
3
4Don't trouble about it at all, dear friend. I am perhaps morbidly
5sensitive about saying anything of anyone else. It is perhaps because
6I myself suffer so much; I don't I think others do suffer so, because
7their natures often show them to justify themselves when mine does not.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 9th Sept.
3
4Will you please send one copy of The Woman's World, with my thing
5marked, to Stead at the Pall Mall office, writing on the outside “From
6Olive Schreiner"?
7

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Harpenden, 5th Sept.
3
4How stupid people are that they can't understand that, just because
5one feels that that complete union of mind and body, one man to one
6woman, is the only ideally perfect thing, therefore one hates all that
7is false and like such union only in seeming.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2London, 2nd Sept.
3
4I've come in to get books and see Dr. Wilks but he's out of town. ...
5I've been reading Madame Bovary; I detest it, beautifully as it is
6written.
7

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2London Institution, Finsbury Circus, Aug.
3
4It will be many years before either of my books are ready, I think. My
5big scientific book will take me five or six years; my work widens and
6widens out before me, and it isn't the getting done that's beautiful,
7it’s the working and the learning more.
8

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Harpenden, Aug.
3
4A little allegory is coming out in next month's Woman’s World. It’s
5not a good one, yet I love it almost best of all. I think I showed it
6you once. I only publish it because a friend wishes it. I make
7allegories every day almost, but I never want to publish them; they
8seem to me things that are for one self, and one self only, like one’s
9deepest personal feelings.
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Chertsey, 26th Aug.
3
4It comforts me so that you say you love me a little. My brain and my
5body are breaking down together, and I am so humbly grateful to anyone
6who saves me a little.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Chertsey, 23rd Aug.
3
4I send my love to you. Work hard, get on, be strong. When once we lose
5our strength there is nothing in life worth living for. All good be
6with you, darling. I don’t write to you about myself, I should but
7write sadly. Your little sister.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Chertsey, 21st Aug.
3
4I am going out to Alassio the end of next month, I think. I see
5they've got a nice little earthquake there.
6

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Chertsey, 19th Aug.
3
4Last night I woke up crying, and it seemed to me something was the
5matter with you. I always wake up crying in the night, but generally I
6don't know what is the matter with me. Are you well, dear? ... You
7have suffered so much, my Havelock. Only I can't quite understand that
8anyone should ever have suffered about me. I can understand that
9people should respect and admire me, but not that they love me. But
10you did once, and we all must let love die. ... I am longing very much
11to get out of England, but I have yet no money, and I don't quite know
12where to go. ... I want to have you here for a whole day to myself
13before I go, and I want to cook you a nice dinner. You must once in
14your life eat a real dinner I've cooked!
15

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Chertsey, Near Woking Station, 5th Aug.
3
4I'm going to try to want to work. It's so lovely to make stories and
5so hideous to write them. ... You ought not to have put that unkind
6sentence about Miss - . You ought to change it if not too late. We
7mustn't hurt other people. Life is such awful agony.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 19th July.
3
4I have been reading your Ibsen essay. It is nearly quite perfect. It
5is the first thing of yours I have read so absorbingly interesting I
6could not lay it down. You will develop into the first biographer of
7the age yet; you have the insight and sympathy necessary, and the
8width. ... I want to go down to that most beautiful of wild places one
9day this week or next - Woking - for the day, to look for a cottage.
10Would you be able or care to meet me there, and we might have a little
11picnic on the heather, as I and Carpenter had. It is much the nicest
12part of England I've seen.
13

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Harpenden, 7th July.
3
4I'll like best of all a tiny workman's cottage unfurnished. I dare say
5that wouldn't be easy to get, and I'll have to take rooms. I want to
6have some place of my own, without a landlady! That's the grand idea.
7I should like to settle down in it for three months till I'm ready to
8go to the Riviera or Africa. Sometimes you would spare me your baby
9for a whole day, eh?
10

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Harpenden, 1st July.
3
4Did I ever tell you about the people I found in Germany when I went to
5the place where my father was born, and I found some money (only a
6little) that was left to us by an old uncle (the last of my father's
7family) 25 years ago? It was all like a story.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 28th June.
3
4Mrs. Walters has been here. I've been pitching into her and her paper
5more even than into you. I must find the faults in the work of the
6people I love. You know it's my way of showing love. Good-bye.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Maidenhead, 11th June.
3
4Went to Harpenden, found cottage, rent £16 a year, going to move in
5next week.
6

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Harpenden, 18th June.
3
4I've been trying to get my tiny house cleaned out to-day. I haven't
5got my furniture yet. ... I want to I get a big puppy dog that will
6bark. I don't think the little house is very safe. Anyone can get in
7at my door, and I'm quite beyond anyone's hearing. The house is so
8built you can get in anywhere. It's a dear little house.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Maidenhead, 6th June.
3
4Please come on Friday. I do love you in a kind of way; it would come
5out if you needed me. But I feel such shrinking from all human
6creatures. We none of us sympathise with each other, none of us
7understand each other, each one only himself. The lesson of the last
8five years has been to me that there is no such thing as friendship,
9just as the lesson of the two before was that there is no such thing
10as sex-love, only sex-selfishness. We are good and true and earnest at
11heart, meaning the best, we humans. But we can't understand each other,
12 and understanding is friendship. ... Can you go with me to Harpenden
13to look for rooms? We'll spend all the day there on the common.
14

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Maidenhead, 5th June.
3
4Can you come on Friday? I go to-morrow to Harpenden to look for rooms.
5... I ask only one thing, and care for only one thing at present, not
6a straw for love or anything of that kind. I care only that my
7loathing for humanity should not be increased, more especially for
8women.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Maidenhead, 20th May.
3
4I have made up my mind to go out to the Cape the week after next, and
5not to return to England. It's best for my work, for me, for everyone,
6for you. We must have one long quiet day together before I go, and we
7must go to a concert together. ... Goodbye, my brother. You must get
8stronger. You must have a beautiful strong life yet. I haven't quite
9spoiled it, have I?
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Maidenhead, 27th May.
3
4Is it nice in Devonshire? I am looking for a small workman's cottage
5in Surrey. I want a high dry place on chalk, with a heath and no woods.
6 I'm going with Maggie H. to-morrow, if well enough, to look near
7Woking. ... You know I love you, but one must check the expression of
8one's emotions or die.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Riva, Lago Di Garda, 6th May.
3
4Are you quite strong? You mustn't come out till I’ve finished my book.
5I don't mean to be interrupted, and don't mean to stir from Riva till
6it's done.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Riva, 13th May.
3
4I'm worse; going to try Paris. If I telegraph when there, can you come
5for a day or so? I hardly know what I am doing, vomiting and agony in
6stomach. Are there paying hospitals in Paris?
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 10th April.
3
4I'm so glad you are better. I'm not nearly so affectionate to you as I
5was! ... I've stuck fast in my work. I've been agonising over it but
6it won't come right. I've been praying over it; sometimes that helps.
7When I stand up from my knees things come clear. I pray a great deal
8over this work. Unless the Lord should help me I'll never get it done.
9And it'll be a damned poor little when it is done. It's wonderful what
10makes one work, what impulse drives one on. It's a sort of instinct,
11like what makes the bird make their nests. I'm going to pray some more
12by the sofa now. What else can I do when I don’t know what comes
13next? It's all about sex in the human race. … Can you meet me at
14Boulogne to go on to Venice, say 5th of May? Write and tell me all
15about yourself as soon as you are better.
16

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 18th April.
3
4I am so very anxious about you still. You thought me foolish to be so
5foolish when I first heard you were ill, but the terrible thing about
6fever is that it kills as if in play. People are well, and in a moment
7gone. ... I can get the money and come at once if you need me. You
8must come out to Italy when you are better.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 1st April.
3
4My own darling boy, I wonder if you like to get letters or if you are
5too ill to read them. I want to know if you have the quiet restful
6mental feeling one sometimes has when one is ill. Sometimes one is so
7agonised and worries about everything. If Harry boy were here, he
8would like so much to sit out in the sun when he gets better. ...
9Isn't it funny that I felt that you were ill and was unhappy before
10your mother's letter came. But perhaps the fact that you didn't write
11to tell me you'd got home made me fancy something. ... I feel as if
12you must need me.
13

1To Mrs. Cawood.
2Alassio, 16th March.
3
4Yes, I will leave you something, my little brown box with all my
5relics in it, the last pipe my father smoked, and bits of letters and
6paper-cuttings and hair, that won't mean anything to anyone else but
7have all at some time meant something to me. There's a little bit of
8African earth which I took from my little sister Ellie's grave more
9than twenty years ago, when I was a child, and tied up in a silk rag.
10Wouldn't I make a good worshipper of saints! I love everything old,
11though my intellect stretches out always joyfully to the future and
12everything new. I never forget you, Erilda Carwood. You have been of
13great value and help to me in my life, not by anything you've done for
14me, but in the only way people can help each other truly, by being
15what you are. ... If I come out to the Cape I will surely come to
16Ganna Hoek. But I can't afford it yet. It would be so nice to look at
17your face again. ... I feel very old, sometimes quite a hundred and
18eight. But it’s comical how people take me to be younger and younger.
19

1To Mrs. Cawood.
2Alassio, ? March.
3
4I am getting on well; another person in health while I stop out of
5English cold. ... Who lives at Lelie Kloof? I'm going to buy it when
6I've made my fortune and Willie must come and look after it for me,
7and we be partners. It’s full of fossils. I should love to come and
8rest with you for a week and tell stories to the children, the new
9little ones, and look at your face.
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 9th March.
3
4Don’t mention to anyone Carpenter being here. I'm always trying to
5keep people from coming, and if they hear Carpenter or you have been
6they'll think they must come too. I've been curled up some days; feel
7weak. … Don’t ask about Mary Wollstonecraft. You musnt’t speak to a
8little hen when she’s laying her egg, otherwise she just pecks it open.
9 I’ve been making nice plans of travel for us. I enclose £1 more as
10you won’t tell me what I owe you. Please order me an Eastern Alps
11Baedeker. I'm spending all my money on Baedekers, so that when the
12time comes to start I shan't have any for travelling. Many thanks for
13the Zoology. Can you tell me of a good book about mammalia, giving
14their habits and family relations? Always tell me if you come across
15any good thing about the higher apes.
16

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 6th March.
3
4… You will enjoy Italy. I leave this on the 1st of May for Venice. To
5live so many months shut up alone in one room is very bad for the
6brain. Then when we have spent a week or ten days at Venice I want you
7and I to go to Innsbruck and on to Switzerland. There you can go on to
8England and I turn back to Tyrol or Switzerland. … The people here
9said it was no use my going to Monte Carlo because they don't let
10people into the gaming rooms under 21! I feel as if I was 100. I
11couldn't believe they were serious!
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 5th March.
3
4That old terrible agony is on me to-night that comes whenever I let
5myself go. It seems as if all slipped from me at once, as if at other
6times I never knew how I was restraining myself. ... It's been hanging
7over me for days. I suppose I must be physically ill without knowing
8it. I feel quite well in body though. I have walked all the way from
9Albenga here to-day, over the mountains. I came by the Roman road. I
10wanted to make myself tired.
11

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 20th Feb.
3
4Working night and day at Introduction to Mary W; love it better than
5anything I've written for a long time. But I want to publish it first
6in Fortnightly. Do you think the editor will let me. I'm putting the
7result of all my work on Woman Question into it. It will be a disgrace
8to get only £10.
9

1To Mrs. J. H. P.Hilpot.
2Alassio, 18th Feb.
3
4I get to my work which is sometimes writing, more often walking up and
5down my room and thinking things out. ... I never see anything of them.
6 After lunch I sometimes go out for a walk to my favourite ruined
7chapel, Santa Croce, but lately I haven't been out. I read or write or
8walk up and down, “thinking out” all the afternoon. At 6 we have
9dinner. Then I come up to my room again, generally leaving before
10dinner is quite done, and I walk out on the terrace a bit and then
11read or write till bed-time. I do exactly the same every day. One day
12is as all days. It's a very delightful life. I've never been so happy
13since I left my dear old farm in Africa. … I'm writing an introduction
14to Mary Wollstonecraft's Rights of Women; it will hold the substance
15of all my thoughts on the man and woman question.
16

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 9th Feb.
3
4You are quite wrong about my working a few hours every day. The way in
5which my brain must work (at imaginative work) is altogether or not at
6all. My great mistake is that I read the things as soon as I have done
7them and then burn them instead of not looking at them again for a few
8months, when they would seem quite nice.
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 9th Feb.
3
4I am all wild on the Mary Wollstonecraft Introduction. Will you tell
5me more about the mill hands (women) in the north? I only go on my own
6slight experience. Do you think I am too strong in saying that they
7are equal (almost?) to the men, that motherhood in them does not
8prevent their working and being jolly, etc.? I would like something I
9could if necessary quote in a note. Don't exaggerate, let it have the
10exact truth. This is so important in social questions when one can so
11easily put things too strongly without being conscious of it. ... I
12shall do an immense deal of work and thinking and in the end there
13will be three little pages. It’s the exact truth that's so damned
14difficult to get at.
15

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 7th Feb.
3
4I have begun Italian. I shall get on very fast. Have you Boccaccio's
5stories in Italian? It would be a good book. If not I will get it here.
6 Going to send you picture of my Ruined Chapel, my beloved Santa Croce.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 1st Feb.
3
4I don't need anything just now; I've no time to make the dress if I
5had the material. I’ll get lots of things when you come out. ...
6Italian is such a lovely language. They say as people get older they
7get less able to take things in. But I never in my life was able to
8take in so readily and with so much pleasure as now. You know, I'm not
9suited to living in a city. I must always live alone in the country.
10

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, Jan.
3
4Please post the enclosed letter. I hope it's not rude, but I get so
5many letters that one doesn't know how to reply to. This lady says
6that she sees there are many things I am not able to grasp, but as I
7am young there is still hope; and she writes me an allegory to convert
8me. She says her Heavenly Father gives her whatever she asks him for,
9and if I would ask him he would give me too. What funny people there
10are in the world. She ends her letter by asking what colour my hair
11and eyes are. ... There is an old clergyman's wife come here and two
12old maids. They made for my clothes the other day and said I was
13shabby, which is quite true; so two days I've taken some bread and
14meat and an apple and gone up the mountain to have my lunch by a
15ruined chapel. It's much nicer.
16

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 27th Jan.
3
4You don't realise what a very brave thing a man in Pearson's position
5has done in printing that book at all. Anything approaching to that
6has never been published in England before by a professor in a college
7or university. The question is not: Is Pearson a genius? Is he
8original? Can a flaw be found in his argument? But is he giving
9utterance as a social thinker and teacher to views we can sympathise
10with? A reviewer is writing, not, as the essayist and artist, for
11himself, but as a critic he stands between the public and the thought
12and literature of the day, to guide and lead them. To me the work of
13the reviewer is as sacred and high as that of the poet and the thinker,
14 or rather it is like that of the preacher. ... I have been working in
15great mental agony to-day. Sometimes I get almost practically blind, I
16can't see before me when I am walking, and then small external things
17crush me. I am writing about those two terrible women, Veronica and
18Mrs. Drummond. It is so terrible to have to realise them and grapple
19with them. I bear all kinds of wickedness, but not meanness and
20smallness. I shall be so glad to get back to Bertie and Rebekah, my
21beloveds. If they are ever so real to anyone as to me, how real they
22will be! ... You know, if I had been married when I was twenty three,
23ten years ago, my life would have been quite different and my strength
24much greater. This celibacy has not been good for me; but it would
25have been worse to marry any man I have ever seen; except possibly one.
26 I mean that I am sure celibacy is not good for the brain of a
27continual [brain-worker] . Schopenhauer, Goethe, Shakespeare; no really
28great steady thinker has ever been celibate. You must marry some day.
29

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, Christmas Day.
3
4I send my love to you. The sun is shining. I haven’t done any work,
5quite well, but can’t pull together. Perhaps by this time next year I
6shall pass whole hours without thinking of Mrs. - . That would be
7heaven. …
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 22nd Dec.
3
4I cannot tell you what this air and blue sea and sky are to me now I
5love them. I am working. I seem at last to have conquered, I think for
6ever. It may be not. ... It is unlikely I shall get any publisher in
7England but Vizetelly to take this book. I am getting so hopeless on
8the question of earning money. The Devil comes to me sometimes for a
9moment and says: "Wouldn't it be better to sell your soul and work for
10money, and so be free and independent?" I shall work night and day for
11a year or two years more, and then what shall I get for it?
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 18th Dec.
3
4Am working hard. Never come back to myself sometimes for a couple of
5days and that is the only way in which work can be done. From Man to Man
6will be quite different from any other book that ever was written,
7whether good or bad I can't say. I never think; the story leads me,
8not I it, and I guess it's more likely to make an end of me than I am
9ever to make an end of it!
10

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 14th Dec.
3
4I am working. But the last days I've got into the allegory state.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 12th Dec.
3
4I thought out that about Greece and Rome having fallen because of
5conditions of women by myself. What's the use of thinking! Someone
6else will do it, the same thoughts come to all.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 13th Dec.
3
4I wish you were here this evening and you and I would sit down on the
5floor before the olive wood fire and talk till 12 o'clock. I want to
6talk with you to-night. ... You know I feel I am so much in the right
7path to be here. I am now on the path that I lost when I left the
8Edinburgh Infirmary. I would like to get away from Alassio but I know
9I mustn't. Do you feel in the right path? You are gaining what is very
10useful. Why don't you put down shortly, in the way of a vivid diary,
11what you see among the factory workers? In years to come it will be
12valuable to know what their condition was now. ... Isn't it wonderful,
13I feel inclined to write the first time for months? Have seen
14wonderful beautiful things I never saw before. Such an odd kind of
15peace and rest is with me ever since I made a scene to-day in which
16Rebekah talks to her little son. What a great beautiful thing life is
17in spite of all its suffering! It will take me about twelve months
18steady work to perfect what I see. You know I feel like I used at
19Lelie Kloof and Ratel Hoek. ... I would like to talk to you, much more
20to hear you talk. You know when feelings of love come into my heart to
21you I restrain myself because nothing but sorrow comes from expressing
22love to anyone.
23

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 10th Dec
3
4I love my new book so, a hundred times better than I ever loved An
5African Farm. … I feel such horror of England now, I never wish to see
6it again.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 24th Nov.
3
4What work I do is splendid, but my heart is somewhat like stone.
5Perhaps it is when one is so altogether dead that one's work lives. ...
6 Isn't it curious I have dropped all my friends, I never write to
7anyone, never hear from anyone. It is as though God had suddenly
8struck me with paralysis; and it is good. The great lesson I have had
9to learn in the last three years is that one must be true to oneself
10in the first place and think of your fellow men second. I had to learn
11the opposite lesson in the few years before. Perhaps now I shall keep
12the balance, at least as long as I don't see a human being. You have
13never needed the first lesson, nor certainly the second. I am working
14whenever I can. Can you send me a volume of Heine's poems? Living
15absolutely alone is the only life possible just now, but I'm glad of
16books.
17

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 21st Nov.
3
4I have been sitting up to finish writing out a dream I am sending to
5Canon MacColl and Mr. Gladstone's daughter to look at. I'll tell them
6to send it on to you, if you care. It has been dark and raining for
7many days now, but I keep very well. I think it has been very good for
8you, my darling, that I have been quite removed from you. I see no one,
9 live quite alone, except at meal times. It is a comfort to have meals
10regularly, and to get plenty of food. I think that's why I'm so well.
11I'm longing for my darling sun to come out to-morrow.
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 15th Nov.
3
4Got nice letter from Canon MacColl. On the 17th. Got nice letter from
5Gladstone's daughter.
6

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, 13th Nov.
3
4Yes, if one could live life over again with one's enlarged sympathies,
5how different many things would be. When one looks back one
6understands the people one knew long ago so much better. I always feel
7that about my parents and brothers and sisters. One loves them more
8and more as time passes.
9

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, 7th Nov.
3
4I think I have passed through one of the happiest times of my whole
5life since I left England, especially since I came here. I never since
6I left Africa seemed to come so near to nature.
7

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 4th Nov.
3
4I am so glad to be back in Alassio. Oh, I love this place. "To-day
5there falls the dear surprise of peace."
6

1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2Alassio, 4th Nov.
3
4Have you read Memoirs of Madame De Remusat? It's one of the most
5fascinating books ever written. It makes me love Napoleon more than
6ever. If he had had a mother like St. Augustine’s, the world would
7have found its noblest hero and saint in him. It was only a case of
8bad education. ...
9

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Alassio, 2nd Nov.
3
4In my old quarters. Slept at Genoa last night. Leaning Tower at Pisa
5splendid as seen from train. Seen nothing in architecture I like so
6much as Westminster Abbey or front of Notre Dame. It's the climate,
7the streets, the people, the general effect that is so nice in Italy.
8
9I'm writing a long dream on Socialism, called "Dreams of a City". With
10all these dreams coming I never get to any other work. Can't help it -
11they will come.
12

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Boboli Gardens, Florence, 30th Oct.
3
4I am sitting here at the foot of a statue. It is as it were the top of
5a hill, just outside Florence. The garden is behind the Pitti Palace,
6such a garden! Such a day! As I look down below me is the Pitti and
7beyond Florence, and beyond the beautiful hills with an afternoon
8light, like the Cape on them. … I am leaving for Alassio on Tuesday.
9I hope to work there, don't want anyone to come and see me while I'm
10there, but in April or March I want to go to Venice. I am working and
11so happy. But to-day my landlady is in a rage with me because I spilt
12the ink, so I am very sad. … Vernon Lee is a fine woman. Nothing small
13or mean about her, but the devil in if she likes. She's been kind to me.
14

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Florence, 29th, Oct.
3
4Florence is beautiful beyond words. … The Pitti Gallery is lovely.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Florence, 20th Oct.
3
4I like Florence very much.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Lungarno Acciajoli, Firenze, 18th Oct.
3
4Florence isn't a bit like I thought. It's the coldest place in the
5whole world. The hills are covered with snow. It's something like
6Brighton but without the sea, big hotels and fashionable people. ...
7My window looks down on the Arno.
8

1To Havelock Ellis.
2Near Dover, 14th Oct.
3
4Feel so glad to be off. Don't forget your old comrade quite.
5

1To Havelock Ellis.
2St. Leonards, 13th Oct.
3
4My Havelock, I am thinking of you. You must write and tell me about
5yourself. Someday, when you are a broken down old man and I a young
6woman, I'll write much to you. You quite forget how much older I am
7than you.
8