1[page/s missing]
2
3 could have pained her, I might think it was that, but it can't be.
4Perhaps she is pained by my objecting to the killing at Johannesburg
5but I hardly think she could be so narrow. I have not mentioned the
6strike or anything connected with it to her. Of course likely she is
7just too busy to find a moment to spare, especially as her nurse has
8left her to get married. If you do meet her write & tell me. No one
9has mentioned her name since her return & that makes me fear she has
10been ill, & is not going out.
11
12 I fancy Margaretha will be of a very artistic turn - I don't think
13William will be! - he will be a man of action; & Walter a student.
14Dear Walter, I think he grows sweeter & sweeter as he grows older.
15
16 Cron is very busy with his golf playing every afternoon. They have a
17big match with three other towns on next Monday.
18
19 Thine ever
20 Olive
21
22

1 My darling Anna
2
3 I think the meeting went off well. But I don't know why any one needed
4to say you wouldn't do as well as secretary as Mrs Hall, because no
5one is quite like you. You are so wonderful in your quiet power of
6getting things done, & better than other people do them with much more
7fuss. You are a genius. I'm not trying to flatter you, dear. But I've
8seen & known so many people in my life, but no one with quite your
9gifts & powers. You are like Miss Molteno & Miss Greene, always
10unfolding & developing. You will be grand when you are old. I wish I
11could live to see then Little Margaretha will.
12
13 I'm so glad you like Mrs Haldane Murray so much. I am so wonderfully
14drawn to her. Minnie De Villiers too is a fine woman & she
15
16[page/s missing]
17

1 Irene
2 Tuesday
3
4 Darling
5
6 General Hertzog spent last evening here He is a dear good old fellow;
7whether one sees eye to eye with him or not one must love him.
8
9 I see so many children but I see none quite like Margaretha. That
10wonderful F mixture of refinement & strength in the little soul.
11
12 I suppose the time at Caledon will be good. I wonder whether ^when^ I
13shall see you again. I don't think I shall go down to Cape Town this
14summer. I wish we could plan to go somewhere together.
15
16 I see no violets even in Pretoria so fine as ours at De Aar.
17
18 Thine ever
19 Olive
20
21 I shall be home by Saturday.
22

1July 31st 1910
2
3My darling Anna
4
5 I am so glad to hear your beautiful, beautiful news. I hope the
6beloved little one when it comes will be a boy - for Walters sake.
7Margaretha will be what she will be, her character is very strong, but
8Walter might be spoiled if he grew up the only son in the family. It
9will be so good for him to have a brother. I love little baby girls
10with a peculiar tenderness - but its so sad to bring a woman into the
11world, till better times come. You can shield her during her childhood
12- but what then? Oh my darling, I am so glad any how . People like you
13& your husband are sure to have desirable children. Both Walter & my
14little Margaretha are charming each in their own way. I hope you are
15feeling well. You must not have anything to worry you.
16
17 I am thinking always of my darling Adela. If only the child lives that
18she has gone through such terrible suffering for. When do you think it
19will come to you? I'm so glad you've had that nice little change in
20Caledon.
21
22 I have just been reading an article by Upton Sinclair, about how he
23cured himself by fasting for ten & twelve days at a time. I'm going to
24begin on Monday morning & try till Thursday night - unless I faint. He
25says you ought to eat nothing but drink much water. I can't drink
26
27^the terrible bitter de Aar water, so I'm going to take the strained
28wey of my sour Kaffir milk. I'll write & tell you the results. The
29article is in the April no of the Contemporary Review. Cron went up to
30Kimberley this week to see the English football team & now he's away
31at Laingsburg at a political meeting. Arriet is lost she went out the
32day before yesterday & has not come back. I fear so she is killed.
33
34 Olive^
35

1 Anna darling
2
3 I am sending you a little pamphlet Mrs Rhys David, a friend of mine
4has sent me as I know you are interested in Buddhism. She is
5publishing a book on these old Buddhist women & wants to dedicate it
6to me, which I shall feel a great compliment. I sympathize with
7Buddhism more than any form of religion, & she herself is such a noble
8big warm hearted woman in spirit. He husband is the most important
9Buddhist authority in Europe & she has also a great European
10reputation. It's so beautiful that they can share each others work.
11Thats to me the highest ideal of marriage, at least to be able to help
12each other in reaching the most important things in life.
13
14 ^How does my little girl flourish? We mustn't always teach her she's a
15little girl. She'll find that out soon enough when she grows older;
16let her just be a little human being. I'm not well dear or I would
17write more
18
19 Olive
20
21 Cron is busy making a big garden. I am planning some flowers. Could
22you send me up a few little violet plants. I would like to have a
23little row of Bergvleit violets before my bedroom door I'll pay the
24carriage^
25

1 The Visitors' Room
2 Barkers
3 Kensington
4 Dec 22nd 1915
5
6 Dear Anna
7
8 I am waiting here for a friend, & am going to give the time to one
9word of love to you. Dear you'll never know all you've been to me. How
10I treasure the beautiful memory of all your love & kindness to me. I
11wonder if we shall ever meet again. It seems likely not but life holds
12many things. It's a damp foggy rainy day, but oh so much better than
13the warmth. As soon as the thermometer gets over 60 I can't do
14anything.
15
16 Oliver is home for a few days, so changed one would hardly know him.
17The two girls are home too, & & are perhaps going to nurse in
18
19 ^Egypt
20
21 Good bye my darling Anna
22 Olive^
23
24 Address to Standard Bank
25

1 Darling Anna
2
3 I am enclosing a little poem to you. Its the only really good thing
4I've seen written since upon the war. It seems to come from my own
5heart. Its not the actual killing & death that is so awful in war as
6the hate that breathes through human hearts & makes us forget that
7humanity is one.
8
9 Miss Greene told me about your lovely picnic. If I could just be with
10you all for a few hours. I'm not getting any better dear I'm getting
11steadily worse; but don't say this to Cron if you see him any time.
12Its that I don't want the burden of my illness to rest on him, that
13makes me stay here. I should only be a trouble to you all in Africa.
14Here I trouble no one & there are always nursing homes one can go to.
15Sometimes I think if Miss Molteno & Miss Greene were in England I
16might hire their little cottage, but its only a dream. Is it in a tiny
17place? What is the use of my being in Africa if I can't be near Cron:
18& in De Aar I can't live.
19
20 I just live from day to day, determined not to think if the war is
21over soon I can try Nauheim again perhaps.
22
23 Good bye dear one.
24
25 Yours always with tender love & grateful for all your goodness to me,
26my beloved Anna
27 Olive
28
29 Show the poem to Miss Molteno & ask her to send it back to me.
30

1 My own darling Anna,
2
3 Oh if I could be with you. If I could be a little comfort & help to
4you! I cant think his dear face is gone from Bergvleit forever. I've
5just heard the news from Dr Brown.
6
7 Oh darling, when you are able, write to me & tell me about yourself. I
8am so thankful Walter is with you.
9
10 Oh Anna I know the blow has been too terrible, & one can't do anything
11for only know how I'm loving you all the time, & thinking of you. Is
12your mother with you? How is Joey?
13
14 You & my dear little sister-in-law will be drawn to each other. She
15has felt her loss terribly. Oh I long to be at the Cape with you all
16
17 Olive
18

1 March 24th 1920
2
3 My darling Anna
4
5 I can't wish you many happy returns of this day. It will be a sad one
6for you, & yet it will be full of beautiful memories. Oh Anna, I can't
7think that if ever I come out to South Africa I shall not see that
8dear beautiful face again. He was the finest man, take him for all in
9all, we had in South Africa. I cant realize he is really gone.
10
11 Thank Walter for his long interesting letter. How good it is you have
12him. Oliver's wife has a most beautiful baby girl called Jean Frances.
13The both is doing well but Edna has much trying swellings in her left
14breast, & I am anxious about her. She is a most loveable fascinating
15person.
16
17 Good bye my own beloved friend.
18 Olive
19
20 I hear Lord Lytton is going out to the Cape as Governor, I don't know
21if its true
22
23 I am expecting Ruth Alexander next week. What a joy it will be to me.
24

1 May 5 / 96
2
3 Dear Mr Merriman
4
5 Thank you for your letter. I should like to answer at length your
6interesting criticisms, but must not to-day. I can only tell you how
7entirely my sympathies will be with you when you bring in your motion
8on the 12th. We who know how colossal is the evil which threatens
9South Africa to-day must stand shoulder to shoulder if we are to break
10its power. It must be a long pull, & a strong pull & a pull all
11together, if we are to succeed. I cannot believe that dear old Innes
12will be found in the other camp ultimately. Try & keep him. He has
13more respect for your judgment than for that of any man in South
14Africa; it will be very ill for the country if you two should be
15divided. I can do nothing in this country, but if I could do any thing
16by writing Home let me know.
17
18 Whatever comes or does not come I hope we shall see you installed as
19Minister of Public Works in any ministry that may be formed. As ^a^ I
20rule, I hold & have long held, that situated as this country is, the
21best & most advanced men should refuse to take office, & that they
22would serve the country best as a resolute & unpurchasable opposition
23- but circumstances are so exceptionalble now that I should almost say,
24 take the post of Minister of Works at all hazards. We absolutely must
25have a straight, strong man there: this country is rotten.
26
27 Yours sincerely
28 Olive Schreiner
29
30 You ask why the Boer is more hide bound than the Basques or Welsh? Do
31you not think that, the difference lies in this fact, that these
32peoples were little complete nations shut up & compressed, as it were,
33^but^ from the ?Baron & the King downwards all parts of the nation were
34there when they were forced back into their valleys & shut up among
35themselves! - the Boers were a section of a nations, not cut down
36vertically & having representatives among them of all classes; but cut
37out horizontally, & representing only the labouring & lower middle
38class! This I think accounts for most of their peculiarities.
39Something analogous gives its very peculiar tone to English Colonial
40life. Yo We are not a section of the English people "cut straight
41down" & transported to South Africa. The highest & the lowest, the
42aristocracy of intellect & culture, & the working-classes are not
43adequately represented here. The dissenting lower middle-class, with
44its peculiar virtues & vices predominates & gives to South African
45English life its very peculiar ^lower middle class tone!^
46

1 The Homestead
2 May 25 / 96
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Thank you for your letter. Your speech was without any doubt the most
7brilliant & powerful that has been made in the Cape Parliament - but
8?this ^is^ not a time of day in South Africa when any speech, reason, or
9argument, counts: - it is the day of money.
10
11I hope, how profoundly I can hardly say, that you, Sauer & Innes will
12yet, before very long be found on one side, & in one camp.
13
14There are two & only two questions in South Africa, the native
15question, & the question - Shall the whole land fall into the hands of
16a knot of Capitalists. The Dutch & English question, as you have
17yourself said, is nothing - in fifty years it will not be. But the
18native question & the capitalist question ^are in^ their infancy now,
19will loom right over the land in fifty years time, & unless some
20mighty change set in, will deluge the land with blood.
21
22 We who hold that rank confers duties, that a course of stern
23unremitting justice is demanded from us towards the native, & that
24only in as far as we are able to raise him & bind him to ourselves
25with indissoluble bonds of sympathy & gratitude, can the future of
26South Africa be anything but an earthly Hell: - we who hold this have
27no right to let anything divide us. He that is not with us is against
28us; he that gathereth not with us scattereth abroad. How-ever great be
29our personal antipathies & our personal wrongs, there are some matters
30so great that in their light all personal divisions should fade away.
31
32 Neither you nor Sauer can ever ultimately work with the bond! It is
33beginning to become clear to me that if Rhodes ever comes back to
34power, it will be partly by the aid of his money, but mainly through
35the Bond; he will regain his power over the retrogressive element in
36the country by throwing the native to them to be torn in pieces.
37
38 For the Boers as a whole I have the the most intense personal sympathy
39& admiration. For five years in my early girl-hood I was a teacher
40among ^them^, & I know them as perhaps few, I might say, no, cultured
41Englishman in South Africa, knows them - & I love them. Their love for
42personal liberty - for themselves - is to me little short of being
43divine - but on the native question we have to fight the main body of
44them to the death for the next 20 years.
45
46 Yes, they have had no Job; but they have had no language in which a
47Job could express his thoughts! Has Australia had a Job or America
48even? The greatest American, Emerson, is even not quite a Job! In
49Burgers they have produced certainly the most genius-ful man South
50Africa has seen. I love the Boer - let us deal justly, generously by
51him as by the native: but let us not give one inch to his cardinal
52vice.
53
54 Yours sincerely
55 Olive Schreiner
56
57 ^Will not this parliamentary inquiry be a hideous farce? I look now
58with hope only to one curious quarter - the Hollanders in the
59Transvaal! They will not give in.^
60
61

1 The Homestead
2 June 29 / 96
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I am very glad you liked my Bushman paper. I have never gone on with
7the letter I was writing in answer to your last, because we have had
8visitors staying with us ever since, & as I do all the cooking &
9housework, with the help of a little boy of 14, I have not been to my
10desk since.
11
12Your remark with regard to the attitude of the Boers towards some of
13their old favourite Halfcaste servants is so very true. I have been
14struck by the fact on some farms I have ^been^ lived on, that, while the
15Kaffirs, who seem to me such a much more noble folk, are treated with
16scorn & severity, the Half-caste servants, or some of them, are petted
17& spoiled. Does not this rise partly from the fact that blood is
18thicker than water?? In one family I was struck by the way in which an
19old ^coloured^ woman of 70 & her daughter of 40 seemed to dominate &
20govern the mistress & the house. I found out afterwards that the old
21woman had actually born several children to the ^grand^ father in the
22old slave times ^& later after she was freed^ & that the daughter of 40
23was actually own half sister to the mistress of the house! In many
24cases where there is of course no personal relation between the
25masters family ^& the coloured servants^ there is still a racial
26connection. I think this accounts for the fact that had before ^I
27thought of it^ often puzzled me - that English men in the Eastern
28province where there are both Kaffirs & Halfcaste always prefer the
29Kaffirs, while Boers almost always prefer the Halfcastes. Might this
30also not explain a little, why there are cases on record of white
31girls running away with Halfcasts & seldom or never with Kaffirs? ^- as
32you mentioned in your last.^
33
34 //I do not think I over state the the painful position of the
35Halfcaste, though on the surface it certainly does appear so. I could
36recount to you if there were time, severa1 ?instances in which
37coloured women have poured out a flood of bitterness at their position,
38 when a few words of indirect sympathy had once showed them that I
39felt kindly towards them. I know ^also^ one highly cultured &
40intellectual woman, in a good social position who has one 8th of
41Hottentot blood. I have She has declared unreadable that if she had
42had any conception of what her children would have had to go through
43she would never have given one of them birth. Her hatred towards her
44grand father for the misery he has caused his des-cendants is
45something almost savage! She certainly is the only wom person in the
46upper ranks of life, who has ever spoken frankly to me of their
47position; but I have not the slightest doubt that thousands who do not
48speak, feel just as bitterly. There is a very delightful & fine
49coloured family ^who^ live next door to us here; the husband is a cab
50driver. The other day when I was kissing & nursing the baby the ^woman^
51burst forth ?most unexpectedly; "Yes, I wonder that you kiss the child!
52 Most white people wouldn't touch it, because it's skin is a little
53darker than theirs!" &c &c &c.
54
55 //I don't know why the Bushman must die: they have kept alive a
56variety of the original wild cattle of Europe in a certain Park in
57England! There is no reason the Bushman should perish, if a
58millionaire bought unreadable up thirty or forty large farms, fenced
59them, & stocked them with wild beast, or rather let them simply run, &
60left the Bushman at peace in the territory, not trying to civilize
61them. It certainly won't be done, but it certainly might be.
62
63 Yes, you are quite right. I have not dealt adequately with the Boer
64woman in the two articles I sent you, but the next article is called
65"The Boer Woman", & entirely devoted to her, ^though^ & incidentally ^it
66deals with^ to the woman question, as I conceive it. I shall be
67exceeding interested to find out what you think of that article.
68
69 My husband leaves on Friday for Cradock to read his paper.
70
71 I am exceedingly depressed about political & public affairs in this
72country To you who are more behind the scenes it may seem ridiculous,
73but I am continually haunted by the dread that Rhodes & his backers in
74high circles at home whi will yet plunge South Africa in war. It seems
75to me his last card. If he fails in that he is done for.
76
77 Yours sincerely
78 Olive Schreiner
79
80 ^No, I have never read Stevenson, strange as it may seem I have a most
81peculiar antipathy to novels. I love the Mill on the Floss and
82Turgannieffs Fathers & Sons & a dozen others, but I think I like them
83because they are science or poetry, not because they are novels!!! I
84have often tried to analyze why it is that th I have this intense
85horror of ordinary novels, while the all folks of this age from Huxley
86& Darwin to servant girls find pleasure in them, & benefit too. They
87are so dry!^
88

1 Sunday morning
2
3 Dear Mr Merriman
4
5 Thank you for your. There are a dozen things in it that I want to
6refer to. To-day I shall only answer it by sending you a bit of my
7next article, the one that I have just sent off to England & which is
8to appear in August in the Fortnightly. Please return it to me as its
9the only corrected copy I have & I have to copy it for the Diggers News
10& other news papers. It will show you what I feel for about our
11Bushmen.
12
13 What you say Mr Scott told you interests me more than you can perhaps
14understand as it bears on the theory of development of sex relations,
15which I have been working at for many years. N In such a state of
16absolutely primitive social organization as that of the Bushman there
17can of course be no slavery of the female or organized polygamy (which
18is much the same thing!) But, I was inclined to believe that that
19though woman's subjection was only accomplished when the next stage
20was entered on, & was largely connected, though not always, with the
21introduction of agricultural labour; that, ^in the primitive stage^
22though sex relations were equal & the ^woman^ free, they ought must be
23of a temporary nature! Would it be possible to get that Mr Scott to
24write what he knows, & to give his exact grounds for forming his
25opinion? It would be very valuable. There can be no real affection &
26organic mental union between the male & female except in a monogamic
27condition; &, unreadable where ^human^ females are free there never will
28be a pob polygamous condition; (though there may in very exceptional
29cases be polyandry): but I have been inclined inclined to think this
30was generally the line of human progress.
31
321
33Primitive state a loose monogamy, in which one female mated with one
34male, perhaps only for a short time.
35
362
37
38Savage State - From which modern societies are only beginning
39
40The boy is waiting to fetch for the letters. I will finish another day
41- but I am anxious you should see what I have said of the Bushman.
42
43 Yours faithfully
44 Olive Schreiner
45
46 ^Please do not show the MS I send to any one, & return it when done with.^
47

1Highstead
2Rondebosch
3Tuesday
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 I got your note last night. It was very good of you & Mrs Merriman to
8ask us to come, & we should have been delighted to do so, but I have
9been sent out again by the doctors on account of my health & am not
10better since I got here, so we are going up to the Karroo tomorrow. We
11are going to break the journey at Matjesfontein & again at Hope Town
12where I shall stay for some days or weeks till I am fit to go on to
13Kimberley If you should by any chance be writing to me address K to
14Hope Town, care Mrs Wright.
15
16 It would have been a very great pleasure to me to come have a talk
17with you on South African matters. To me matters seem more hopeless
18than when I left, not on the surface but essentially.
19
20 One thing I should like to say to you - Don't "stand off" or miss any
21opportunity that offers of meeting & entering into personal relations
22with the new Governor; He may not be the man we should have chosen,
23but it will be a terrible thing if the better class of men stand back
24& leave him to fall entirely into the hands of the Sievewright & Co
25set. You unreadable I think more than any other person in South Africa
26might have a beneficial influence on him. I am very sorry to to have
27had the pleasure of accepting your invitation
28
29 Yours sincerely
30 Olive Schreiner
31
32 I have been much amused ^to^ hear that some people here have taken quite
33seriously the Rhodesian statement that my book Peter Halket was paid
34for by the Transvaal Government. Just fancy Oom Paul & ^his^ fellow
35Transvaalers approving of a book which inculcates that it may be your
36duty to love a nigger!!!
37

1 Nov 21st 1897
2
3 Dear Mr Merriman
4
5 If we could only get all the people to bear witness in court to what
6they know & tell us in private, the matter would be ended at once. Two
7or three are willing to, & if they stand by their word in court I
8think we must win.
9
10 It seems in 1881 or 1882 old Cornwall got a great wigging in the
11supreme court for influencing votes unduly in an electric light case;
12we are going to get the lawyers to look up the case. That ought to
13tell some what against him. But you who have never lived in Kimberley
14can have no idea what the terrorism of Rhodes & De Beers is here.
15
16 People close all the doors & examine the country round carefully
17before they sit down to talk to you. It is worse than Russia. If it
18were only possible for one of the Barkly West cases to be taken up at
19the same time it would tell heavily against Rhodes & De Beers!
20
21 Brown, Rhode's agent from Kenilworth, who has been out to water
22auriferously the electoral field of Barkly West, previous to Mr Rhodes
23arrival, lost, out of his cart as he was returning to Kimberley, a bag
24containing £400 in gold. What must that bag have contained when he set
25out?? What is the law with regard to political bribery in this
26country? Is there any one Blue Book or Act ^&c^ I could get which would
27give it one exactly? I what my husband to write a pamphlet on it like
28our "Political Situation" of three years ago? If you know please tell
29me, & where to send for them.
30
31 There must either be something hopelessly wrong with our law here; or
32with its administration that such absolutely bare faced corruption can
33go on, uncommented on. I have seen a great deal of practical election
34work in England during the 10 years I lived there. There is a great
35deal too much giving to tea-parties to working men (but the working
36men see through it!) & there is a disgrace-ful amount of giving
37subscriptions to public works, churches & gardens &c in a members
38division (which ought to be made illegal) but anything like the calm,
39cynical, open purchase which goes on in this country would be
40absolutely impossible there. Why is this?
41
42 I am sending you a copy of the Progressive Review with an article on
43"payment of constituents" which is profoundly true I think. There is
44rather an interesting article on Nature & Realism in Art, by one of my
45dearest friends, & a not profound but true article on the South
46African Committee's report. Don't return it. It's much the best review
47now existing in England but as far as I know no one takes it in this
48country.
49
50 Yours faithfully
51 Olive Schreiner
52
53 I don't agree with you that the farmer & owner of land hold of
54necessity any higher view of social duty than the man who sells
55dry-goods. It is the fixing of his heart in the material things of
56life which destroys high social feeling in farmer who makes bad brandy
57as well as the merchant who sells bad shoes. "Children how hardly
58shall they that have riches (or thirst after them!) enter the Kingdom
59of God." The pure speculation, of course, is a ^more social disease, a
60spiritual smallpox.^
61
62 ^PS. I am leaving by tonight's mail train for Cape Town. To see about
63this business I shall probably be there one day but may have to stay
64longer.^
65

1[page/s missing]
2
3 ^news^ of that ?meeting in another 50 years. It was our first, but not
4our last victory. The big fight will probably come off in America or
5Germany.
6
7 Both the Kiplings were enthusiastic about your place at Stellenbosch.
8Say it is without any exception the loveliest place they have seen in
9South Africa.
10

1[page/s missing]
2
3 committee at Home. I enclose a paper copied from one he sent me
4stating some of the things he had seen. He has property in Natal
5Mashonaland; but he will only loose it all if it is know he is going
6to give evidence, but if he can arrange it he would be willing to go
7home, if his expenses were paid. I can't pay them for him, but do you
8not think Sauer could arrange with some of the committee to have his
9expenses ^Wh ?If I wrote ?signed to him?^ Would it be any use sending
10this paper to Sauer, or is there any one else in England to whom you
11would advise my sending it?
12
13 Please show to no one the enclosed, & return to me unless you think
14the matter worth arranging yourself I am writing to Nelson a English
15MP to see what he can do in the matter, but want to have more than one
16iron in the fire.
17
18 Yours sincerely
19 Olive Schreiner
20

1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Riviera
4 Italy
5 April 3rd 1897
6
7 Dear Mr Merriman
8
9 I have just got your letter of March 1st. I am indeed glad of your
10opinion of Peter Halket.
11
12 I should have long ago have written to you but have been unable since
13we left England. We tried Rome Naples & the beautiful Amalfi, but the
14doctors ordered me to return here, & I am getting fit; though not yet
15able to work - & that is all I care for. I had so wished to revise the
16two last articles of the Stray Thoughts which I had hoped might be of
17a little use if published just now. But I must wait.
18
19 With regard to Chamberlains attitude. There may be much in what you
20say. There is no doubt he hates Rhodes, but there is no doubt also
21that Chamberlain is a man who will always do what is best for himself
22"with a single eye to his own interests." - At the same time I have it
23on good authority, (you would recognize it to be such if I could
24mention the name of my informant) that Chamberlain is only going "to
25play down to Rhodes for the present to strike him at the end of the
26inquiry."
27
28 Yes, I realize how nobly you have stood, & how fearlessly you have
29spoken; my fear is that you may get weary of it. That you may say, "I
30have lost my following & much of my influence" - & that the devil may
31appear to you in the only form he ever dares assume to a good man,
32saying, "For the sake of re-acquiring your large influence for good!,
33had you not better just tone down a little & keep quiet, &c &c" It is
34such a terrible thing to stand alone that the bravest soul may be
35forgiven if the thought flashes on it a moments - "If I am in the
36right path why am I walking on it alone, why have I no fellow
37travellers." On the whole I suppose in all the rest of your life you
38never did anything like such valuable work, nor produced such large
39effects as during the last fifteen months. What would it have been if
40there had not been your voice during this time??
41
42 Yes, I have no doubt Rhodes Sievewright has a hold on Rhodes! There
43must be many men who have. Rhodes's career will probably come to an
44end forever, when one of his confederates in evil is so filled with
45anger that he refuses to be bought & speaks the truth. Did I tell you
46how we came upon Rhodes & Jameson, having lunch at the Zoo when we
47were in London: & again we my husband met Rhodes & Maguire at ^in^ the
48?coliseum at Rome? Curious we should always be coming across him.
49
50 There is one point I hope you & Sauer & Innes will keep in mind, &
51that is that Rhodes is a coward.
52
53 If you are going to handle him with kid gloves, we he may return to
54the Cape Parliament. If you ^three^ are going to fight straight from the
55shoulder he dare never show his face there. I believe if only one of
56you stood firm, he would not dare.
57
58 But after all - the old sorrow comes back again. We fight Rhodes
59because he means so much of oppression, injustice, & moral degradation
60to South Africa; - but if he passed away tomorrow there still remains
61the terrible fact that something in our society has formed the matrix
62which has fed, nourished, & built up such a man! It is the far future
63of Africa during the next twenty-five or fifty years which depresses
64me. I believe we are standing on the top of a long down-ward slope. We
65shall reach the bottom at last, probably amid the of a war with our
66native races (then not the poor savage but generous races whom we
67might have bound to ourselves by a little generosity & sympathy - but
68a fierce & half educate much brutalized race, who will have their own).
69 I see always that day fifty or sixty years hence; & it is with
70reference to it that I judge of many things in the present. The men to
71come after us will reap the fruits of our "native policy", as we today
72in a smaller fashion are reaping the fruits of the "Dutch Policy" of
73sixty years ago. One tenth of the consideration that the Dutch have
74wrung from us during the last 15 years, yielded them from motive of
75humanity & with sympathy & respect, would have blended us into one
76people emotionally long ago.
77
78 I shall make all inquiries about literature with regard to Touss-ant
79L'ouverture when I am in Paris next month. I myself have long been
80anxious to learn more of him. I have also written to a friend in
81London Havelock Ellis who is an Encyclopaedia on European literature,
82to hear if he knows of anything.
83
84 I do hope you will see some way of all acting together out there. Even
85if it g
86
87 Yours very sincerely,
88 Olive Schreiner
89
90 Did you see my husband's little paper in the Progressive Review.
91

1 The Homestead
2 Kimberley
3 Dec 5 / 97
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 Yes, we must lose the case & pay costs & damages. But does that or can
8that make any difference? If a man believes a thing that he has said
9to be true, is not the path before him simple & straight, to hold
10simply & & quietly by what he has said & let the law take its course?
11If he had to die for it would he yet have any alternative? I know in
12your heart that you know he has not; & that in your own case you would
13stand to the truth which you had once uttered. In our case it will not
14be a matter of death but only if they give the damages asked for, of
15taking pretty well everything we have in the world, but that makes no
16difference, we shall pay it & be happy. My bitter sorrow is that we
17may strengthen instead of weakening the all crushing hand of de Beers:
18that does pain me nothing else. If it were possible for my husband
19because of the prospect of material loss & suffering to withdraw one
20word which he believed to be true, I could not live with him: but it
21would be as absolutely impossible for him to do so as for any man I
22know.
23
24 It is such a merciful thing that however complex life may be in some
25ways, the right path for a man to follow at any given moment is always
26open right straight ahead of him, & that what its end may be in
27consequences to ourselves does not concern us.
28
29 It always seems to me curious that people think the answer to the
30question "What is truth?" so mysterious & difficult to get at To me it
31seems so simple. Truth for each man is that which intellectually he is
32compelled to believe, whether it deals with religion or science or the
33matters of every day life! And recantation is equally a unreadable
34denial of God, whether it concern a religious dogma or a part of daily
35life. I think one has always or often the right to remain silent, & to
36resent keenly the attempt of anyone who tries to compel you to speak
37when you don't wish to. But if one does speak, it must be the Truth. I
38always feels such sorrow that when Galileo stood before the
39inquisitors he didn't say simply, "The world turns." There is one star
40wanting in the firmament of human life for ever. But one shouldn't be
41too hard in judging another; it's a hard thing to leave the blessed
42light of the sun; & no man knows whether he could do it till he's
43tried.
44
45 I was surprised to find that my dear old brother did understand our
46stand point, though the lawyer in him might think it a bit Quixotic
47You see no law nor quids or quirks can change the simple fact that
48when a man thinks a thing - (It may have been very unwise of him to
49say it) - that when once he has said it, he can never say he doesn't
50believe it. There's no way out.
51
52 I was sorry to see dear old Innes looking so ill. He is having a hard
53fight, & many of the men he has to work with are as false as they can
54be. He is a white soul; though one can't see eye to eye with him.
55
56 De Beers influence has made Cornwall Mayor of Kimberley today.
57
58 Do you know what I always think of when I feel quite hopeless about
59South Africa & the justice of life? - Doornkop! & those simple farmers
60beating in open daylight the troops of Rothschild ^&^ Rhodes! The Lord
61yet reigneth, let the earth rejoice!
62
63 Our case comes on the day after tomorrow.
64
65 Yours sincerely
66 Olive Schreiner
67
68 I am re-reading Bancrofts History of the United States, which I read
69last when I was fourteen. How curiously like our old Boers the
70Virginians were, according to his des-cription of them Their ^great^
71rebellion of 1676 was reminds one curiously of the Trans-vaal war - &
72it was among these people that fifty years later George Washington was
73born!
74

1 The Homestead,
2 December 17 / 97
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I am as sick of the word progressive as you can be; as sick as a sheep
7would feel at the sight of wool, if under half the fleeces they saw
8moving about them, there peered out a wolf's head.
9
10 But weary as one feels of this rotten assumption of names that mean
11nothing, there are in South Africa a body men & women who might be
12drawn together into a small compact & therefore powerful party, were
13there anyone to organise & lead them. But we are scattered abroad as
14sheep having no shepherd. A little sign, I take it, of the way people
15will support & stand by anyone who takes a decided stand against
16Rhodes & the monopolist party he represents, is the fact that though
17my husband failed in his case, people, many of them people we do not
18know & have never seen have sent us in cheques or offered a sum
19amounting ^altogether^ to £985 (a thousand all but £25) asking to be
20allowed to contribute to the damages & cost of the case as they felt
21the matter was not a personal one, & the expense should be borne by
22the public.
23
24 Of course we have declined all offers of help. But does this not show
25there is a strong feeling under the surface, though it will not be
26called forth by half measures.
27
28 I do hope you are quite sound on the Diamond tax! Do you know who
29wrote that excellent letter in the Argus of the 14th signed A Liberal,
30an answer to Jagger? There was a whole hearted outspoken-ness about it
31that is rare in the utterances of so-called progressives.
32
33 Yours very sincerely
34 Olive Schreiner
35
36 Do you remember that lovely passage in Plato, "Those who have also
37seen & been satisfied of the madness of the multi-tude, & know that
38there is no one who ever acts honestly in the admin-istration of
39states, nor any helper who will save any one who main-tains the cause
40of the just. Such a saviour would be like a man who has fallen among
41wild beasts being unable to join in the wickedness of his friends, &
42would have to throw away his life before he had done any good to
43himself or others. And he reflects on this & holds his peace, & does
44his own business. He is like one who retires under the shelter of a
45wall in the storm of dust & sleet, which the driving wind hurries
46along - he is content if he can live his own life & depart in peace
47with bright hopes."
48
49 One is often minded of this passage now a days! And yet by each man
50doing his tiny best in his tiny place, humanity does grow slowly &
51slowly onwards.
52
53 I hope there is not the slightest chance of the machination of your
54foes unseating you. I do not think such a ^dis-grace could be-fall
55South Africa.^
56

1 Feb 9 / 98
2
3 My dear Mr Merriman
4
5 I was indeed sorry to receive your letter which confirmed the bad news
6with regard to your election which I had heard else-where. Politics
7are so sad & depressing at the present time that one hardly likes to
8think of them. The thought that always forces itself on one, is, how
9few men & women there are in a community who cannot be bought; & it is
10this which depresses one so, because of the side light it throws on
11human nature. It is not the deliberately anti-social folk who depress
12one particu ^such as^ Sievewright or Rhodes or Harris; but the people
13who would be social, & are not, when pressure is put on them. You must
14not risk standing for Namaqualand if you are not sure to win. You must
15not give them the triumph.
16
17 I was so grateful, grateful beyond words, when my husband gave up all
18thought of standing for Parliament. This is not the time for a
19straight independent man of any school to enter public life at the
20Cape. He must either make a martyr ?of of himself or sell his
21principles I am told, on very
22
23[page/s missing]
24
25 ^Let me know if you have any good news with regard to your election.^
26

1 Hell
2 March 17 / 99
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 You will perceive from the superscription above that I am still in
7Johannesburg. I have not written to anyone, except absolutely
8necessary lines since I came here, because I have had nothing to write
9about but Johannesburg; it has filled all my thoughts or rather, it
10has crushed all power of thinking or feeling about anything else out
11of me. You know the place, but I think only to a woman's eyes can it
12be opened in all its full hideousness. It is the women that are the
13most terrible thing here; but doubtless the mass of ill-gotten wealth
14attained without labour & squandered with recklessness is the true
15source of the evil. It attracts the worst class of women to
16Johannesburg; & it demoralizes those who were not so ^demoralized^
17before. It is not the poor out-cast women who are the most terrible
18thing here, by any means: it is the apparently respectable women. I
19have lived in various places on earth, Monte Carlo, London, Paris. I
20have worked among the out-cast women & drunken sailors at the East End;
21 but anything so appalling, so decayed I have never seen.
22
23 The bitterest condemnation of Johannesburg society that I have heard
24was given utterance to the other day by a good old fashioned Lower
25Albany woman who has been ten years in Johannesburg, & who was
26absolutely uncons-cious of the fearful indictment she was making.
27
28 I said I found Johannesburg very depressing.
29
30 She replied, "Oh, but think of all the good one can do here." I said
31that was just what I didn't feel, the place crushed me. She replied,
32"Oh, but think of all the good one can do by simply leading a
33respectable life here! It wouldn't be anything in any other place; &
34its so much in Johannesburg!"
35
36 And that is the truth. In another place to become a burning & a
37shining light it would be necessary to exhibit at least some sparks of
38positive & active virtue: here it is quite sufficient that you should
39simply ^remain^ superficially faithful to your own selfrespect.
40
41 One realized in Johannesburg what the tone of society must have been
42in the reign of Charles the Second. The whole moral fibre relaxed.
43
44 I do not believe, as one of my good clergyman friends holds, that
45sexual degeneracy is the root of our evil here.
46
47 We are a city given over to lust. Lust of money in the first place,
48lust of pleasure, lust of excitement; & the tone of our sexual
49morality springs incidentally from this general attitude. It seems
50hopeless to me to labour at the effect while the cause remains. I
51never think of Johannesburg but those lines of Rossetti's come into my
52mind - "Even such in the world is lust."
53
54 ^April 2nd^
55
56 Yesterday my husband & I went down to hear Oom Paul's speech in the
57square. It was a touching & impressive sight to me. That simply sturdy
58son of South Africa, with his old white hair like long ragged thatch
59blowing about his forehead, & his closed eyes, & strong never-to-be
60moved-from-his-purpose face, in the midst of that seething, sharp,
61Johannesburg crowd. It was a fine speech. As given in the papers it
62loses all its directness, point & character.
63
64 Some working men were here to see me about it yesterday afternoon.
65They say if he will give them due notice of his coming next time the
66working men will get up a great demonstration for him, line the
67streets, &c. They did not know he was coming till the day before, &
68felt rather pained that they had not heard of his coming.
69
70 Have you much concern with the new paper? If so, could you, do you
71think, speak a word for the old man whose testimonials I send, he
72would be very glad to get some work on the paper, even if don not
73bringing in much. He has a small private income, but nothing to do, &
74wants work that would interest him. I don't know much of him, but my
75husband thinks highly of him.
76
77 Wasn't our success at Stellenbosch splendid. Do you feel hopeful as to
78Vryburg? I am feeling very hopeful about these elections, perhaps
79because I don't know enough.
80
81 Yours very sincerely
82 Olive Schreiner
83

1 Dear Mr Merriman
2
3 I wish I could feel as confident as you do about no war. I hope that
4you know more than I do; of course if Chamberlain gives up the
5colonial department it to Salisbury it will show that the more
6rational party is conquering at home, but that seems to be only a
7report. I have just spent two days over at Pretoria. The panic is not
8nearly so great there as here. Here all the women & children are
9fleeing. It is curious to see a city in this condition: all business
10is suspended. Evidently some here are working up the panic, because
11they wish the women & children out of the place, before they make a
12last effort to bring on war.
13
14 Go I hope if war does break out you men down there in the ministry
15will keep yourselves exceedingly cool. If things go against us we
16shall have to look to you to make terms for us. Why don't you some of
17you write more, & educate people in Europe on South African affairs;
18the other side, are mis-educating them as hard as they can
19
20 Thank you much for your interest in seeing the pamphlet published in
21Cape Town. I hope it will have some circulation in the Eastern
22Province. I Reitz has translated it into Dutch, & we are going to
23circulate it among the Burgers during the next few weeks. Edwar
24Boucher the French Consul here has translated it into French & is
25sending it home by this mail to Paris.
26
27 Yours ever sincerely
28 Olive Schreiner
29

1 Hanover
2 Feb 13 / 04
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 My Husband has just sent me up a note from the office "Merriman,
7?Nevel, Sauer & ?Roodt defeated" I am greatly cut up of course you
8& Mr Sauer will have other seats; but after your splendid fight it
9cuts hard.
10
11 But I, personally, always fight find that I fight best in a minority &
12for what looks like a loosing cause; & I know it will be so with you.
13
14 My feeling is that it not the slightest use our po hoping for anything
15from the jingo element of the community. Our own right hand alone must
16save us.
17
18 And the Rhodesian - speculator - party with Milner at their head, are
19doing more for us that we could ever do for ourselves.
20
21 I'm so sorry I had not a chance of seeing you the last time I was in
22town.
23
24 Yours very sincerely
25 Olive Schreiner
26
27

1 Hanover
2 22 Feb / 04
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I am glad to see you are so soon to have a seat, but you will be a
7terrible loss to us during the first weeks. I am going down with my
8husband ^& arrive in Town^ on the 2nd of March: but I doubt whether I
9shall ever visit the house: without yourself & with many whom one has
10desired never to see there it will not be cheering I would not much
11have minded our being in the minority had you been there. I think you
12would not be able to help feeling some pleasure if you heard the the
13deeply sympathetic & admiring way our people speak ^here^ of you. There
14is absolute consternation at the thought of your not being in
15parliament. I am glad of this for many reasons. One is that it shows
16they are quite able to appreciate your qualities though you are an
17Englishman.
18
19 I suppose you will be in Cape Town giving your advice though not in
20the house, at once.
21
22 Yours very sincerely
23 Olive Schreiner
24
25 This note requires no reply as I know how busy you must be. Pl As to
26Mrs Cloete, what did you ever expect from her? I have never been
27introduced to her but I have seen her; & that told me what to expect.
28unreadable from her As to her want of character being a reason for
29women's not having the franchise; you see how much harm an
30unprincipled woman can do without it!! You cannot prevent power from
31being exerted & its fo better to give responsibility where power
32exists! Secondly, have you never met any other persons of the opposite
33sex whom it was objectionable to have in the political arena - say
34Rhodes, Smart, Jameson JS Du Toit? God, if they had never had the
35franchise what a blessed thing it would have been! Don't you think we
36shall bring in a bill for disenfranchising all males? Really, I don't
37think sex touches a man or womans the fitness or unfitness of any
38human creature for politics any more than ^for^ mathematics or any other
39abstract intellectual operation. There are fools of both sexes &
40scoundrels too. Remind me to tell you some day if ever we meet how one
41little Boer woman here stiffened the backs of our
42
43^leading men & Bonds men & prevented them from one of the most fatal &
44cowardly steps, in the height of the Martial Law.^
45
46 ^There is one little point on which I have not been quite able to
47understand your utterances. I won't trouble you about it would now but
48would like to dis-cuss it with you some time.^
49
50

1 Eastbergholt
2 Tambour's Kloof Rd
3 May 15th / 05
4
5
6 Dear Mr Merriman
7
8 No, it was not Mrs Van Heerden I inquired about but ?our Hanover people,
9 the relations of the three perfectly innocent men who were shot at de
10Aar: taken from the fields where they were working for the military,
11imprisoned & shot, though they had not only not joined the unreadable
12Boers, but we who knew them in the village knew they were men who
13never would have joined, who would rather of the two have joined the
14English. It therefore rather hard upon us to have to support these
15people year after year, when so many relations of people who fought &
16died for the Republics are in want.
17
18 I only wanted to know if you had heard at all or had any idea what the
19military are going to do. It will be rather hard if this country has
20ultimately to grant a pardon to to Englands loyal subjects whom she
21shot. If there is no hope of the military paying, I shall write an
22article to the American or English papers about it & so get them the
23help they must have. But it takes a great deal out of me & I would
24rather not do so if I can help it.
25
26 //I was sorry indeed to see you not looking at all well the other
27night in the house. Our political world would be poor indeed if it
28lost you, the one representative of the widest culture & of broad
29impersonal interests whom it possesses.
30
31 For myself personally, I always remember with a curious depth of
32feeling the letter you wrote me when your first read "Peter Halket."
33It was the one word of sympathy I ever got from any South African
34about the book, & it had a greater value for me than any sympathy that
35has ever been expressed for anything I wrote. I hope I shall yet live
36to see you Prime Minister of this country; but I shall not be sorry if
37Jameson stays in two years longer. He, & Milner & co, have carried on
38a fine pro-cess of education in this country, & have opened eyes which
39we could never have opened.
40
41 Don't trouble to reply about the executed men now; wait till
42parliament is over & you have more time, that will be just as well.
43
44 Yours very sincerely
45 Olive Schreiner
46
47 ^I am so glad that my husbands affection & sympathy for you has been
48growing ever since he was in the house. The nearer you come to good
49man the better he seems^
50
51 ^I have just been reading a most interesting book Rhodes History of the
52United States from 1850 to 1860, nothing profound but interesting &
53very clear.^
54

1 Hanover
2 Oct 31st 1905
3
4
5 My dear Mr Merriman
6
7 It was rather strange that your letter should have come just when I
8was thinking I must write & ask you whether you had read a book called
9the Souls of Black Folks, & to advise you to get it at once if you
10have not.
11
12 It's by a coloured man, I should say from his photograph nearly a full
13blooded Negro, called du Bois ^& son of a slave.^ It's a book I have
14long been seeking & waiting for, in which some native should give true
15expression, not to what he feels it's politic & wise to express to
16white men, but to what he really feels. This book is just what I have
17wanted. The chapter I like best is the one called "The passing of the
18first-born" where he speaks of his child, with its "proud" little
19curly head who died before he ever learnt what he was & had to ?low it;
20 - & he, the father was glad. If you can't get it in Cape Town I will
21send you my copy. I should much like to know how you feel to it.
22
23 Yes, what you say on the matter of the natives & war is profoundly
24true: it bodes no good to any one when that delouche, King Edward
25shakes hands with the man of gold & speculation. That shake of Rhodes'
26hand at the time of the raid trial, represented more of the evil that
27has since over taken South Africa than many people are inclined to
28think. Last night I was looking at the new railway map. Have you
29noticed how all the new bits of line built are converging on
30Basutoland & Kaffir-land? - they are not only being built for carrying
31grain!! I feel as I felt twelve years ago, when first Rhodes plans
32with regard to the Transvaal & Freestate began to loom up before me.
33You see the thing only in misty out line; & yet you see it so clearly;
34& know what is coming. And ^yet^ you are so terribly helpless to do
35anything.
36
37 //The Lawrences spend a delightful week with me here; they have now
38gone up to the Falls, but will be back in Hanover today week. One
39would have to live year after year amid the suffocating narrow
40surroundings of a little up country town to know what the presence of
41friends from the outer world means to one.
42
43 My husband told me this evening that he had written to you on the
44Venter matter. It is a miserable, sordid little game they are playing
45up here.
46
47 //Is Wills' book on "Roman Society" in the Parliamentary Library? I am
48sure to be greatly interested in the study of that Roman Imperial
49world throws far more light on our problems & conditions today than of
50all intervening centuries in Europe. At present I am reading for about
51the 10th time Don Quixote. A friend in England has sent me an ideal
52little copy in four tiny volumes & I read myself to sleep with it
53every night, & I've never enjoyed it so much before.
54
55 South African politics & public matters are to me simply heart
56breaking at the present time, & I am trying to forget them in revising
57one of my old novels that I wrote many years ago. It is simply the
58lives of two women, one very intellectual & complex, the other very
59simple & unintellectual, but both equally beloved: its just the story
60of all they thought & did & felt, & how it
61
62^ended with them both. I should like to think I was leaving it ready
63for publication when I died, but don't make much progress with it
64because one can only do good work ^^except^^ at high pressure & one
65daren't sometimes put the pressure on.^
66
67I am sending you a copy of the Volk-stem with a little article on the
68Taal & myself: not of any interest in the personal way, but because it
69throws light on the narrow racial attitude with regard to South Africa,
70 which makes one in ones weakest moments almost despair of the future.
71
72Yours sincerely
73Olive Schreiner
74

1 Hanover
2 Dec 19 / 05
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I was very glad to see from the papers some time ago that though South
7Africa was near meeting with serious loss through a cart accident, we
8came off all right. I hope you felt no ill effect at all.
9
10 //Have you read "the Souls of Black Folk" yet? I am very anxious to
11know what you think of it. My copy is wandering about some where in
12Cape Town, Mrs Purcell had it & I asked her to send it on to Dr Beck.
13I wonder if it will appeal to any one just as it does to me!
14
15 //I have just finished reading Bryces "Studies in History &
16Jurisprudence" There is not much that is new in them & nothing that is
17mentally stimulating (the power to stimulate always seems to me the
18peculiar mark of genius) but I was much interested in his comparison
19of the differences between the Australian & Canadian powers of ^federal^
20Government. I had no idea before how very far the Canadian was behind
21the Australian, though I knew it was so.
22
23 A friend of mine, a Englishman of science but who has spent much of
24his time in the United States & in Canada, always tells me that it is
25a revelation to pass over the border from Am the United States to
26Canada The instantaneous difference is in the sense of freedom &
27independence ^& instinctive^ & high vitality, is, he says something
28almost inconceivable. Yet the people on both sides of the border are
29generally of the same race & often even blood relations! His verdict
30is the more interesting because he is strongly English in feeling I am
31absolutely convinced that that "Colony" which first starts on an
32absolutely free life of its own subservient even in name to none, will
33astonish the world by a mental & social afflorescence, which would
34never have been possible if it had remained in a state of even titular
35subservience. I need not tell you how splendid I thought your reply to
36those Imperialist questions.
37
38 The difference between a free confederacy of independent ^& equal^
39states is as different from Empire as health is from disease as life
40is from death - If ^they could only see it.^
41
42 My friends the Lawrences are now in Cape Town & will be there till the
433rd of January. I hope much they will meet you. He has a singularly
44sweet sympathetic spirit, & she a singularly strong & clear intellect.
45Their visit here was to me like rain on parched ground. My husband & I
46leave this week Saturday for Cape Town & shall stay there over Xmas &
47New Year so I shall see them again. I am very anxious to hear their
48view of Transvaal things, Chinese especially.
49
50 All good wishes to yourself & Mrs Merriman for the New Year & Xmas.
51
52 Yours sincerely
53 Olive Schreiner
54

1 Hanover
2 Jan 10th 1906
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I had planned to spend the 2nd at Stellenbosch & some friends had
7promised to drive me out to Schoongezigt in the afternoon. But the
8damp weather prevented my coming, so that that pleasure was impossible.
9
10 Thinking you had not got hold of a copy of "The Souls of Black" folks"
11I told my sister when she had finished reading it to send it on to you.
12 In case she should have done so, would you please had hand it on to
13Mrs Sauer some time when you are visiting Uitkÿk.
14
15 I am just finishing one of the most lovely & delightful books I have
16read for a long time, "Kokoro" by Lefcadio Hearn Have you read it? If
17not I think you will enjoy it. Of course you know he was a European
18who married a Japanese woman & lived so long among the Japanese that
19he is able to give us a partial insight into their inner life which
20would be possible for no ^ordinary^ European It makes me more sure than
21ever that I myself am only a little Jap who got born by mistake into a
22Western body!
23
24 Yes, I have felt deeply concerned on the Chinese question. It has
25absorbed my thoughts more than any other matter but the condition of
26affairs in Russia for a long time But my chief concern is as to our
27national responsibility towards those forty or fifty thousand men. In
28how far have those men ever understood the conditions of life & labour
29they were to exist under here before they came? In how far is their
30treatment in South Africa consonant with that universal freedom &
31justice which should form the only matter for pride to an enlightened
32people at the beginning of the 20th century?
33
34 I take it as axiomatic, that, no free democratic people can introduce
35into is social organizes a vast body of humans deprived of freedom &
36the common rights accorded to other men without producing the most
37serious & ?de even deadly disease in that organization,
38dis-co-ordinating all its lines of growth. It seems to me almost
39impossible to over estimate the many ways in which the introduction of
40the Chinese under the existing conditions must injure our social &
41moral growth as a community, & this entirely without supposing them to
42be worse than other folk. I do not think the good missionaries we
43force into China at at all worse than the average Chinaman, but he is
44the source of no end injustice, wrong & social suffering which forced
45artificially into the midst of a social organization which has no
46place or need for him!
47
48 Yes I entirely agree with you that the more things in general are left
49to themselves just now ^in South Africa^ & the slower they move the
50healthier & sounder will be our growth as a nation. This is not a
51country which can be safely hurried. The Chinese is perhaps the only
52question calling for immediate action, though many others larger &
53even more vital call for deep persistent thought. Good friends from
54England understand South Africa so little they are always urging one
55one on to write & speak not understanding that this is our time for
56silence. When you have planted seed you can do nothing but harm by at
57once beginning to hoe & rake over it. You must give it time to lie
58still & germinate.
59
60 With fondest regards from us both
61
62 Yours very sincerely
63 Olive Schreiner
64

1 The Hotel
2 de Aar
3 Sep 13th 1906.
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 I have not at present got Bos^well's^ life of Johnson. I had it of
8course but it vanished with most of the rest of my library in
9Johannesburg. We recovered a few books which friends there chanced
10upon some with the name of British officers written over mine, but my
11standard library of the books one always wants by one I am only slowly
12forming again. I have got a beautiful edition of Montaign lately, but
13it never seems to me quite the same thing as my old copy that I had
14read & loved from my girlhood. The American cuttings you sent my
15husband also got: certainly in this country nothing in that line is
16likely to be undertaken at present.
17
18 Yes, this sitting of Parliament seemed very disheartening; but I never
19felt quite sure in how far it was because I was so ill for the last
20two months that everything seemed to me so dead.
21
22 I am now staying with my husband at De Aar now, as he has sold the
23Hanover branch of his business & is attending to his branch here. It
24reminds me much of "Poker Flat;" (of course you've read the out-casts
25of Poker Flat?). It makes one cry out in despair amid the sand & dirt
26& tin shanties & rag-houses, & broken degraded humanity "Is there a
27God?" And yet no doubt the old beautiful humanity with its striving
28after the great & beautiful is to be found buried away here too.
29
30 I am so glad to hear Mrs Merriman is quite fit again. My husband says
31^sends^ greetings. He says I must tell you (this in answer to your ?jest
32 message to him!) that he hopes & believes you will grow more
33socialist ^as^ you grow older!! As for me I am an an individualist
34socialist. I back much that is called socialism because it alone gives
35the individual a chance of developing freely on individualist lines.
36
37 I am now reading for the fourth or fifth time "Amiel's Journal" the
38only thing I could find in this dusty sad little Railway Institute
39which takes the place of a library here. Writing I'm doing nothing at.
40I mended a bit at Matjesfontein, but the the heat & height are too
41great up here to allow of ones lying down at night, & the perpetual
42perpendicular does not comport with working ones brain much. Perhaps
43it will rain here & then all things will mend.
44
45 Yours very sincerely
46 Olive Schreiner
47
48 Have you got a vote in the election of members in the governing body
49of the Cape University, (I don't know what its called) but my friend
50Mrs Brown writes me there is a vacancy, & my dear old friend Dr Brown
51would like to get it. He's a splendid old fellow with no end of
52degrees & a member of the Cape University. He has to settle down
53quietly at Rondebosch instead of travelling about the world because
54his wifes ill health makes it necessary; & with his splendid health &
55vigour, he finds I fancy time rather heavy on his hands & would like
56more outlets in the direction of public work. If you think he would be
57as good as another man I would be so glad if you
58
59^could back him. He is a splendid old fellow. One has to know him as I
60have done ever since I was a girl of 16 to know how good & noble he is.^
61
62
63

1 The Hotel
2 De Aar
3 Sep 1906
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 I read your speech with great pleasure. Curious that people cant
8understand that the dearer they make living the harder they make life
9for the bulk of the people in a land like this.
10
11 Thank you much for old Boswell: he's been good company in these days
12which I'm not able to do much else but read. I've just read two books
13sent me from America "Coniston" by Winston Churchill & "The Pit" by
14Norris.
15
16 Both books well worth reading, & dealing with the great disease of our
17modern social life, Coniston is the strongest it is wonderful this
18awakening all over the world to the evils of monopoly, speculation &
19Bossism.
20
21 Yours very sincerely
22 Olive Schreiner
23
24 ^I shall probably be going to Matjesfontein for a month next week.^
25

1 Matjesfontein
2 Nov 13th 1906
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I am just reading a book that fascinates & pleases me greatly - the
7letters of Robert Lytton edited by his daughter Lady Betty Balfour.
8His daughter Con Lytton who is one of my closest friends has just sent
9it me. It is without any exception the most interesting book of
10letters I have ever read. As a rule a book composed of letters I
11simply will not read, & the more I love the person the less I am
12willing to read the letters because it always shows them in an a
13monotonous distorted light; but these letters have been chosen with so
14much tact & judgement they are really charming. If you should read
15them, I wish you would tell me what you think of them.
16
17 In politics I am of course as far divided from him as the East from
18the West; but on early all other points I have always felt a most
19curious sympathy with him. It is one of the tragedies of life that the
20people you most sympathize with in politics are those you least
21sympathize with in any other direction; & those you disagree with in
22politics are your own along all other lines. The letter he writes to
23John Morley when he feels that political differences are breaking
24their fellowship is very touching. Nothing in life is so agonizing as
25the parting of those who have once loved & trusted each other.
26
27 So, the world has gone round, & you are invited to Port Elizabeth, to
28enlighten the darkness there! Whatever else isnt true it certainly is
29true that the world goes round!
30
31 If you should pass through Matjesfontein please let me know that I may
32have the pleasure of going over to the station & shaking hands with
33you. I shall be here till the tenth of December. My husband is coming
34down from de Aar on Friday to spend two days with me; but just at
35present I am the only person in this big hotel It is really very
36comfortable here; I wonder why people don't come oftener.
37
38 Yours with many greetings to you both
39 Olive Schreiner
40
41 ^Have you read Coniston yet? My husband was as much impressed by it as
42I was.^
43

1 Dear Mr Merriman
2
3 Will you do me the favour of seeing that General Butler gets the
4enclosed note at once I don't know his movements. In what a truly
5shameful manner the Duke has made his visit here a party demonstration.
6 I have It should be be taken up fully & wisely by someone. I have
7just been reading Hervey's Memoir of the reign of George the 2nd. It
8is well worth reading, throws a strangely clear light on the nature of
9this ?Guelf family whom the English people at the present day delight
10to honour.
11
12 This is just a hurried note enclosing General Butler's letter.
13
14 Yours ever sincerely
15 Olive Schreiner
16

1 Wednesday night
2
3 Dear Mr Merriman
4
5 I have just had a great pleasure. Sir William Butler spent 24 hours
6with us. I have always said God doesn't give it to any man born in
7England ever to understand affairs in South Africa. But if he hasn't
8given it to any Englishman he has at least given it to this Irishman!
9I have not met any one born in this country or out of it with such a
10wonderful grasp on South African affairs as a whole. Large hearted,
11many sided, he is just the man South Africa has had need of, & has
12never had since Sir George Grey was here.
13
14 I have been reading with a good deal of interest that rather curious
15book "Frenzed Finance." Why oh why is the African News so dead & alive;
16 why does not not give poignant reviews, & con-cise bright leading
17articles dealing with such books & the endless other book & facts &
18that would educate the thought of young South Africa & set it thinking
19on the problems before it. We are terribly in need of a paper which
20shall be an awakening leading force in the country.
21
22 I hope we shall be able to see something of you & Mrs Merriman when we
23are in Town. At least I shall hear some of your speeches from the
24gallery. It is very important for some of us that parliament should be
25meeting in this cold wet time instead of two months earlier. The end
26of March, say the 25th would be the best time for its opening
27
28 Have you considered why I never refer to the question of womans
29position & the need for change in many directions, in my letters to
30you? Well, its because I can't. The matter lies so near to my heart,
31touches me so deeply that I can hardly dis-cuss it as an indifferent
32matter. It touches me as deeply as the question of the divinity of
33Christ & the sacredness of the Lords Supper touches an earnest
34Catholic. There are two subject which in the course of a rather long
35life I have never been able to dis-cuss with any one from academic,
36for the sake of dis-cussion, fond as I am of dis-cussion as a purely
37intellectual exercise - & these are religion & the matters relating to
38womans position. They lie too deeply among the roots of life to be
39ever lightly touched upon.
40
41 You will say, "But the mere question of woman's of political
42enfranchisement cannot be one affecting life so deeply." Yes - in one
43way the matter is a very, very little one; & yet in another it is very
44great. If you, John X Merriman were for five years owing to illness,
45business or absence from home, to abstain from casting your vote it
46would probably not appreciably affect the country, & not by a little
47affect your personal health, wealth, happiness or freedom; & so, in a
48way, it would be a small matter. But if a law were passed, that you,
49John X. Merriman, were not a fit & proper humanbeing to exercise the
50vote & prohibiting you from doing so, then in a moment the matter
51would become one of primary importance, worth fighting over & perhaps
52even under certain conditions laying down your life for. So small a
53thing in itself it would yet indicate your place in the society of
54which you form a part, your relation to your fellow men in a hundred
55ways, & so be of vital import.
56
57 More than that, the woman's question always presents itself to me as a
58whole. I cannot dis-cuss the ^seemingly small^ question of the franchise,
59 without out tracing its relation to other vast & vital human problems
60- prositution, the whole body of sex problems, the terrible parasitism
61of the woman of our upper wealthier classes, robbed of all forms of
62labour & becoming mere toys & seekers of pleasure; & the terribly
63under paid over worked condition of our women of the poorer classes, &
64the whole vast problem of the right of the individual human to freedom!
65 It's for me the bundle of straw, which pulled out of a hay rick
66brings the whole rick down upon your head! so I cannot dis-cuss it
67alone. ^But I fear my long scrawl will bore you.^
68
69 My husband is away at de Aar, or would join me in hearty greetings to
70you.
71
72 Yours ever
73 Olive Schreiner
74
75 ^Would it be possible for you if not too busy to tell me shortly, what
76the exact steps were by which the Imperial Government & the Military
77landed the responsibility for paying compensation for war losses on
78the heads of the unfortunate inhabitants of this Colony? I am not sure
79I have the facts quite right, & may need them shortly for something I
80am writing.^
81
82
83
84
85
86

1 Hanover
2 Feb 26th 1907
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I am so delighted that Solomon has not got in. it's the finest thing
7about the election. All his other desertions I might make excuses for
8th but this desertion of the Progressives I can't. A man on the make
9looking for place & power can never be trusted. I am the last person
10in the world to blame a man for changing his views. Fortunately (or
11unfortunately!) for myself I was born with such a firm constitutional
12?build in one ^certain^ direction, that unless I violated myself I
13should have to keep on in one course. I was a republican, a feeler of
14the injustice of woman's position, an opponent of all here-ditary
15rights to govern others, a believer in the primary moral importance of
16defending the weak, animals or men, against injustice of oppression ^&c
17&c^ when I was ten, just as I am today & must be when I'm eighty unless
18I sell my soul. But I know & believe there are numbers of person more
19gifted more valuable than myself, who have not been born with a kind
20of constitutional mandate "this is thy way; & thou shalt walk in it &
21no other." & who form their opinions in quite another way, & who grow
22& expand in the dropping of old stand points & the attaining to new; &
23I should be the last person to think that a man may not be deeply
24consciencious in changing his view, even of the largest questions in
25life. But when you see a cat sitting on a hedge, & he always jumps
26down on the side on which there is a mouse running, it is difficult to
27believe he is not looking after mice.
28
29 I so entirely agreed with your remarks ?to the interviewer, as
30reported in the paper. Pimm & Creswell were the two men I most wanted
31to see in; Abe Bailey was the man I hoped to see thrown out more than
32any other. But I really fix little hope on this incoming government or
33any other. The first thing they are trying to do is bring down wages.
34Really enlightened men & women must be in this country for the next 50
35^(perhaps 30! only)^ years as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
36
37 I am now as an old Boer would express it "full up to my throat" with
38South Africa. I have not lost my faith in the glorious forward march
39which humanity is still going to take upon earth; for "I doubt not
40through the ages one increasing purpose runs" -" . but here in South
41Africa we are the crest of a wave & there will be an awful sweep down
42wards before we mount on the other side; - hideous native wars,
43injustice & greed riding rampant, - with always the protesting few of
44course. Do not think I am despairing over human life & things generall;
45 I am more full of hope than ever; but just as I saw in England in 88
46that there was a long terrible downward dip before us, so I see it
47here today.
48
49 I have just got your speech on that most interesting fas-cinating of
50all question. I have not yet looked at it: am going to read it this
51afternoon. The subject of the decay & death of nature & empires has so
52interested me all my life that I have brought in a whole chapter in it
53in my big novel - which doesn't sound promising for the novel! - but
54it really had to come in, because the woman in the book was so
55interested in it.
56
57 I am very curious to see if your view & mine harmonize at all. You
58know it's only on the woman question you & I stand at such opposite poles
59
60^& I have hope we shall agree yet!!!^
61
62 Your friend,
63Olive Schreiner
64

1 Rossyvera
2 Norfolk Rd
3 Sea Point
4 Ju Aug 2nd 1907
5
6 My dear Mr Merriman
7
8 I was indeed very sorry that I was out when you called & that Mrs
9Merriman was out when I called on her.
10
11 I am a prisoner today with the damp weather, but have been reading a
12very interesting book "A year in Russia" by Maurice Baring a young
13journalist of real promise Have you read it? It was sent me by the
14friend to whom it is dedicated. I feel far more interested in European
15(Russian, Irish & other) affairs just now than in South African. The
16world's centre of interest has passed away from us; though of course
17practical politicians & newspaper men must keep on ?pegging away at
18their own little ?shoe however dull the work may be!
19
20 If there were only one occupation on earth left - that of a politician
21- I should not seek it, though many women are preeminantly fitted for
22such work. I should always like to represent myself, not other people.
23I hope you have quite recovered from your influenza. I am perhaps
24going to take a run up to Pretoria at the end of the session to spend
25a few weeks with the Smuts's & perhaps with my old friend Lady Innes
26She is one of the few of my old English friends who was large enough
27never to allow our strongly opposed political views to make one
28moment's difference in our attitude of personal sympathy & love.
29
30 The sad thing about politics seems to me the overmastering
31intro-duction of the personal element. I will fight to the death over
32a principle but I will not fight over persons. Under our wretched
33party system of government, it seems all persons & no principles. A
34change must come soon - even in England. Of course there are times
35when a party stand for a vast principle - as was the case here during
36the war - & an individual man may, for a time be the noble incarnation
37of that principle: but when party politics becomes a question of of
38ins & outs, of who shall stand first in a party & who second & third,
39it all becomes unspeakably depressing to me. The only really big
40question we have before us now is the native question & in that I fear
41I shall find myself one day in a minority of one.
42
43 Yours most sincerely
44 Olive Schreiner
45

1 Rocklands
2 Beach Road
3 Sea Point
4 Feb 8th 1910
5
6 Dear Mrs Merriman
7
8 I hope you understood I was not able to call on you before I left town
9because I was too ill to go anywhere. I tried Matjesfontein, but the
10doctors sent me down again as they said it was too high ^up there^ & now
11I am staying on here till I am better.
12
13 I thought your husbands speech at Worcester the finest he has made for
14years (though perhaps he will not like my saying so!) & agree with it
15entirely, almost.
16
17 Yours sincerely
18 Olive Schreiner
19
20

1 De Aar
2 May 26th 1910
3
4 My dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I have just seen the notice in the paper of your mother's death. I
7hope you will not feel it an intrusion that I write to express my deep
8sympathy with you. I know what her death must mean to you, & I am
9especially sorry that it has come at this time of much stress &
10anxiety for you. I can never forget how at a time of great stress &
11anxiety in my own life, when I seemed standing utterly alone a letter
12from you which I always treasure brought me much sympathy, the only
13sympathy I ever got in that terrible time from a South African. And I
14wish it were possible for me to be of a little help to you. But human
15sympathy can but help us little in facing the greatest afflictions of
16life. In one sense it may turn out best that you are not in the
17ministry You will now be free to act as a leader to that small "us"
18who realize that only by treating the South African natives with
19justice & binding them to us by affection can we make the future of
20South Africa great.
21
22 Please give my love to your wife & tell her how sorry I was she was
23away both times I called at Mount Nelson.
24
25 Yours very sincerely
26 Olive Schreiner
27
28 Please don't think this letter
29
30^needs any answer. I know how fully occupied your thoughts are^
31
32

1 c/o Haldane Murray
2 Portlock
3 nr Graaff Reinet
4 Dec 22nd 1910
5
6 Dear Mr Merriman
7
8 I am writing partly to send you & Mrs Merriman Xmas greetings; & yet
9more to express to you my great appreciation of your action on so many
10occasions during the last months; especially when you have spoken on
11the native question. It is sad - but not strange - that almost every
12attempt at legislation during the last session has in the direction of
13retrogression. The attempt to make legal marriage impossible between
14coloured & white, is but a small indication of the tide that has set
15in. The wagon of South Africa is beginning to make a long slide
16back-wards on the muddy road of time; & I am thankful that if you are
17not on the wagon chest as driver, that at least you are still walking
18along side to put a stone under the wheels now & then, & give a call
19to those oxen that are still struggling to hold things up. May you
20long be left to us as a country; & to the many men & women who
21recognize you as the ideal of outspoken rectitude in our public life.
22
23 I was very glad you put that little note in the paper explaining your
24pairing with J M Brown.
25
26 I am spending the hot summer months up here on this lovely solitary
27farm among the mountain tops, as the heat of de Aar was completely
28breaking me down. I have been able to do the first writing I have done
29for a year since I came here. The one life which South Africa has to
30offer which is worth living is the life on a farm, & I still cherish
31the dream that the day may come when my husband & I will be able to
32buy a little farm somewhere up among the mountains.
33
34 Hearty Xmas & New Year greetings to you both.
35
36 Yours very sincerely
37 Olive Schreiner
38
39

1 De Aar
2 Ap May 3rd 1911
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Thanks for your letter. I have not seen the article in the "Economist"
7you mention. In this out of the world place one sees nothing. I am
8quite curious to know what it has to say! If you could without too
9much trouble send it me I would at once return it.
10
11 The serious matter to me in the present political condition is that
12there seems to be no opposition. I am no admirer of party government;
13I hold it far from the last word of human wisdom as regards forms of
14government - but where there are two strongly opposed & nearly more
15equal parties, the swing of pendulum as the one goes in & the other
16goes out, does keep things more or less balanced & straight. Where the
17leaders of one party are playing into the hands of the ^leaders of the^
18other it becomes abut the rottenest system we can conceive of. To me
19things in South Africa have not looked so grey since the time Rhodes &
20the Bond were hand in glove. I am glad Sauer & Burton are in the
21ministry - they are our safe guard as far as the native question is
22concerned - & in as far as any thing can safe guard us, in that
23direction - which isn't far! The blind forces of ignorance & greed in
24our white population are slowly but surely driving us towards a great
25tragedy.
26
27 Thanks very much for the book, but I'm such a bad French scholar I
28only plough through a work with the help of a dictionary. I can read
29George Sand as easy as English, but then hers is such a wonderfully
30clear, practical French.
31
32 Yours very sincerely
33 Olive Schreiner
34

1 De Aar
2 May 12 / 11
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Pray don't trouble about the Economist. I thought you took it & might
7have it lying about your study. As a rule I don't read reviews of my
8books, but anything that deals "seriously" with economic aspect of
9woman's position is always of great interest to me. Merely from the
10academic standpoint it is a fascinating study, as indeed all economic
11& financial problems are. I am always longing for a new Bagehot to
12arise to illuminate the financial problems of our day with his genius,
13as he did those of a generation ago.
14
15 I shall certainly get "The Beast" I have just finished Chestertons
16book on the "Party System," lay awake half last night to finish it.
17His statement of present conditions is true, but I think he doesn't
18quite enough see that the fault lies with the people at large. ^Though
19I have held for 20 years that proportional representation would tend
20to set things right.^ It has always been matter of astonishment to me
21how not only the lower middle class, but people of the highest culture
22& who profess to be dominated by the highest sense of honour could
23submit to seeing brewers & the new rich generally put into the house
24of Lords & set to govern the nation, without rising as a body &
25smiting down the Government who attempted it, instead of accepting it
26as a perfect right & proper thing with smiling calm.
27
28 Yes, it is sad for those of us who feel our journey is not a long one
29now, to know we shall never live to see the better time which after 15
30or 16 years of blood shed struggle & retro-gression will I believe
31begin to dawn on South Africa. For you there is this thought that you
32will always be remembered as a man whose financial integrity was
33unshaded Men will say these things couldn't have been done in the days
34when Merriman was there to protest.
35
36 I am going up to the Victoria Falls by the excursion that leaves Cape
37Town on the 1st of June, with my brother Will's wife & children. It
38would be rather fine if you & Mrs Merriman were coming too.
39
40 Yours sincerely
41 Olive Schreiner
42

1 De Aar
2 July 2nd 1912
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 It would be impossible for me to tell you the depression I felt when I
7heard Hertzog had been appointed Minister for Native Affairs. But I
8passed through the bitterness of death in South African affairs when
9the Union was formed. It was then to me as if a wagon were drawn up at
10the top of a mountain & set slowly going back-wards over the edge - at
11first to move slowly but surely & steadily back-wards down a gentle
12slope, but gaining more & more speed as it moves down breaking &
13crashing everything that comes in its way, & its left at last at the
14bottom. I may be mistaken but I have always looked for a steady back
15ward movement for ten or fifteen years. I am simply obliged not to
16think of public matters which I am so powerless to help or touch. One
17sits by watching a tragedy. Do you note the wires in the papers saying
18there is no unrest in Basuto Land? That is the prelude to saying that
19there is!
20
21 I am deeply sorry about Sauer. It seems to me & & Burton ought to have
22resigned & they with many or at least some of us who would have stood
23by them through thick & thin would have formed a powerful third party
24able to keep any party in power from doing too many evils. It is in a
25powerful third party that the political hope of South Africa lies -
26such as it is. And are there men single minded enough to form such a
27party to renounce the hope of power & three or four thousand a year
28for impersonal aims?
29
30 I have been studying the defence act - with the blue book of military
31law - without which it is ?misunderstanding & its deep evil cannot ha
32be understood.
33
34 //A friend has just sent me from England a book called "Revolutionary
35Types" in it is an article on "Toussant L'ouvertoure." Which gives a
36few more details of his life than I have yet been able to get. But his
37real life is yet to be written. A literary friend to whom I wrote
38about says there is practically nothing in the British Museum but that
39is Paris there are the richest material for a life - political &
40orther documents & valuable article on him written at or soon after
41his time in magazines newspaper &c.
42
43 I wish I could start some one on writing a real life.
44
45 Did you note Fichard last out burst on the parliament being removed
46from Cape Town. It certainly will be under any conditions before long.
47When the Union was started before the parliament met two or three dead
48leading men told me in Pretoria it would not be there for more than
49two or three years at the most. This isn't a very cheerful letter
50
51 Yours ever
52 Olive Schreiner
53
54 ^My husband is away at the Victoria Falls. I have not seen a human face
55or spoken to a human being since he left ten days ago except my wild
56little coloured girl. One is almost as cut off from the world at de
57Aar as on a desert Island!^
58

1 De Aar
2 Aug 11th 1912
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman.
5
6 Re. your letter. No, I do not take a sorrowful view of life generally;
7nor above all of the of condition of the world at the present day. I
8think in many countries things are what an American would call on the
9"up grade." The clear minded impartial looker on knows perfectly well,
10or ought to, when things in his country or any other (of which he has
11intimate knowledge) are going, as he from his standpoint forwards or
12backwards. Sometimes ^of course^ the backward movement is permanent, &
13means death. This was the case when the Roman Empire decayed; when
14Greece in third century, ^& second century^ began to fail. Far seeing
15souls did then see the decay, & did see all it meant; & were surely
16sorrowful. But there are smaller waves of backward movement & of
17forward. In 1880 when I went to England a strong (from my standpoint)
18forward movement was setting in. It continued till (roughly speaking)
19about 89 88. Then we who there were working at ^in^ the heart of things,
20felt a change becoming to come; subtle, but wide, & unmistakable. We
21all felt it. In 1890 when I left England to visit South Africa, we
22were looking into each others faces & saying "What is it that is
23coming over ^our^ English life." There was from the liberal & advanced
24stand point a distinct & vast back-wash setting in: When I went back ^&^
25it was to go on till it produced the Jameson Raid & the Boer War. When
26I went back to England for a visit in the year af ter ^after^ of the
27Jameson Raid, things had reached a much lower level than when I left
28in 1890. A dead unreadable ^pall^ rested over the whole life of the
29people - it was ghastly! You yourself The upper class - "society" -
30under the growing influence of the then Prince of Wales, Edward, was
31becoming rotten to its core. I shall never forget ^when^ one of the
32Princes "smart set," the daughter of a Lord married to the son of a
33Duke, called on me at half past 11 in the morning with white kid
34gloves on, loaded on the out the outside with diamond rings almost to
35the fingertips - frowsy ^dyed^ yellow hair hanging into her eyes, &
36looking like the most abandoned prostitute (I thought when I went into
37the drawing room to meet her she was one of the unhappy women I used
38to work among come to see me); & she entertained me with her views on
39sex matters, saying for instance that when a woman had born two
40legitimate children to a man to inherit his title & position she had a
41perfect right to amuse herself with other men as she liked &c &c. The
42days of the Lady Lyttons & Burdett Coutts's was passing at court, ^&
43social life was rotting from above downwards.^
44
45 The "noncomformist conscience" that Rhodes so hated & feared was
46dieing in the middle classes, a passion for dress, luxury & gain was
47eating it up. The saddest of all to me was the change among my own
48section the working classes & democratic organizations. The noble
49impersonal enthusiasm which had played such a large part among us in
50the early 80's was dead ^or at least torpid.^ A lifeless striving after
51gain for themselves had taken its place. Literature was at its lowest
52ebb. Tit Bits & ?Alles ?Slopper were flooding the land: The whole
53press ^almost^ was in the hands of the capitalists - because they
54represented the spirit of the nation. Literature was dying; In place
55of the giants Wil who were passing ^William^ Morris, Browning Tennyson,
56Huxley Darwin, we had our idol Rudyard Kippling - & he gave voice to
57the soul of the people when he thirsted for a land -
58
59 "Where the best is like the worst,
60 And there ain't no ten commandments,
61 And a man can slake his thirst!"
62
63 You, yourself must have felt something of this ^downward movement in
64England^ for in a letter you wrote me two days before I sailed for
65England ^at the time of the Jameson trial^, you told me, I would be
66disappointed that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to be hoped
67for from England! I knew & had felt the great material^ist^ reaction
68that was coming on in 1890 when I left England, but even I could not
69believed till I went there that my England; the England of the earlier
7080's was so wholly dead. I shall never forget my my interview with
71John Morley at the time of the Jameson trial. How politely he sneered
72at me when I spoke of the great war Rhodes & Chamberlain would bring
73about in South Africa, & its terrible results. How politely he implied
74that I was imaginative & mislead ^by feeling,^ that such a thing was
75impossible! That he knew Joe Chamberlain well with all his faults but
76that he was going to make such a war ^as^ I painted was inconceivable.
77You felt every-where that you were battering your head against a stone
78wall that never moved. One day 7 leading Englishmen of widely unlike
79types came to see me in succession & I put to each of them the
80question what was the meaning of the terrible changes that has passed
81over the life of England. Each gave a slightly different reason; but
82not one denied that a great war of materialism, a deadness towards all
83the higher & nobler aspects of human life had crept over the nation:
84that there was a great back-ward movement.
85
86 I think my friend J A Hobson was nearest the truth when dis-cussing
87this great backward movement with me some years later he said, "We are
88are suffering from a wave of excessive commercial prosperity 'Ephraim
89hath waxed fat & kicked' " But that there was such a backward movement,
90 to be ended only when England was pulled up sharply to the earth by
91the Boer war with its subsequent loss & shame, I think no one who in
92the future studies the history of England will doubt.
93
94 You will no doubt say "What on earth are you raking up these old
95stories for? No one doubts them." I am doing it in answer to your
96criticism. You say, I am needlessly depressed when I say I perceive a
97steady downward & backward movement in South Africa, which it seems to
98me, must go on for twelve, fifteen, or even twenty years; & you say,
99"Things are never so bad as they seem." Not only are they sometimes as
100bad, but they are sometimes much worse!
101
102 We, who between 1888 & 1890, felt the great backward wave creeping
103over us in England, knew that many & evil days were coming; but even
104in our most farseeing moments ^did^ we never pictured anything so
105morally shameful & nationally degrading as the wave of greed &
106Imperial lust that was to to sweep over England, always increasing in
107volume of 12 or 14 years; to end with ^the^ connivance of Rhodes,
108Chamberlain & Edward the 7th in the Boer war; which all but brought
109England on to her knees. It is true that in the last years England has
110been ^rudely^ awakened again; & is now moving forward slowly - but evil
111bears fruits which long poison the soil on which it falls.
112
113 I feel about South Africa exactly as I did about England between 1888
114& 1890 when the downward reaction was first setting in. I cannot blind
115my eyes to the conditions of the society about me. Some day the
116movement may be reversed when we have had some great & terrible lesson;
117 but the backward movement is here now.
118
119 We are seeking slowly & steadily to undo the work which the George
120Greys & William Porters & Saul Solomons sought to begin in this
121country: our social & moral ideals are sinking. ?Burton & Saul Solomon
122tried to start We are narrowing our social & political rights - we are
123trying to with-draw even educating advantages from the mass of our
124people, who are our natives. In our defence force we are going to tax
125the nation to inaugurate a vast power for evil & blood shed, & civil
126war; which will begin with the native but not end there. When we have
127had our big native wars & dispossessed the native of his land, we may
128get cheap labour for the mine owner & the farmer, but we shall have
129created such a ^terrible^ proletariate as our will be our ultimate
130undoing Perhaps to me the saddest of all parts of the out look is the
131attitude of our so called labour party - much sadder to me than can be
132to you, who are not yourself a democrate & a sympathizer with labour
133in all lands. They are no real "labour party" at all, but a little
134plutocratic body seeking to crush down the mass of labourers, as much
135as any body of mine owners & land owners. The mere fact that our
136politicians have been able to give themselves incomes of three & four
137thousand a year in a poor country like South Africa - they they have
138have been able to carry out their plot of money granting for the
139building at Pretoria - & the nation has taken these things sitting down,
140 shows to me the direction in which we are moving.
141
142 Do not think that I mean there is no virtue left in South Africa.
143There is always Elijah at the door of his cave in the darkest hours of
144national degeneracy - & no doubt the Lord hath reserved to himself the
145ninety-&-nine thousand - but if he has, he has hidden them so away in
146the hollow of his hand that they don't show.
147
148 I know even in public life there are men like yourself & my brother
149who have principles & ideals, to whom 3 or 4 or it might be 6 thousand
150a year would be but as a handful of sand compared to leading the
151people on paths that seem to you right. But you will never be leaders:
152a man cannot lead when there is no one to unreadable ^follow!^ I do not
153blame the politicians alone - people make their governments A little
154oligarchy eaten up by the desire of keeping all South Africa to
155themselves & filling their pockets with gain, whether Englishmen or
156Dutch-men, mine owners or farmers, has got quite as good a government
157as it desires.
158
159 A little white Oligarchy seeking even to exclude more white men from
160the country that it may retain all advantage & gain for itself, &
161seeking to crush down & hold only for its own advantage the body of
162labouring millions, must ultimately bring about its own terrible
163retribution. What form exactly it will take no one can yet say.
164Perhaps it may be in 15 or 20 years when a great Asiatic fleet rides
165in Table Bay, & the down trodden millions who should be our main
166defence & strength, leap up to join a power, which may give them more
167justice, & cannot give them less? ?In
168
169 Some great reversal of our ideals & aims may save up. But I see no
170sign now of that reform.
171
172 I'm afraid you'll never get through this fearfully written scrawl. So
173I won't say any more. You see I'm trying to justify myself to you!
174
175 Yours very sincerely
176 Olive Schreiner
177
178 I really must apologise for inflicting on you this long tirade P: You
179will think my pen tonight is like the mill that couldn't leave off
180grinding till the whole sea became salt!
181

1 de Aar
2 Oct 22nd 1912
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 It's strange how often it happens that just when you are going to
7write to a friend they write to you. I'd an envelope just addressed on
8my dest when your letter came. I wonder much what you felt about
9Hertzogs speeches?
10
11 Thank you for Well's book. I was just wishing to read it. The tone is
12to me as you say much less painful in a certain spiritual coarseness
13than his other late book. But how detestable all his women are; &
14impossible too in the deeper sense! The only woman he's ever painted
15who strikes me as real & lovable is that 'Aunt" in "Tono-Bungay" But
16this "marriage" is profoundly interesting in its attempt to paint the
17pitiful soul of the woman who lives in externals, & who must spend at
18all lost & at all cost to others. But Wells doesn't quite understand
19the woman he paints. If she were as intelligent as he paints says she
20was, she would have had to a wickeder woman to act as she did. If she
21was a "fool" - of course a fool can do anything!
22
23 Wednesday
24
25 I have just been reading the account of Patrick Duncans pamphlet in
26the Argus. It is the one cheering thing I have seen in the papers for
27a long time. Of course you know Patrick Duncan well? I think him an
28exceedingly fine & valuable man.
29
30 I suppose Sauer will soon be out. I do trust he is not going to allow
31himself to be kicked out of the ministry, & then take some highly paid
32post, that would keep him silent for ever. We cannot afford to lose
33him altogether. If he would only stand out & fight, how many of us
34would follow his lead! Numbers are not everything. The one hope for
35South Africa to-day would lie in some small party strong in ability &
36a large liberal out look; whose members first object would be not to
37seek for office; but who were willing to remain out of office & to
38hold the balances between the office seeking parties, & prevent either
39from too retrogressive a course. Do you see any possibility of such a
40party being formed?
41
42 I finished reading "Marriage" last night, found much in it I would
43like to dis-cuss with you.
44
45 Yours very sincerely
46 Olive Schreiner
47
48 The drought here is terrible. Never since de Aar was de Aar the the
49doctors tell me, has there been anything like the amount of illness
50there has been in the last two months.
51

1 De Aar
2 Novem 20th 1912
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Many thanks for the booklet. It is Interesting.
7
8 I am leaving for Cape Town tomorrow night, & shall stay at my brother
9Will's till New Year & after that at Muizenberg. The heat & height
10here are very trying - the drought grows worse & worse. We have had no
11drop of rain for 9 months. I hope I shall see something of you & Mrs
12Merriman when Parliament begins & you come down.
13
14 Yours sincerely
15 Olive Schreiner
16
17 Have you read an interesting article on Lloyd George by Lisle Marsh
18Phillipps, in the "English Review" for November? Phillips is always
19interesting.
20
21 I hope Fitchat will get in for Grahamstown, but fear it will be one of
22the other two. We want a few independent men in the house just now.
23

1 De Aar
2 Sunday night
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Thank you very much for your letter. The woman question, as you know,
7lies so near to my heart I can't dis-cuss it with any one.
8
9 But I am delighted you should have found matter for interest in my
10little book. What pains me is that in it I have only dealt with a
11small part of a great human question, which cannot be rightly grasped
12unless all its sides be seen.
13
14 I have just been reading the delightful autobiography of my dear old
15friend Sir William Butler. It never sinks to vulgar personal detail, &
16yet through it all beautiful, childlike, genius-ful spirit of the man
17speaks. I had a long letter from him written just three weeks before
18he died. I was going to answer it on the day when I heard of his death.
19 It was a comfort to me to realize that even had I answered it the day
20I got it ^it^ would not have reached him in time.
21
22 Have you read a novel called "The House of Mirth" by Edith Warton? It
23is a curiously interesting book, as being the life of a typical female
24"Parasite," written not with any sermonizing interest, but simply, &
25one might almost say ^unconsciously^ produced, as art. It is a type from
26which one shrinks so strongly, & yet for which one feels so much pity,
27as the out come of unhealthy social conditions.
28
29 I hope you are going to enjoy a long good rest after what seems to
30have been a very trying time of labour. You have done invaluable work
31this session. For me, I see a long 12 or 15 years of ^a^ down hill path
32for this country; when, having learnt some terrible lessons with
33regard to the treatment of our fellows brown or black - such as
34England had in her Boer war only on a much larger scale - the path
35will slowly begin to ascend. I do not see how studying the attitude of
36the majority of white men in this country the most terrible crimes &
37mistakes can be avoided - as you say, one fears to speak lest one
38bring things nearer. When I hear people talk of the absolute necessity
39of an exterminating war with the Basutos & dark races generally
40because they are so rapidly becoming socialized & skilled workmen, &
41if not crushed now will never be crushed; I am always reminded of a
42visit a friend of mine paid to Milner before the Boer war, when he
43stuck his hands on the arms of his chair, & said, "It is now or never!
44They will become too strong for us if we wait!" How often is man's
45"now", God's "never"!!! They talk so much of the far seeingness of
46business men, & "men of the world"; but it seems to me often they are
47the blindest things that walk the earth. Their gaze is fixed with such
48intensity on the bit of earth just under their feet, that they fail to
49see the yawning precipice towards which they are slowly & surely
50moving.
51
52 I hope your health keeps good; & that we have many long years of your
53work still before us.
54
55 Yours sincerely
56 Olive Schreiner
57

1 Grand Hotel,
2 Muizenberg,
3 Saturday night.
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 I hope you are feeling fit & strong for the cession It was nice to see
8you for a moment at the Innes's. I wonder what what you thought of
9Hertzog & Tathams speeches.
10
11 Tatham seems to me absolutely mad! His statement that the British
12Empire came into being because Edward the 4th refused to export wood
13makes one's brain go round. But But folly & madness can be very
14dangerous things. Peter the Hermit preached a crusade that cost
15hundreds of thousands of human lives! I thought Sauer's speech at the
16dinner very good.
17
18 I want very much to come in to some of the debates but it's difficult
19to know, now my husband is not in the house, when an interesting one
20will come on. They say Hertzog is going to keep quite silent - but I
21doubt ^it.^
22
24 Yours very sincerely
25Olive Schreiner
26

1 Alexandra Hotel
2 Muizenberg
3 Tuesday 1912
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman
6
7 I wonder if you will think I am taking a great liberty if you ask you
8if ever you think you think you will be making a speech in the house
9on any interest point, you could perhaps drop me a line to let me know
10so that I may come in. The heat of Cape Town unfits me very much, &
11the say the new speakers gallery is unspeakably close. So I dont wish
12ever to come in on the chance of hearing nothing, but Mr Haggar or
13some equally absorbing speaker. Of course one doesn't always know when
14one will speak. I hope you won't think I'm too troublesome.
15
16 I wish you & Mrs Merriman were here instead of at Mount Nelson. The
17air here is glorious. I've not felt so well for some years as during
18the last four days I shall probably stay here till the end of March.
19
20 I wonder if you have read that "House of Mirth" by Edith Warton which
21I spoke of at the farm. My little niece Lyndall Schreiner has just
22read it, & is as much impressed by it as I was. But novels do appeal
23in such very different ways to different persons.
24
25 I hope you are feeling fit & strong for battle. It is the squatters'
26bill that gets me on the raw.
27
28 Yours sincerely
29 Olive Schreiner
30

1 Alexandra Hotel
2 Muizenberg
3 Monday, 1912
4
5 Dear Mr Merriman,
6
7 Thank you very sincerely for your letter. I hope to come in on the
815th.
9
10 The interest in the House of Mirth lies not in the least in the love
11story - that is only necessary because it shows how even love falls
12powerless in the presence of the absolute love of pleasure, ease,
13excitement & the material good of life - in the case of those unhappy
14modern women who are tending to become parasitic
15
16 I know of two women whose attitude towards life - though it is in no
17way a sermon - has been materially influenced by it - so the book
18cannot be wholly powerless. But I can quite understand it is outside
19the line of those many important interests that are necessarily
20absorbing your life & thought just now. One can't be interested in
21every thing - though I think both you & I have have the same
22characteristic of being interested in almost every thing - & running
23out - if it is possible - in too many directions!
24
25 I see nothing of the vulgar side of Muizenberg. I have only once been
26near the beach to look for someone in the ten days I have been here. I
27sit in my little room writing all day, with a glorious view of the Bay
28& Simons town & Cape Point from my big window & after dinner walk on
29the high road or look in on some of my friends who have cottages along
30it. It perfectly ideal to me. I don't know when I've been so happy.
31
32 "Alles ten besten"
33 Olive Schreiner
34

1 De Aar
2 Tues-day
3
4 Dear Mrs Merriman
5
6 Many thanks for your letter I have written for the price lists
7
8 We live largely on dried peaches & they seem difficult to get in the
9Western Province. I suppose it pays better to sell really good peaches
10than dry them. At Prince Albert they are too far from the railway, so
11they dry all their fruit.
12
13 Please thank your husband for his letter. Tell him, I say, who is
14doing the lamentations of Jeremiah now?!! With his - "Truly we are
15like the children before the flood" &c &c!!! I have a most absolute
16faith in the good & beauty of the future destiny of the human race on
17earth;
18
19 "All we have willed & hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
20 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
21 Whose voice has gone forth, but each sorrows for the melodist,
22 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
23 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
24 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
25 Are music sent up to God by the ?seer & the bard; -
26 Enough that he heard at once: we shall hear it by-&-by."
27
28 I think that sums up my religion very well. Even at the present day I
29think human affairs are advancing gloriously in the world as a whole.
30Even in England to-day things are going forward as I hardly dared to
31hope a few years ago.
32
33 The fact that China is awakening from her long sleep & even the women
34are ceasing to bind their feet; that the women in Turkey are seeking
35for education & advancing gives me great joy. But here in South Africa
36for the present we are in a back water. When the boys & girls, & those
37who are infants in arms now, are the men & women of South Africa a
38better time will come! - though we shall not be here to see it. Girls
39like my two nieces Lyndall & Ursula ^Schreiner^ & Bessie Reitz are such
40a joy to me. Do you know Bessie Reitz? She is the most remarkable girl,
41 with a heart as warm & large as her intellect is bright & burning.
42Have you heard that Julie Brown is engaged to Hugo Naude? She wrote to
43tell me yesterday.
44
45 No, I have not read Sully's new books. I have just got a new book in
46Proportional Representation by John Humphreys which I think will be a
47treat.
48
49 I was not surprised at Sauer's action. I am never surprised at
50anything a politician does. Twice a politician has almost broke my
51heart by disappointing the high hopes I had fixed on him - now no more.
52 I expect nothing.
53
54 Many thanks for all the trouble you took in answering my letter.
55
56 Hearty greetings to your husband. What I love about him is his
57openness & directness, which is quite incompatible with the intrigue
58which marks the true politician.
59
60 Yours very sincerely
61 Olive Schreiner
62
63 ^Please excuse the blots I am cooking the dinner & watching a boy carry
64in ground to my garden at the same time as I'm writing my mail letters
65& I don't seem to be like the wonderful man who could do three things
66perfectly at once.^
67

1 De Aar
2 Wednesday.
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I thought your speech on the Native Bill very fine, but oh if you
7could have seen your way to vote against the Bill! But the speech was
8exceedingly fine.
9
10 Up here one knows little how things are going. But if the result of
11all this wrangling is to break up the purely racial parties that exist
12at present it will not have been with out its good. There really ought
13to be three parties in this country - the extreme flagwaving folk, on
14one side with their wretched imperialism & the extreme taal
15retro-gressives on the other; & a third of liberal enlightened men of
16both races in the middle; but I suppose there is small hope of that
17^just at present.^
18
19 I wonder what you really think of the position of affairs now?
20
21 I have just been re-reading some very old books. "Robinson Crusoe";
22read last when I was 9 years old. I must say I'm tremendously
23disappointed with it. I'd no idea there was so much endless padding &
24unnecessary moralizing in it. Then I've been reading for the first
25time Duma's "Three Mus-keeters." What a wonderful thing genius is! I
26who hate above all things fighting, adventure & filibustering, have
27read it with breathless interest. There us really nothing a man of
28genius can't write about & make it interesting! Have you seen "The New
29Statesman"? Mrs Sydney Webb has sent me the first copies & wants me to
30write for it. It is in a way interesting but I think not nearly as
31good as "The Nation." There is too much "tall" modern writing in it.
32What I joy there is in turning from that type of English to the old
33classical writers, even "Robinson Crusoe"! I think we owe much of this
34^modern^ decedence in the English language to Meredith & ?Bates. It
35might be forgiven in Meredith because I believe it was natural to him,
36but its hideous in the men who affect it. As some politicians use a
37cloud of words to cover their real meaning, so some writers invert
38their sentences & use impossible words in wrong places to hide their
39want of thought.
40
41 Please remember me very kindly to Mrs Merriman. I am so sorry I saw so
42little of while in Cape Town, but I was able to go nowhere while at
43Muizenberg except twice to lunch & four times to the house owing to my
44unfitness. I hope you keep fit. We can't do without you.
45
46 Yours very sincerely
47 Olive Schreiner
48

1 De Aar
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 Though I only posted my note to you this morning I must add a line to
7tell you how delighted I was with your remarks reported in Friday's
8paper.
9
10 Serious as the tax on amusements is, it is not half so serious as the
11"ridiculous little publication" as you so well call the "de Waals
12Catechism." Where are we going to? Your speech was simply splendid; so
13was Jagger's. Picture only, giving a man like de Waal the right to act
14as censor over all the literature which may or may not be acted,
15recited, or in any way be used in public or private for enter tain
16ments!
17
18 I am thankful you spoke on these matters. It most assuredly was your
19duty.
20
21 Yours sincerely
22 Olive Schreiner
23
24 I fear you won't agree with me, but I felt Bothas remarks about Rhodes
25at the ?unveiling of Krugers statue entirely uncalled for & in very
26bad taste. It is such things as this which excuse Hertzog & his
27followers. Of course I don't believe in the two streams theory; all
28racialism is hateful to me; but Botha's speeches are sometimes more
29than even I can stand.
30

1 De Aar
2 July 20th 1913
3
4 Dear Mr Merriman
5
6 I have not answered your last interesting letters because I have been
7too ill to write to any one. Letters mean so much to me in this
8solitary life that I feel it a great loss when I can't write.
9
10 I am very anxious about Mr Sauer. Is it not tragic that the last act
11of our dear friend's political life should have been, if he is taken
12from us, the framing of that native land bill? It runs against all he
13has so faithfully upheld during his life. How little place & power
14look when one approaches the end of the journey. Nothing matters but
15the knowledge that in however small a way one has always fought
16against human injustice & oppression. If only we could awake South
17Africa to see to-day that though for the moment we can refuse the vote
18the right to hold land & nearly all other human rights to the vast
19native population of South Africa the day is coming, in less than 15
20years when the millions will rise up & demand, what we might by
21generously giving them now win their love & gratitude. Dispise not the
22day of small things. A class or a sex or race refused in a so-called
23democratic state under 20th century conditions the right to take its
24share in in the government of the state will ultimately be driven the
25lamentable use of force, & answer repression with resistance which
26must shake society to its foundations. It is hard to leave South
27Africa seeing no little glimmering of the great modern truths among
28its leading people.
29
30 "Oh hadst thou known even more, in this thy day, the things that make
31for thy peace - but now they are hidden from thee!"
32
33 I hope you are keeping well.
34
35 Yours very sincerely
36 Olive Schreiner
37
38 PS. A friend told me the other day that you had become much more
39liberal on the woman question than you used to be. I hope it is true.
40You of all men must know that it is by changing & expanding that we
41live. The doctors say that physically a man or woman is just as old as
42their arteries; when these have hardened & will not expand, we a
43physically old at any age, & while they have the power of expanding &
44changing we are physically young. (I expect your arteries are in a
45very good state, much better than mine!!) So it always seems to ^me^,
46that spiritual & mental old age has come on when we cannot expand
47anymore & modify our ideas.
48
49 To die young is to "die learning." We can't wish anything better for
50ourselves or for those we love. Years do not make age. It is so
51beautiful to me with my old brother Will that he has expanded & grown
52so wonderfully in the last few years. People often say of you "But
53Merriman said this or that ten or twenty years ago!" My answer always
54is - "That is the glory of Merriman, that he is eternally young &
55growing."
56