1 Hanover
2 Jan 5 / 03
3
4 Dear old Ed,
5
6 A good new year to you all, especially Mat & his wife. Cron is going
7down to Cape Town with all the other members of Parliament belonging
8to our party. (The South African party it is called) to see Joe
9Chamberlain & have a talk with him about things I don’t feel much
10interest in his visit or expect anything from any little accident of
11that kind. Things will now run there big appointed course in South
12Africa. Individuals may a little hasten or retard them - nothing can
13change them materially. A few years later, a few years sooner – that
14is all. England has sealed her doom here: there is not a man living
15who can save her now. I am still reading "The Soul of a People". I
16read it every night when I lie awake it seems to soothe the rumples &
17krinkles out of my brain like a large gentle hand stroking & smoothing
18it. It just strikes me that I think once in a PS you did mention the
19book in one of your letters to me during the war, & asked me if I had
20read it.
21
22 The book always reminds me a bit of you & of Bob. Its some such sort
23of book our Bob would have written, if instead of his genius expending
24itself on mathematics & loving his babies he had sat down his heart in
25a book. What is so valuable in the book is not at all the religious
26views expressed; one knew all that long ago: it’s the wide, loving,
27tender soul one comes in contact with in the book that is so sweet. It
28seems to melt all the stiffening & hardening that pain has left behind
29in the soul.
30
31 I don’t think the tendency to unreadable is always to unreadable
32
33 I hear from Bob you & he had a nice time together. Good bye
34 Olive
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