1 Dear E.C.
2
3 I’ve been ill for some time & your book has been more help & comfort
4to me than ever before. I thought you’d like to know. There are
5times when one doesn’t realize what a help one has been to others, &
6feels sad, & then if ever you feel like that I’d like you to know
7what a help you’ve been to me.
8
9 I’m moving into town in a few days to see if I can’t get better
10there & I’ll let you have my address when I’m settled so that if
11you come I may perhaps see you.
12
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15
16
17

1 Hotel Roth
2 Clarens
3 Lake of Geneva
4 Jan 13th 1887
5
6 Dear Edward Carpenter
7
8 I’ve heard that K. Pearson is all right so don’t trouble to
9enquire.
10
11 It is all wonderfully white & peaceful here. One seems to feel that
12not only the tiny problems of one’s own small life, but the great
13world problems will be well solved at last when one looks at it all.
14They have real, "live" stars here that twinkle like at the Cape,
15almost, but this sky isn’t like ours.
16
17 My work seems pressing on me so, it almost crushes me. If I could get
18away among the mountains, & be quite alone I feel as if I could
19grapple with it. I mean to do that in the Spring. The question of sex
20is so very complex, & you cannot treat it adequately at all unless you
21show its complexity. Complex as our labour question would be to
22^problem is^ & difficult to embody in any form of art, I feel it would
23be far more simple than this. I sometimes in my moments of weakness
24feel inclined to leave it ^the sex question^ & turn to the other problem
25which is always drawing me; but if one once turned aside from the work
26one felt to be one’s own and took another before the time came, one
27would be lost. It would be as if a great iron weight had rolled off me
28if I had once said what I have to say. unreadable
29
30 Yes, Ellis has a strange reserved spirit. The tragedy of his life is
31that the outer man gives no expression to the won-derful beautiful
32soul in him, which now & then flashes out on you when you come near
33him. In some ways he has the noblest nature of any human being I know.
34
35 I am ashamed of the letters I wrote you the other day, but I’ve been
36very weak & ill, with no power of self-repression left. You won’t
37mind?
38
39 Olive
40
41
42

1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Italy
4 April 11 / 87
5
6 Dear Edward Carpenter
7
8 Your card was forwarded me here. Thankyou for your the paper. All
9socialist news is of intense interest, & I hear none.
10
11 //I want to know about the book, & also I want to repeat my suggestion
12that you should reprint in the form of a leaflet that page in Towards
13Dem. called Have Faith, for the use of those in physical suffering
14especially.
15
16 I cannot tell you how valuable that first section of Have Faith is. So
17exceedingly common place as it seems in one sense, it puts better than
18is put anywhere else to my knowledge that profound & all comforting
19truth of the compensation that underlies life. Please do this.
20
21 You must have had a good time at Sheffield with Mrs Wilson & ?Krop.
22There are times when I feel a longing for human intercourse & sympathy,
23 but it is best I should be alone.
24
25 When I have earned 40 pounds I am going to buy a tiny cottage
26somewhere in Switzerland with a garden & live there. I know by
27experience what that life means, how much of freedom & joy. It’s
28usually true how in such a life one almost has to give up animal food
29because one can’t kill the things!!
30
31 I am able to work again. It is very splendid. I was ill at Mendrisio,
32I thought I should not get well again, but I am all right now. Are you
33well? I would like in your letters a little more about yourself:
34
35 Have you read Karl Pearson’s pamphlet "Sex & Socialism", just
36published? What do you think of it. It expresses most exactly my views
37on the subject except with regard to the state supporting the
38childbearing woman &c.
39
40 Perhaps it’s better you shouldn’t see him just now. We have each
41to fight out our lives alone, we can never intentionally help other
42people, the help comes by accident when it comes.
43 I have not heard anything of him since I left England.
44
45 I don’t think I have anything for the song book. When I make verse
46it is something too irregular to be sung.
47
48 The sun is very glorious here, something so infinitely "smoothing" is
49in this sea & sky, it is as if something was stroking you, but it
50doesn’t touch or help me as Switzerland does. Oh to wake up & see
51the sun rising with a sheen of pink over all the snow fields! It is
52something worth having lived for.
53
54 Why am I having all this rest & pleasure, when you are all in the dark
55fighting
56
57 There is something I thought of last night in bed that I wanted to say
58to you; now I can’t remember it, so this must go without it.
59
60 Yours with love
61 Olive Schreiner
62
63 You are right about the simplification of life, it is not a branch
64question, it is a root question.
65
66 ^We have little shocks of earthquake here every day. I am living in an
67empty Hotel from which every one has fled who could. It is very quiet
68& good for work. I can walk alone on the terrace all day with the sea
69& sunlight.^
70
71
72

1 Alassio
2 Italy
3 Tuesday night
4
5 My dear old Friend
6
7 I don’t know why I suddenly want to write to you unless it is that
8there’s a man here, who looks exactly like you, such a nice French
9man with his wife, & I saw him walking up the passage just now. I
10never talk to them but I feel a little thrill of pleasure whenever I
11see him. When you & Oates go to Capri I wish you’d come round this
12way & sleep here a night. I’m nice now, I’m not like I used to be.
13And I’d take you & show you both my ruined church, & you never saw
14any thing so nice. I am sure send you ought. You’ll do much more
15work when you get back for having a little rest. Let me have the song
16book please. I’ll send you my book when it’s done - which will be
17never.
18
19 The little sheep here are so nice & they walk about after their
20shepherds. It seems to me that everything here is so beautiful. The
21sea & sky are such a lovely blue now.
22
23 Edward, do you know I’m beginning to see our Socialist movement much
24more clearly & as a whole since I’m here, & can look at it from a
25distance, & I see many things with regard to it that were not clear to
26me before we might in fact many things have got clear to me of late on
27many subject. And at the same time I have a feeling stronger that ever
28before of the mystery & insolubility of things. What little tiny
29children we are & what does it mean
30
31 Good night; now, I must write. I am just having a little rest in
32talking to you. If ever you know Karl Pearson will you try to love him
33very much? You will bring him just what he needs, & perhaps he would
34strengthen you a little as he has strengthened me so much. I wish I
35was a man that I might be friends with all of you, but you know my sex
36must always divide. I only feel like a man, but to you all I seem a
37woman! Has George’s wife got her baby? There is a pretty little
38Italian peasant baby here that I am so fond of. The men here seem so
39happy & do nothing & sit in the sun. The women look tired & over
40worked, but yet happier than ours. I am living pretty cheaply here
41because the hotel keeper took me for less because I came when there
42was no one, but I somehow feel reproached because I am enjoying so
43much. You know the kind of feeling. I ought to get through more work
44than I do with everything so comfortable.
45
46 Olive
47
48 ^Send back my dreams. I don’t want to loose that MS. The two printed
49ones are feeble & were written long ago. OS^
50
51
52

1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Italy
4
5 Why didn’t you come to Agni while I was still here It’s quite
6close. I am leaving this on third ^of May^ get to Arona on Lake Maggiore
7the same evening & stay there for a couple of days going about the
8Lake in a steamer before I go on to Switzerland It’s wonderfully
9restful going about on these lake steamers, the most restful kind of
10motion there is. If you found it in your way to be there just then we
11could go about together. It’s right on your way to Agni; the direct
12like line if you come the St. Gotthard way to Italy. If you come later
13I’ll be somewhere near the lake of Lucerne, I think at ?Aeusty! If
14you felt inclined you might have a look at me in passing eh? There is
15nothing helps one like travelling when one is in pain. It’s well to
16say "work", but there’s a certain amount of pain which must be
17stilled before one can work, that’s just it.
18
19 I wish you could come to Italy soon, it’s no fancy only because one
20is in England & the without the sun; that makes one feel it would help
21one so. You don’t know how it helps me in the morning ^when I wake^ &
22first I feel that load with which one wakes, & then the thought "there
23will be sunshine!" You’ll soon feel stronger here.
24
25 What I wanted to say & forgot was an idea which likely you’ve also
26had which shows the "scientific"!!!! ground which underlies, (if we
27choose to unearth it) our pleas in favour of sy simplicity of living.
28I illustrate it by the analogy of a palm tree, I’ll work it out &
29show you some day. The last days I’ve not been working. I’ve got
30into a wild restless state again, & must "move on."
31
32 I’m glad about the book. My book’s going to be lovely, only no
33publisher will take it, & the libraries won’t circulate it.
34
35 Olive Schreiner
36
37 If you think it would be restful I’ll like to much to see you. You &
38Mrs Walters are the only two people ^I’d like to see.^
39
40 ^Thank you for telling me a little about yourself. Send me a card to
41know how you are. Please soon.^
42
43
44

1 Clarens
2 May 19 / 87
3
4 Dear Edward Carpenter
5
6 Your letter (but not card) was forwarded to me here today. It has made
7me happy. I like to know it is coming right in your life. It is
8sometimes good & even necessary to be separated for a time from those
9we love; if it is a separation only in body not in mind, we come back
10& are nearer to them than ever.
11
12 //I came on here last week from Gersau. I thought I should be better
13here, but I am going on Sunday to Paris. If I am still there I should
14like very much to see you; it would be something to look forward to.
15But when I have been some time in a place I get such horror of it, and
16then I have to go on somewhere else. I’ll send you my address on a
17card when I get there. I’ve never been in Paris & know no one there
18but I think it’ll do my head good to see the houses & the people. I
19have been quite alone since I left England, have hardly spoken to
20anyone. I haven’t done any work. I don’t feel as if I should ever
21do any work any more. Must keep on moving on moving on.
22
23 Yours,
24 O.S.
25
26 ^I send you two little allegories of mine. Send them me back because
27I’ve been too tired to copy them.^
28
29
30

1 134 Rue d’Assas
2 Paris
3 Tuesday
4
5 Shall be here till Monday or Tuesday I think when I go on to England.
6Shall take rooms somewhere at East End of London but don’t suppose I
7shall stay more than a few weeks.
8
9 Such a terrible melancholy comes over me when I’ve been a few days
10in a place that I have to move on. It’s like having brain fever.
11
12 Do come & see me when you pass through; I may be going to the Cape in
13a few weeks & then shan’t see you again. Physically I’m much
14better.
15
16 Is the book ready yet I’m waiting for it.
17
18 Send me a card, to know when you are coming to Paris.
19
20 O.S.
21
22 I’m trying to write an allegory today.
23
24
25

1 London E.C.
2 Wednesday
3
4 ^Doesn’t require an answer.^
5
6 I will send the money to Mill thorp tomorrow.
7
8 You don’t know what a help you have been to me. Just now I am not
9good for you. You are suffering much more than you know. I doubt
10whether you are realy better except physically than when you went away.
11 You must not write even to me about the subject on which you talked
12to me unless it is restful to you: but my mind will always be
13wandering after you. Perhaps such a bitter time of suffering lies
14before you: perhaps, great gladness, the realization almost of an
15ideal. But whoever suffers it will be your nature that suffers either
16through sympathy unreadable or through itself.
17
18 You don’t know how much you have helped me today & yesterday.
19
20 I have found some rooms near the Victoria Park, & am going to furnish
21them tomorrow. Address
22 50 Gore Road
23 Victoria Park E.
24
25 I would have come to meet you tomorrow at the publishers but you need
26quiet & rest if that be possible now. Your face looked like a little
27tired child’s when you were asleep in the train.
28
29 Yours
30 Olive Schreiner
31
32
33

1 50 Gore Rd
2
3 Dear E.C.
4
5 I’m somewhat tired this evening. I wish sometimes that we were both
6Christians that we might pray for eachother. I would pray for you. At
7last you will find that you will drift away & away from the things you
8now love. You will be free, & they will be happy in eachother, & ^you^
9will see what this all meant. You will see the good you have got.
10
11 //I am going up to Yorkshire on Sunday, first to a solitary little
12cottage on the York Lancashire side of the moors I want to rest so. I
13am well & working but shall work better there. After two weeks I want
14to go to Kirkly moorside. Can you tell me anything about it, & if
15there is any little quiet village in that part of Yorkshire would suit
16that you know of Don’t trouble to write though if out of mood.
17
18 What would you ask me to pray for for you if praying was any use? I
19would ask you to pray that myself might die. I don’t mean my body
20but all that longs or wishes for anything. It dies so slowly, but it
21does die.
22
23 I have given Englands Ideal & Towards Dem to the Editor of an evening
24paper & asked him to review them. If favourably, well, if not
25favourable still well if it makes West End people read them.
26
27 Good bye.
28 Olive S.
29

1 [page/s missing] I would take your face close up to mine & make it
2warm.
3
4 I am well going to make my book splendid if I live. You will I work
5hard bye & bye & do better works than ever. I thought you weren’t
6going to Whitby till next week. Perhaps I’ll come along with Chubb &
7Dirks if you can put me up for a night at Millthorp.
8
9 I’m so perfectly muddle headed I don’t know what I’m going to do. I
10must think it out. Oh my darling you mustn’t have pain, you must get
11nice, & hard, & strong.
12
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15
16

1 Whitby
2 Tuesday
3
4 When you have read the enclosed, (any time when you’ve nothing else
5to do) please return it to me & tell me whether you think it worth
6publishing. It doesn’t say what I see, how the soul stood up &
7wrapped its cloak about it, & looked up.
8
9 I have a curious idea that you would write a story so well. Won’t
10you try? It is only in work that has no connection with the self that
11we can find rest to our spirits. Life, personal life, is a great
12battlefield. Those who enter it must fight. Those who enter it & will
13not fight get riddled with bullets. The only thing for them is keep
14out of it, & have no personal life. This as much whether the object be
15love & sympathy as whether it be wealth & power. One will never find a
16man to love that some other woman does not desire. Write a little
17story. I should love it so tenderly is ^you did.
18
19 Your friend
20 O.S.^
21
22 ^The lights that it had unreadable^
23
24 This ?nectie’ll grow to be old in time! If
25
26 Had a lovely bath this morning, quite different from the others; great
27big breakers were coming in, & rolled you over.
28
29 Somebody’s baby had no one to put them to sleep last night. It’ll
30never forget that it was put to sleep; no one ever tried to put it to
31sleep before,
32
33 I’m going to write to your sister & ask her if she won’t come to
34see me some afternoon as soon as I get back to Town.
35
36 [missing page/s] ^...other ways.^
37
38 Good bye Ed Carpenter
39 Olive Schreiner
40
41 ^...got 19 letters from Todmorden by this morning’s post! I love
42these rooms better than any I’ve been in in England. I should stay
43here till I left E if I wasn’t paying for my rooms in Town. It’s a
44quite perfect day.^
45

1 50 Gore Rd
2 Victoria Park
3 Saturday
4
5 Dear Edward Carpenter
6
7 I send your St. Augustine. It has been sweet to me to think you rested
8even for one night. The face with its short beard lying right up
9against his shoulder. When he goes & you are alone again & that
10terrible sinking comes write & tell me please ^unreadable^. When he goes
11away from you he always has to go back to someone else & then the
12terrible ^sinking^ as if all the blood was going out of your body. Is it
13really getting better? There is such a stick under stick under my
14heart when I think of it all.
15
16 Are you working? Is that red book in the pocket getting fuller?
17Remember you must live for that. There lies before you a fuller richer
18period of work than any you have yet known. Sometimes I think it would
19be best for you to go away to America & see Whitman & folks there for
20a bit. Then I feel that if it is possible it is best for you to stay
21just where you are, & harden. It will come right at last, at last. I
22wish I knew all. You must be gentle to her, because its hard for her
23too; & she hasn’t the larger things to fall back on that you have.
24
25 //I didn’t know that you & he ever came quite close to each other
26still; I thought your life was all quite empty. I understand now,
27better. I am thinking of you in the morning, & at evening & at night.
28You are not many moments out of my thoughts. unreadable
29
30 Please remember me to George. No one knows I have returned to Town so
31I’m having a good quiet time for work & my cough is better than
32it’s been for many months.
33
34 //Did you see what old Whitman said when they showed ^told^ him ^about^
35Swinburne’s article? "I thought Mr Swinburne liked my poetry"; -
36nothing else! I don’t think it would be good for you to come to
37London. Either stay just were you are or go right away to America.
38unreadable Work will help you; nothing but work.
39
40 Good bye, your comrade
41 Olive
42
43 I wasn’t angry when ^you^ went away! Sometimes a great flood of
44feeling was in me & I must either laugh or get away, or I have to give
45way to it. It’s myself I’m angry with you know eh?
46
47 ^My little unreadable had bought me a pepper pot & a mustard pot for
48two pence. This letter doesn’t want an answer please. I’m not
49going to let any one know I’m in town, & I’m going to work so
50splendidly here in my little room. Good bye brother. Don’t write,
51except just a card when you want to unreadable^
52
53 1
54 Far away, where the tempests play,
55 Over the dreary seas,
56 Sail or still, with a strong ^steady^ will,
57 On-ward before the breeze.
58
59 2
60 On, onwards yet,
61 Till our hearts forget
62 The loves that we leave behind:
63 Till the memories ?clear
64 that thrill in our ear
65 Flow past like the whistling wind.
66
67 3
68 Let them come, sweet
69 thoughts of home,
70 And voices we loved of old;
71 What care we that sail a sea,
72 And bound for a Land of Gold?
73
74 4
75 Treasures there are that are lovelier far,
76 Than the flash of a maiden’s eye;
77 Jewels bright as the purple light,
78 That crimsons the evening sky;
79 Crowns that gleam
80 like a fairy dream,
81 Th Treasure of price untold!
82 And we, are bound for
83 that charmed ground;
84 We, sail for a land
85 of Gold!
86
87 I fear it’s too irregular to be put to any music. I don’t know who
88it’s by & I’m not sure whether I’ve not intro ^duced some
89variations!!^ I found it in a book when I was a little child unreadable.
90
91
92

1 Xmas morning
2
3 I’ve just got your letter & photo. The sun is shining on the terrace
4out side my door. It is very cold but bright.
5
6 Yes, you must get away from Sheffield. I have seen that for a long
7time, but only the person themselves can tell when the time has come.
8You have never tried to live utterly utterly alone, that is why you
9think it hard. There’s a time that comes when it begins ^(the living
10quite alone)^ of agony. One has to live through that & come out on the
11other side, & then one knows the blessings & uses of absolute solitude.
12 Perhaps I should never have known it, I am sure I never should, if
13when I was very young I had not been made to go through it, no way of
14escape. Now, when the agony of loneliness comes on me I know it will
15pass when one’s powers of feeling are worn out, & peace comes
16afterwards.
17
18 I wish you could be quite utterly alone for some four months, & come
19out on the other side. Of course it doesn’t do to keep on too long
20because one gets at last a feeling of deadness, as if one had gone to
21sleep. Death will be like that. Yet one can work. You must get away
22somewhere where there is sunshine & warmth. Are you going with Barnes
23to Capri? Why don’t you go & stay there for three or four months
24quite by yourself & wither & agonize, & live through it & find your
25own feet? In the summer I shall be living in some little out of world
26village in Austrian Tyrol or South Germany & perhaps we might spend a
27few weeks together. Think this over. But one cannot advise another.
28Only this I know – you ought not to be in England. Sometimes the
29thought comes to me, what if you and Adams were to go to our new
30wonderful gold fields at the Cape? Splendid, new young life! Ah, it is
31so glorious. It is something that old world people cannot conceive of.
32Thousands of human creatures congregated together without poverty,
33without weakness; all alive, striving, hoping. I think it would help
34you. I cannot at the moment think of a quotation. Make one! The sun is
35shining here. Oh, you must get
35
36 ^out of England & come into the sunshine,
37 Edward.
38
39 Olive^
40
41
42

1 Alassio
2 Tuesday night
3 9 o’clock
4
5 My dear Chips
6
7 Will you please tell me what you think of doing I’ve been thinking
8of you all day. My s
9
10 It’s bitterly cold here & the wind is whirling. I send my love to
11you. I wish so I knew more about you. Isn’t life a funny thing; &
12this gnawing hunger at our hearts. Perhaps it is through this hunger
13that the race grows, it drives us on & on, to seek a somewhat better
14than we ever can reach. But so we keep growing. I wish you were here
15some bright day in the sunshine & you & I go for a walk in the olive
16woods, & sit under the trees. I’m just writing this to you because I
17feel drawn to you.
18
19 Olive
20 Later. Sometimes you know I cannot believe that these chairs & tables
21& the walls & all the things about me are not alive. I love them so,
22inanimate things, & it seems to me they must love me. They do I think.
23I find such comfort from material substances sometimes when I am in
24very great agony. Lying quite flat on the ground with ones arms on it.
25The dear old earth, how can anyone hate it
26
27 Just now I was walking up & down & I felt such an affectionate feeling
28to the walls & all the things in my room. I’ve stopped to write this
29to you, & now I’ll go on walking & thinking. I’m making a scene
30between a husband & wife.
31
32 Olive
33
34 I’m going to bed soon. I can hear the sea outside all the night. I
35wish I could comfort you quite. Are you ^feeling as if you could do
36writing work or practical work among other people
37 Olive^
38
39
40

1 Sante Croci
2 Alassio
3 Sunday morning
4
5 I’ve come up here. It’s a little ruined chapel on a point sticking
6out into the sea. Oh Edward, I wish you could see this blue blue sea &
7the faraway mountains with the snow upon them! It is perfectly
8solitary up here. There are olive trees about & an old Roman Road
9leads up to it. There isn’t a sound but sometimes a large fly flying
10about, & the sea so far down below one can barely hear it.
11
12 Yesterday some of the women at the hotel laughed at my clothes & said
13at lunch that some people were too poor to afford proper dresses &c &c.
14 I cried after I came out & I’m afraid they heard me, so I
15couldn’t face them again today, so I got the waiter to give me
16something to eat & came up here. It’s so lovely. I like it best of
17all places in the world, except a farm where I lived in Africa. I
18don’t know why this spot helps me so. I come here with all my
19troubles small & large, & they go away. I’m not going back to the
20town till late in the night & I’ve brought my papers to write. Oh
21was there ever anything so glorious as this blue Mediterranean!
22
23 //I got your letter this morning just before I came out. I’m so glad
24it’s so well with you. You must go to Capri. How nice if I could
25think when I looked across the blue water that you were down there.
26
27 I am getting on with my novel, but very slowly. My nervous system is
28shattered, so that when I put pressure on it, even under my own hand,
29it gives. It will be a good book if ever it is done – if ever.
30
31 //You know the air is clear today almost like in Africa. There is a
32little town on the hills about 20 miles away and I can see it quite
33distinctly. There is such joy to me in looking far. Oh, isn’t it
34nice to be out in the open & it doesn’t matter what you wear or
35anything. There’s such a pretty little longlegged fly walking all
36over my paper.
37
38 //I shall be glad when the song book is ready. Have you got many of
39Lowells in? I wish so much I had thought of reminding you of some of his
40
41 Give my love to George Adams. There is always something so beautiful
42to me in the thought of a new little life coming into the world.
43Isn’t it funny I never can see anything ludicrous or unlovely in it
44all. The first time I saw a birth it was a halfcast prostitute at the
45Cape, who had lain down in her labour behind a hedge. None of the Boer
46women or black women would go near her, & I helped ^& an old black man!^
47It was so wonderful & beautiful to see that little new life coming out
48under a blue sky just like this, & a little older child of ^the
49woman’s,^ of two years old, sat watching. I often wonder what has
50become of that little baby I brought into the world!
51
52 Goodbye, my dear old comrade.
53 Olive Schreiner
54
55 You’ll be sure to give my love to G Adams & his wife. Tell me how it
56goes with you all. I sent the Allegory this morning before I came out.
57It’s the one in MS. ^Send them back.^
58
59
60

1 Yes, no love would be worth anything that needed cultivating. The true
2love is that which you fight against; struggle against, year after
3year, & which is always there. Which absence makes stronger. As you
4see mountain most clearly when you are a long way off from it.
5
6 Don’t read this if you don’t mean to go & see Alice some day. But
7read it if you do as it will give you a little idea of the kind of
8person she is.
9
10 I have been a walk along the road to the point in the wind & rain.
11Splendid. If we had a house here it would be nice to have little Louie
12Adams here & let her sit in the sun. We are having all this & other
13people aren’t. But they wouldn’t have it anymore if we didn’t!
14
15 Olive
16
17 Goodnight, my big brother
18 Your little
19 Donkey.
20
21 It’s been pouring rain here all day. I want you so much to know &
22love great women of the kind that would help you. ^She is a brave
23strong little soul.^
24
25
26

1 Hotel Oxford et Cambridge
2 Rue d’Alger
3 Paris
4
5 No, dear old man, it’s not men that trouble me its middle class
6women that are so hard to understand & reconcile with a ^good^ God: I
7believe it can be done though!!! & will be by me mentally at last.
8I’ve found a nice poor little unreadable artist, a girl with nothing
9to live on, & we are going to see eachother every day. She’s very
10like my small Alice very much. I’m going to have Alice come to me
11for her Easter Holidays & take her up the Rhine & I’m going to look
12for a little village to settle down in for Spring & summer. Will you
13tell me what you think of my Prelude now, if it doesn’t come in the
14way of your work to read it, & send it on to Mrs Brown, 66 Bank Parade,
15 Burnly as soon as you’ve done You’re a great fool if you don’t
16see that it’s nice. I’ll love to see George Adam’s little one.
17
18 P I’m so anxious for more Towards Democracy. The little bit in W.P.P.
19 was quite up to mark.
20
21 I’ve got a little Socialist dream but you’ll all say again it’s
22not up to mark because it’s all about God. How can I help writing
23about God when there’s nothing else in heaven or earth that I love &
24cling to If anyone can give me another name for him ^it^ I’ll use it.
25I went to the morgue the other day & saw three of our brothers sitting
26there on the marble slabs. I should have gone mad if I hadn’t
27realized that they were only little drops of it divided & spilt for a
28while to be taken up again, & pass into it. I wanted so to go behind &
29wash them & dress them & lay them out & kiss them & put flowers by
30them. I shall never go again because I can’t do anything. Do you
31know the people were standing there & laughing.
32
33 //One ^of the three a^ young man had a pure white shirt cuff with a gold
34stud in it which he fastened in the morning. The other was a man a
35working man of 45 or 50 with beautiful delicate features: (he had been
36hungry & cold so often you could see that in the face) but there was
37such a beautiful smile on them, the face lighted up as I’ve never
38seen a dead face – "This is rest at last!" I couldn’t look at the
39third one. Edward, isn’t it strange that we run each other down like
40that that we can’t make life worth living to each other? I wonder if
41people will believe in two thousand years time in that morgue & the
42three men sitting there & the people laughing. Don’t trouble to
43write except a card to say you’ve got Prelude.
44
45 Yours,
46 Olive
47
48
49

1 Hotel Westminster
2 Bordighera
3 Italie
4 Wednesday night
5 11: 30
6
7 Do you see where I am? When I got to B Ventimiglia I found there f was
8no train on to Alassio till 3.40 in the morning. I wandered about for
9a little time, then an old gentleman, a clergy man who I think must be
10George MacDonald, who was with a daughter & two young men, met me. He
11evidently thought I was one of those "unhappy women from Monte Carlo".
12There is no hotel I know of in Ventimiglia, but I knew the name of the
13Westminster here. He said I could come with them in their carriage
14here, but the horror they all seemed to feel to me, & his awful fear
15lest one of the young men should walk here with me, was funny. Oh, Ach,
16 my poor sisters, when will this pass away!
17
18 It’s when I think of these women Edward that I feel I am a woman, &
19I’m glad I am a woman so that I may fight & there may be none of us
20any more at last. That is really the work of my life. You will see
21some day when my book is done! You know that is what I have lived for;
22there the strange, terrible fascination those women’s faces have for
23me, eating into my heart in horror & pity, no one seems to feel to
24them as I do.
25
26 //I saw those three red lights go away behind your train! Edward, I
27love you so, dear, you have entered right into my heart. It’s so
28quiet here now. You are just unreadable I’m going on by the first
29train in the morning. The old clergy man wouldn’t shake hands with
30me though he let me drive with them in their carriage. I didn’t mind
31it at all It was rather a nice experience.
32
33 //You must write me one word and tell me about your plans.
34
35 Please remember me to the ?Casigs. Mrs C is a very nice kindly woman &
36I feel very kindly to him. I can’t bear to think you are going away.
37You don’t know how I’ve been feeling you near me all the while
38you’ve been on the Riviera.
39
40 Goodnight, my brother.
41 Your Donkey
42
43 It was very nice to-day. I enjoyed it so much, it’s done me good.
44The music was nice. You don’t know how much music is to me. I
45don’t suppose it would cost much more if you went past Alassio.
46
47
48

1 Alassio
2
3 Lady Manchester & Mrs ?Senston asked me to go out with them & I’ve
4come back feeling so sad. You know the feeling when you’ve been with
5people who are asleep & ^whom^ nothing will ever wake.
6
7 //I send you Miss Müllers letter because it throws a little light on
8the question we talked about when you were here unreadable. I felt
9unreadable near you all day yesterday, though we didn’t talk
10unreadable Do you know just being near people sometimes rests me so.
11Does the love thing go on well? Is it finished?
12
13 Olive
14
15 ^This might be interesting to you Olive^
16
17
18

1 Alassio
2
3 This is a word to greet you in London, if indeed you have left the
4Riviera. I feel as if you had – so I suppose you have.
5
6 You ought to have stayed to see the Fords. I am sure, just now, you
7need more of woman’s society than man’s, & such a woman as
8Isabella would have been very good as your companion.
9
10 I have nothing to tell me of you myself. The Swills asked me to go out
11with them this afternoon but I’ve had enough of Lords & Ladies for
12the present & am going to write.
13
14 //Do you ever have days that are so peace-ful, as if a great hand were
15opened over you & all were so calm under it? I feel like that today.
16
17 We If you ever see my friend & helper Karl Pearson, you will tell me.
18But it’s not likely you ever will. I often wonder whether there
19might be any bridge built by which you might cross over to each other;
20he blaspheming against the emotions & the instinctive reason; you
21against the intellect & the conscious reason; you are both wrong, but
22I wonder whether it would be possible for you to understand eachother
23& teach each other! I guess not.
24
25 He is living now at West View, Christchurch, Hampstead.
26
27 If you feel it no burden will you write sometimes & tell me about your
28feelings & life? I hope you will stay some time in London, & not go up
29to Sheffield. But perhaps that is just where you feel you ought to be.
30As I felt last year that I had to go back to England for six months
31– I couldn’t say why.
32
33 Now it is all dead. I have no need ever to return there. It is like
34having your last look at the face of a corps.
35
36 I shall leave this about the first of May & get on as quickly as I can
37to Tyrol.
38
39 You must give yourself entirely up to your work, Edward. When you are
40helping one man or woman you help that one only; when you work you
41help many in the present & also in the far future. Since you told me I
42have so often thought of poor old ?Pasy bursting into tears because we
43all have to live alone.
44
45 Goodbye, my brother.
46 Olive
47 ^
48If you should wish to see Alice Corthorn her address is 69 Chancery Lane,
49 but I think it would be a waste of time, simply shedding blood for
50nothing, you would never likely get to know her really well, & she
51would not be helpful to you in the way a woman like Isabella might be.
52
53 Olive^
54
55
56

1 Alassio
2 Monday
3
4 I got your letter from Paris. It’s very unkind of you always to
5remember that I drove in a cab with luggage round Paris! You mustn’t
6hate us women so much (though I do it myself!)
7
8 I won’t be a woman in a couple of years. I began to be one when I was
9only ten so I dare say I will leave off being one in about two or
10perhaps three more, & then you’ll think I am a man, all of you, won’t
11you? Karl Pearson & every one, & will be comrades with me!
12
13 I feel somehow sorry about the Fords. Did you do it out of perversity
14
15 Edward, you must write much. Make your life consist in that. You & I
16must have no personality. We must die while yet we live.
17
18 I don’t know if Ellis will come at all. His mother & two sisters have
19it ^fever^. The first mother is dangerously ill, "sinking" he writes me.
20I am in painful doubt as to whether Ellis ought to come at all.
21Whether it will be happiest for him. When two people are friends & the
22one loves the other with a love that other
23
24 ^cannot return, is it not better for them never to meet? Yet I, if I
25loved a person, would so much rather see them than not see them even
26if they hated me.
27
28 Olive^
29
30^Write to me only when you ?turn to me. We must work, Edward, & every
31time our heart pains us work till the agony gets still. Love to George
32& his wife & child. ^
33
34 OS
35
36 It’s possible I may again be in the winter Riviera next winter
37
38
39

1 Is there no possibility of your coming to see me for a time in the
2summer or autumn. I should of course tell you if I didn’t want you
3when you wrote to say you were coming. You are helpful & pleasant to
4me. ^And I’m unpleasant but not unhealthful for you!!!^ It would be
5something to look forward to. I had it sorely in my heart to ask you
6to meet me at Geneva, & go on to Venice with me. But just now you have
7too many problems to work out & need to be left alone. You wouldn’t
8have come.
9
10 Good bye, Edward.
11 Send me your socialist group
12

1 Alassio
2 Sunday night
3
4 Dear Brother
5
6 I’ve got your letter. Yes, I know how you feel in England, that
7weight & pressure on the top of one’s head & on one’s whole body,
8one doesn’t know why. George Eliot felt the same you know. All
9artistic natures do, we can’t work in England.
10
11 During the next ten years you ought to do your best literary work &
12you must. It will take you six or eight months at least for you to
13work yourself free from all the little bonds. You must cut yourself
14free from them resolutely. It is the terrible condition of our
15labouring for others that some times we must seem to fight against
16them. It is the truth that has been revealed to me during the last two
17years, that a point is reached ^more easily than people think^ when
18human creatures need to be taught selfishness! That Whenever a man is
19in danger of braking down his own little individual particle, unless
20for some great high end, he commits murder. He sins against all his
21fellows whom he can only serve while he is whole.
22
23 Edward, Isabella Ford has been here for one night. She’s a great,
24true, noble hearted woman. If Karl Pearson loved her I would see him
25turn to her without a doubt & without a fear.
26
27 I am glad you want to see my little Alice if it did not cost you much.
28
29 Goodbye.
30 Olive.
31
32 I am going to Venice on Tues the 1st of May I think perhaps. I’ll
33see the Fords for a day or so.
34
35
36

1 My dear old Brother
2
3 I’ve not written to you because I’ve had nothing to say.
4
5 It joys me to know that things go well with thee. Best greetings to
6Adams & the Fords &c.
7
8 I’ve not been physically up to going to Africa or Riviera, so I’m
9taking a tiny unfinished cottage at Harpenden, a little village 27
10miles from London, live by my-self without servants. I think it will
11be lovely.
12
13 The ?Leycesters, those people who had the room next to mine at Alassio
14were very kind to me. They met me at Calais very ill, & brought me on
15with them. Their kindness to me that day was something I can never
16forget. I don’t think I should ever have reached London without them.
17 She’s a splendid woman.
18
19 I haven’t seen or even heard the names of any of the people I used
20to know, except Miss Müller & Alice Corthorn, & Ellis I’ve seen
21once for a few minutes. All the people I’ve seen have been new. I
22think that’s all my news. I expect to like Harpenden as much as
23Alassio. No one is ever to come & see me there. Except one girl who is
24very lonely.
25
26 It’s funny when one’s faith in human friendship dies. One says it
27hasn’t, but one knows it has sometimes.
28
29 I love all humans & believe that each to ^in^ him or herself is noble &
30good & means well. I believe the worse people in their heart of hearts
31do that; they are only blind, but one soul shall never understand
32another, the Almighty hath walled us round.
33
34 How does your work go, E. C? That is really a thing that shall not
35pass away. Through impersonal work one soul can, a little, reach
36others, but ^though^ personally it can’t.
37
38 Goodbye. Don’t trouble to write, dear Brother, but let me soon see a
39book of yours, something that shall more satisfy me as being the
40expression of your genius than anything else you have done. Don’t
41let absorption in individuals take away your power of work. You have
42had enough of that. You must stand alone; though your work in life is
43to give expression to your perception of the beauty of all Union, yet
44you must stand calmly apart to express it. I wish you could marry;
45marriage gives no soul the Union and strength we dream of, but in your
46case it would be a calming, restgiving relation.
47
48 Olive
49
50
51

1 Harpenden
2Sunday afternoon
3 Pouring rain
4 I sit here alone
5
6 Dear E.C.
7
8 Maggie Harkness was here the other day & she said that Mrs Besant told
9her once that whenever she was tired & weary she read nothing but
10"you", that yours were the only books that helped her. Somehow I like
11so much to think of her finding help from you, she has so much hard
12fighting to do. Is it nice to you too?
13
14 I had something else to say but I can’t remember it now. Will you
15please let me know if you are lecturing any-where in London, & when,
16that I may come & see ^hear^ you. I don’t care about your coming to
17see me, dear old brother. I only care about ^seeing^ the one or two
18people who really need me like unreadable some women. The Custom is
19splendid. The little ending goes deep, very deep, eh?
20
21 Good-bye
22 Your tired old sister
23 Olive
24
25
26

1 Dear EC.
2
3 I shall be going down to Surrey to look for a tiny cottage at Dorking
4or Woking or some such place. If I am early in the morning to St
5Pancras could you perhaps meet me there? We might go & have lunch
6together somewhere, & I might then go on my way? Which days would you
7be free? Most days? Because I can’t arrange long before on account
8of perhaps not being up to it when the time comes.
9
10 O.S.
11
12 You would love Mrs Bland very much. She’s quite genuine. She wants
13to come again & bring all her children. I haven’t told anyone you
14were here except Alice & she has orders not to mention it. Do you know,
15 I don’t feel a bit that horror of London now I know you are there?
16
17
18

1 Thou ?wert right & not right about the article. I should not have
2mentioned unreadable ^a^ friend’s name. I’ve tried three times to
3write of Englands Ideal & I found I couldn’t. There seems to me
4something immodest in praising your own work, & I so entirely
5appropriate my friends’ writings that I can never write of them.
6However I lent Mrs Wilson the Ethic of Free thought which she had not
7seen, & pointed out to her the great value of it &c his & how Mrs
8Caird had simple built up on his ideas. I quite agree with all she
9says. She is now at Lugano ordered there by the Doctor. I have written
10to ask her to come on here if she can for a few days, that I may love
11her a little.
12
13 I hope ^unreadable^ George is better. It must have been nice to be with
14him when he was not well, & take care of him.
15
16 Good bye.
17
18 I think I am conquering. Things look very grey, even the sky & sea
19don’t seem as bright coloured as they used to be last year, but
20every thing is very peace-ful ^& I am happy.^ I saw at Mrs Casey’s a
21portrait of a young man, & then I realized or rather saw, what I had
22long known; how the older man is a residue left after much struggling,
23not simply a thing so born.
24
25 My dear little Alice is working hard. I have got her to resolve to be
26a doctor. I am going to try to get her out here in the spring. You
27never saw the best of her. Isn’t Ellis’s Ibsen ^?vol^ splendid!
28
29 I heard before I left England that Mr Pearson had been dangerously ill
30with bronchitis on the continent; & three people who saw him after his
31return said he looked ill & pale, & had a cough. If it should chance
32that you hear anything of his health you might let me know but don’t
33trouble about it?
34
35 O.S.
36
37 ^I may be going to Mentone in a couple of months time, but I fancy
38it’s not easy to live so cheaply there as here is.^
39

1 The Doctor has ordered me to Mentone. Address Poste Restante there if
2you need to write. I’ve had low fever: Oh Edward, I’m so happy
3such a beautiful thing has happened to me. A letter I’ve been
4waiting for for two years from a woman has come. Love to George Adams
5& you. I wish you could all come to the sunshine.
6 Olive
7
8
9

1 Hotel du Pavillon
2 Mentone
3
4 Dear Edward Carpenter,
5
6 Will you please send me back Mrs Bland’s letter. You will forgive me
7I know for having spoken to her of you; but indeed it was not my fault.
8 A dear old Swede has just been to say goodbye to me. Such a beautiful
9childlike nature, a huge strong man with the pure heart of a little
10child. He wanted me to marry him. Edward, life is very funny isn’t
11it? We are all so thirsty, & there is plenty of water, & the water all
12goes wrong! I am glad your civilization article will soon be out.
13
14 I’m glad Adams gets on with his painting.
15
16 All good be with you all. Isn’t this place beautiful.
17
18 I shall be quite alone now in this big house with only a Russian who
19can’t speak a word of English. Do you know I should like to go to
20Sweden. I love those simple child natures so, the Swedish people, have
21a somewhat of the child & nature in them that others have lost.
22
23 All strength & joy be with you, dear old poet.
24 Olive
25
26 A happy Xmas to you all.
27 OS
28
29
30

1 Mentone
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear Ed’ard
5
6 Yes it’s very beautiful here. I went for a walk this afternoon to
7that other far point beyond your end of Mentone; where the break the
8stones & the cliffs are so bright. Do you know I shouldn’t have
9liked to stay in your part, those hotels are so grand & so many of
10them, you would like it better here, & there’s so much room, & you
11know those great mountain peaks are looking down at you even when you
12are asleep.
13
14 //Yes, it would be a splendid plan to print them in a little cheap
15book, but isn’t it possible to get them printed in American or
16English magazines first, & get paid for them? See my calculating, mean,
17 & money making spirit! You are well known now. You ought to get paid.
18
19 I’m glad you are not cross with me about Mrs Bland. If I could tell
20you about her you would love her so! It’s not that she does a hard
21thing. All of the "us" can do that; but then we break down in health
22like Mrs Wilson & some others, but she goes on so sweetly & strongly
23it seems as if she must be drawing her strength from some source that
24no one sees.
25
26 Thank You mustn’t mind if you’ve no time to give her when you are
27in town. I mean she’s one who understands how ones heart goes out
28much further than one’s hands can reach in this short life.
29
30 I am all alone in this big house now with no one but a Russian who
31doesn’t speak a word of English but I’m not lonely. I’ve got a
32room just overlooking the sea. Thankyou for telling me about your poet
33friend. I’m glad you’re going to town to lecture a bit.
34
35 I am coming back to England in May to go into the Endle Street
36Hospital where I was before, to finish my course in midwifery. I shall
37not be a common nurse then, you are to know, I shall be a real midwife
38licensed by the College of Physicians! I shall think no end of myself!
39I want to do some material work for a little time, & not think, & it
40is very beautiful to me to work with those mothers & little babies,
41you can’t think how beautiful. Then I shall always have a means to
42earning my living & being independent of my brain. It ought to be so
43with every one. Don’t mention my coming yet to any one. After my
44three months are over I should like must to come & stay a bit with you
45folk in August. I might take a room in Sheffield near the Adams’s be
46& deliver a few women while I’m there! & come out to Mill Thorp with
47them often. I want to see a bit more of those North Country people
48before I go to the Cape.
49
50 Yes, it’s all very good. She writes me he is coming to spend his
51Xmas holidays with her & the children & that they are closely united,
52& all very happy. This is quite good. I am going to dedicate my book
53to them together when it is done.
54
55 Reddy writes like you only with the best part of you left out. It’s
56singular how some minds can permeate others.
57
58 I wish some of you people were coming to the Riviera this spring. The
59weather is just too lovely for words. We’ve had some days of rain &
60cold, but even then it was beautiful. Now today the sky is that
61perfect pale blue, that one feels, "This is Heaven." Even the sea here
62has a particularly nice sound. The rocks are so uneven that they break
63in different ways making a complex sound quite different from that
64suck-suck of a wave on a smooth beach. I wonder if ever noticed the
65difference, & how much more soothing this kind of noise is.
66
67 The Swede went away yesterday morning at six o’clock. He said I had
68brought "something of the nature" into his life & I think he was glad
69to have met me, so it’s all right. I can’t feel very sorry for
70anyone who loves anything, it seems to me such a great good. It’s
71the person who is so that the other can love them who has to be
72thanked. Remember I’m coming to Sheffield in August!!
73
74 Olive
75
76 ^I’m learning to make pots here, real pots. Think how much grander
77that is than your common old sandals! I’m going to make you a tea
78pot though you don’t drink tea!! It’ll do for show you know.^
79
80
81

1 Old year’s night
2
3 Dear EC
4
5 I send you a cutting from Stephen’s article on unreadable in an old
6number of the Nineteenth Cen. It’s all so lovely you ought to read
7it. I’ve never seen that side of the question so deliciously put,
8it’s as if one of us were taking off the other side. It was torn up
9when I got it or I’d send you the whole. He adviseds that that the
10rich boycott those wicked poor unreadable not giving any more to their
11hospitals &c, &c & then what would the poor do!! That it would be the
12best thing that could happen to them if the rich didn’t throw them
13any more sops, & that there would soon be no rich he doesn’t for a
14moment see!! It’s so lovely. Don’t trouble to answer this, it just
15came into my head to send it as I was reading it. Never write me duty
16letters.
17
18 I hope you’ll have a good time in London in Feb. We have terrible
19weather here just now, this afternoon the waves wild & roaring, & one
20can’t see more than a foot or two, but we’ve had such fine weather
21^ we mustn’t complain. It’s all arranged for my going to the Cape
22in September, money in bank. Can you think how glad I am. All good be
23with you a glad new year. Its going to be for me a year of more work
24than I ever did before.
25 Olive.^
26
27 I send you a pamphlet. To me it is full of that greatly to be prized,
28rare truth loving spirit that constitutes his greatness, & which has
29made him so greatly helpful to me in all my weaker moment. I am well
30satisfied now Dost thou know the old story – "While the child was
31yet alive I fasted & wept: for I said, "Who can tell – " I have
32always understood David.
33
34 Do you think Mrs Wilson was quite right in that Mrs Parson’s affair?
35My fear always is that in the end Mrs Beasant may take to temporizing.
36She lacks that fine spiritual inspiration which Mrs Wilson has.
37
38 Olive
39
40 The waves are making such a noise just out of my window. I must get up
41& put some more wood in the fire
42
43
44

1 Please return my precious letter to me. I send it you because I want
2you so much realy to know her.
3
4 I was ordered here by Doctor because I had low fever at Alassio.
5
6 I’m better. Isn’t this a lovely place!!! No wonder you didn’t
7like Alassio. It’s nothing to this. I’m staying in a quiet hotel
8quite out of the town, it’s the other end from where you stayed. So
9lovely & quiet. I’m the only person in this big house & it’s all
10so lovely.
11
12 I’ll send you the woman’s ^penny^ paper with my two little dreams.
13Glad "Civilization" is going to be published.
14
15 Sometimes feel as though I should never do any more real work in the
16world - but it doesn’t matter.
17
18 I’m hoping my little Alice will come a bit in the Spring. It’s too
19beautiful here for any words. The sea & sky are more perfect than I
20ever knew them.
21
22 Goodbye.
23 Olive
24
25 Hotel du Pavillon
26 Mentone
27

1 Sunday night
2
3 My dear Edward,
4
5 I was glad to get your letter. You must get away to the sunshine if
6you can. We’ve had rain here for three or four days but the sun is
7sure to come out soon. Today has been a day of great anxiety to me. I
8have told someone to telegraph tomorrow if any of our people are
9killed. but I don’t think it will go so far.
10
11 I am working pretty well here. I cannot do very much in the day but
12what I do is good. I have just finished off a dream tonight. Mr
13Gladstone’s daughter said she would like to see it: when she has
14done with it I’ll tell her to send it to you. I am writing a long
15dream on socialism which I am going to publish in the Fortnightly. I
16think it will be good, but writing it nearly kills one with excitement.
17 I am living quite alone here, never see or speak to anyone except
18about food at meal times. I shall stay here till summer then go to
19Venice for a few months & return here next winter. Give my love to
20George Adams. I hope your soul grows strong.
21
22 If you should see Karl Pearson will you write and tell me. If you
23should see him anywhere without speaking to him. I have not heard from
24anyone who has seen him for a very long time. You would never mention
25^me to him if you met him? I am going to try & get my novel off my
26hands next year.^
27
28^Rather a good published Fischer Unwin 26 Paternoster Square. If you
29can’t make arrangements with another you might go to him with the
30song book. Write to me soon if the spirit moves you. ^
31
32 Goodbye my old Chips.
33 Olive
34
35
36

1 Hotel du Pavillon
2 Mentone
3
4 Thank you, dear old Edward, for your letter. Thank you for telling me
5you had seen my friend ^Karl Pearson.^ I knew you would love him if ever
6you met: the nature is rarely pure & truth loving. When you have met
7him several times you will find you have gained something from him. I
8feel if justice were done he would have a share in any praise my work
9might have, even in the little dreams & allegories, that seem so
10intensely unlike him, & which he might even laugh at. I work better
11because I have known him. I wish sometimes I could just come & take
12his hand for a moment & sit & talk over those matters that interest us,
13 or better still sit & say nothing at all. It might be if I were a man,
14 but I shall never be that - eh? Whatever comes never that. Well, the
15compensation comes to me so; that being a woman I can reach other
16women where no man could reach them. A growing tenderness is in my
17heart for them. I shall never be a man & a brother among you men that
18I love so, but I have my work.
19
20 Why do you not print some more poems? Have you sent any to ?reviewers
21magazines? Next month there will appear in the Fortnightly a little
22allegory of mine you will like very much. It is socialistic. It’s
23not my long one, my best beloved; that will appear bye & bye. I am
24working & you know how happy that makes one. I have given your
25greetings to all the rocks & sea & sky. To-day they are all grey & yet
26so sweet & beloved. I don’t think nature seemed so alive to me, when
27I was a child, even, as it does here. I can’t
28
29 //I know so well how one gets overrun when one comes to London;
30that’s the penalty one pays for being loved - & the fog makes it
31worse!!!
32
33 I’ve had great pleasure, the Roberts’ came here yesterday, & they
34are coming on Sunday to stay for a few days. I am going out to buy a
35little tea-service for them, to put in their room as a surprise with
36some flowers.
37
38 Don’t trouble to answer this. Send me anything you write.
39
40 Deepest thanks my dear brother.
41 Olive
42
43 I’m getting on so splendidly with my work.
44 ^I’m so glad you love him, Edward, it’s so beautiful to me when
45anybody loves him.^
46
47
48

1 Mentone
2
3 My dear old Edward
4
5 You don’t know how precious your last letter has been to me. You can’t
6understand.
7
8 I’ve read your paper in Pioneer. I like it best about the nakedness,
9but I like all, except where you talk against the intellect. You do
10understand, my Ed’ard, that the same joy and peace comes to my little
11soul from reading Spencers First Principles or Mills Logic or even
12Gibbons Decline & Fall that comes to it from looking at a sunset
13behind these tall mountains. God can and does reveal himself through
14the intellect as through nature, through the reason of the man as in
15the blowing of the wind. Thou darest no more blaspheme against the
16intellect than another dare against nature.
17
18 What you, who have been over taught, are striking at, is that wretched
19choking of the intellect that goes on in schools & colleges, but we,
20people who have never been over fed like myself, we who have never
21been to school who have never been taught anything, we cannot feel as
22you do. You have been over fed. We are dying of hunger. That’s true
23about things coming to us when we don’t care any more. But then we
24can’t be said ever to have them. What we have gained is the power to
25do without them, the part of ourself which wanted them we kill slowly,
26& the benefit is that so much more is dead. This sounds sadder than I
27mean, but I think you
28 understand.
29
30 I would like to have heard the discussion at the "New Noah’s Ark." It
31will have been lovely I’m sure. Will you please send me all you write.
32If you ever should go to Mr Pearson’s again would you send me
33something out of his garden; pick it for yourself. You know my heart
34lives always in that little study in Hampstead; ^it is like a little
35chapel to me;^ it is all so beautiful to me. Now I know that he never
36needed ^wanted^ my friendship ^I can rest.^ It’s to me as if he was buried
37personally but so beautiful to know he’s alive & working ^impersonally.^
38All goes well and happily & me here. Such loving letters from my
39people rejoicing at my return to the Cape in August. It’s not a secret.
40 I’ve told the Robertses. My hospital plan has to be given up, no room
41for me.
42
43 I’m writing something very lovely. Edward, it isn’t really the
44intellect & nature that are at war, it’s the personal & impersonal.
45
46 Your sister
47 Olive
48
48 ^I’ve got a beautiful likeness of Walt Whitman. I wonder if you would
49like to see it? I’ll give it you if you would value it. I value it, so
50I’d like to give it you.^
51

1 Hotel du Parc
2 Mentone
3
4 Thank you, Edward, I know you write just for my sake. Thank you.
5
6 You are entirely wrong about me, how people have got the idea that I
7retouch & overwork my work I can’t make out! My great fault as
8writer is that I cannot bear to re- touch, even to reread anything
9when once I have written it. I have three novels, two other books, a
10whole box of dreams, all dashed off & then never looked at again. Take
11my novel From Man to Man; for 9 years I have not touched or not opened
12or looked at any, but the first chapters. The My fault is that I shall
13go on producing producing producing, & finishing off nothing in such a
14shape that I can present it to the world. If my ambition could wake up
15again it would be different, but its quite dead, it seems to me I
16can’t rouse it. I write for myself & to myself. This is the secret
17of my work as an artist. The very thought that I shall have to publish
18seems to seems to kill out my power of work. This is why Karl Pearson
19was so good for me. Just for a little time while I was near him, he
20woke up my ambition, that is, my wish to express myself to others. He
21never taught me anything, he never sympathized with me, he just did
22that for him me! I must think & I must produce as long as I live, but
23that is for my self. It is against this feeling that I have to fight.
24I know what I am & what I can do, what does it matter to me what any
25other person says? That’s ^unreadable people^ I’ve just finished a
26beautiful dream (to me). Well, why should I sit & write it out now?
27The only reason I go on writing ^out^ at all now is because I want to
28get a lot of money to help other people to do their work. Oh, I live
29other peoples work. I feel ambitious about that.
30
31 Olive
32
33 ^Yes, at heart you & I are at one on that question of the intellect;
34you will see if ever I publish one of my novels that we are; but I
35would like the qualification given.^
36
37
38

1 Dear Edward,
2
3 If you get to know Mr Pearson well you’ll never say any thing of
4anything I’ve told you of other people, men or women. Tell him
5anything you like about me, I mean in all that, I know you & feel to
6you as a little child does to its mother. But you know I want to
7forgive & love every one - not only seem to forgive them, but to do
8what will be happiest for them. ^I feel it would be mean of me to try &
9come near him.^ Don’t try ever to bring me & him near each other,
10dear heart. I’m quite close to him now, but if I had to see or speak
11to him the old bitter fight must begin again. You see I can’t feel
12to his friends as he feels. I have tried. I can feel all kindness &
13love to them, but I must keep far from them. Suppose, dear, I prized
14you more than anything in the world, but I couldn’t feel just as you
15felt to your friends at Sheffield, say I couldn’t sympathize with
16your George & his wife. Well then my love for you would teach me I
17must leave you. I would always bring an element of strife, I mean
18internal strife into his life if I came into it ^in any way^ & that’s
19just what mustn’t enter it. Don’t you see what I mean, the element
20of division? I mean if I never see him, but simply write to him I must
21influence him in some way. The only one of his friends I feel unity
22with is his dearest man friend Parker. Did you see him? But between me
23& the others, all his women friends, ^& some of his men friends^ the
24Almighty hath set a gulf. I would like him to know I felt he had been
25true & generous in all his relations to me, but that’s all. He knows
26I love him. Don’t ever mention me to him, dear old Ed’ard unless
27he speaks of me, & then just turn it off. Other people need him much
28more than I do, & can give him more. My life is so full & joyful with
29my work. You understand.
30 Olive
31
32 ^Do you know that my novel ends by the mother telling her children
33they’ll all go up country & dance naked on the rocks!!!^
34
35 ^My brother is selling his big school to a company for £70,000.
36Isn’t that a lot!!!! When I print my next book I shall have a lot of
37money too & we’ll all have fine times. My little Alice will come &
38live with me when she is a doctor. And an old bachelor brother, can
39come out to the Cape & see us & we’ll bake him in the sun. Alice
40tells me you look happy but not well!!!!!^
41
42 ^Address – Post Restante Mentone, but there’s no need to write.
43I’m working.^
44
45
46

1 Hotel du Parc
2 Mentone
3 Feb 5 / 89
4
5 Thank you, Beautiful Boy, for your letter. Yes it’s all right, quite
6quite right. I send here a little thought that came into my mind this
7afternoon when I was walking up & down my room after I’d got your
8letter. I’ve got a most beautiful bit of sea from my window over the
9tops to the trees. It was dark blue to-day with little white horses of
10foam. There was a fall of snow the day before yesterday & all the
11mountains were ^are^ white. How I wish that you could see it, Boy, that
12loves the sunshine just as much as I do. It’s such beautiful, cold
13weather here.
14
15 You must get out of England a bit this spring, Edward. You wouldn’t
16have done all the good work you’ve done this year if you hadn’t
17been here last winter. It’s not waste of time sitting in the sun.
18
19 You must always stick up for Ellis if ever you hear anyone talk
20against him; he’s one of the quite purest, noblest souls, & people
21don’t understand him.
22
23 Olive
24
25 When are you going back to Sheffield? How happy you seem to have been
26making Alice & Louie Ellis. Please tell me if your stay in London has
27been nice.
28
29 ^I don’t know why I always feel more drawn to ?Oats than any of your
30friends you’ve told me about.^
31
32 ^Will send little dream another day. Olive.^
33
34
35

1 My beautiful old Ed’ard
2
3 I have been clinging to you these last days as a little child clings
4to its mother. Some far off day to come it will be seen what a light
5you were, how far before your time.
6
7 I have been passing through much darkness, & when I have looked round
8the world for a ray of light, I have found you. Go on your path,
9Edward, my beautiful brother.
10
11 I am obliged to go to Paris on private business but don’t mention
12the fact to anyone.
13
14 I will write & give you my address when there.
15
16 Edward, pray for me. Talking isn’t of any use, but if you should let
17your thought go out to me, I think I should feel it.
18
19 Your little thing in W.P.P. is beautiful. I liked about the old
20Harpist.
21
22 Edward, I want to love always the poorest, lowliest natures. You are
23right, they are nearer God.
24
25 Olive
26
27 There is something wrong, something all wrong in this life of ours. I
28have so much to learn.
29
30
31

1 Dear Edward
2
3 Please send this to Bob Muirhead. I didn’t see him to say good bye &
4so didn’t thank him. I thought I should see him again.
5
6 It is a lovely day here, one almost sees the sky over the houses.
7
8 I wonder how it goes with you at Mill-thorp. I never like to ask you
9because I’m always afraid of touching you roughly when I mean to be
10quite ^so very^ gentle. I have got my full marching orders for Africa
11now. I wonder if you will get yours.
12
13 I wish we could have spent a day up the river together, you & he & I:
14it would have been so perfect to have you both: One never hardly loves
15two human beings who love each other.
16
17 Good bye. I hope it goes well. I’ll send you a nice savage book soon.
18
19 Olive
20
21 Life is full of compensations. When the desire of the soul is taken
22from us she gives us calm.
23
24 You don’t know how beautiful it was with Bob here. Perhaps Bob
25himself less than anyone could understand. I don’t myself. He seems
26to me to be a bond between me & other human beings.
27
28
29

1 Ladies Chambers
2 Chenies Street
3 Saturday
4
5 My dear Edward
6
7 If you don’t find the savage book what you like send it back &
8I’ll send you a nice one about Malays. I’m reading about nothing
9but savages; I don’t care for anything else now. Thank you about the
10sandals. I send my measure, a little large, as it’s better than too
11small. They will be just the thing because I can’t be bothered with
12shoes & stockings there & my feet have got so tender in England that I
13shan’t be able to manage the rocks for some time without something on.
14
15 I’m very glad about G Adam’s pictures. It will be a great thing if
16he can make any money out of them because then he could give up more
17time to his painting. Dr Brown has just sent Alice a splendid skeleton
18& beautiful books of prints. He is going to pay entirely for her
19education & living & books & all for the next five years. It’s very
20beautiful, & she’s to repay him when her fortune is made. It’s all
21so happy & nice about her.
22
23 I hope the school gets boys.
24
25 It was funny your following me about like that for three or four days,
26& there wasn’t any reason or cause for it! I’m so glad its lovely
27at Sheffield. I am Please give greetings to Bob when he comes. I send
28him a book of African poems.
29
30 I went for a lovely walk to Regent’s Park this afternoon & sat first
31by the lake with the by boats & then among the flowers. I’ve just
32got home. It was so beautiful & restful just sitting there & not
33thinking of anything! It must be very nice bathing in your stream.
34
35 I’ve taken my passage in the Norham Castle for the 11th of October.
36I’ve got a nice deck cabin.
37
38 Goodnight.
39 Olive
40 ^
41I think I would rather the "general public" didn’t know I was going
42to Africa & the date of my going, so don’t mention it - except to
43Bob.
44
45 Won’t it be lovely seeing the stars again? I can’t believe it’s
46true: Oh the stars.^
47
48
49

1 Dear Edward
2
3 Isn’t the strike splendid? You ought to see the East End now. The
4strange, earnest look on the people’s faces, that sort of wide-eyed
5look. You look straight into their faces & their eyes look back at you;
6 they are possessed with a large idea. It’s very wonderful. I went
7yesterday to the place where the Salvation Army are giving away tiny
8packets of tea. About 500 men were there standing in rows waiting. The
9curious, silent, elate atmosphere, the look in the face of the most
10drunken old man was wonderful. I think I never felt so full of hope as
11yesterday. But perhaps you are here seeing it.
12
13 Yours, Olive
14
15
16

1 Dear Ed
2
3 The sandals are quite perfect. I have already lent one to a woman who
4wants to have a pair made like them. But no others will be like them
5to me. I value them immensely.
6
7 I should have written yesterday but I had had a blow that somewhat
8unfitted me. My dear friend Amy Levy had died the night before. She
9killed herself by shutting herself up in a room with charcoal. We were
10away together for three days last week. But it did not seem to help
11her; her agony had gone past human help. The last thing I sent her was
12the Have Faith page of Towards Demo. She wrote me back a little note,
13"Thank you, it is very beautiful, but philosophy can’t help me. I am
14too much shut in with the personal." You need not refer to all this
15when you write. I only tell you that you may know why I didn’t write
16sooner. They say the East End women are getting terribly tired of the
17
18^strike.
19
20 Olive^
21
22 ^I send you an allegory of mine. Return; don’t show to anyone else as
23it is only to appear in the Fortnightly next month.^
24
25 Olive
26
27
28

1 My dear Edward
2
3 What I hope you are finding the work begin satisfactorily. I am
4sailing next Wednesday morning from the London dock. If ever you want
5to write to me when I am gone address: W.P. Schreiner
6 Mount Vernon
7 Cape Town
8 Africa.
9
10 Thank you for the book. Thank you, Edward, for all you’ve been to me.
11
12 Olive
13
14 The Fortnightly won’t take my article after all says it’s too
15strong
16
17
18

1 On Board
2 Norham Castle
3 Dartmouth
4 Friday morning
5
6 Goodbye, dear old Brother. You will have to come out after me some day,
7 when you hear about the stars & the black people & all the nice
8things. I’m going to be quite well. Goodbye.
9
10 Olive
11
12
13

1 Cape Town
2 Jan 31 / 90
3
4 My Ed’rd,
5
6 I send you a note I’ve just got from Ettie. It was a great
7disappointment to me that she was in such an abnormal condition when
8she was in England. You wouldn’t know her if you saw her now, so
9pretty, & sweet & fresh. You must come to us some day, you & our Bob.
10In about a year time from now I hope to be able to have seen my way
11clear to going up to travel in the interior of Africa. If you & Bob
12could come then it would be splendid.
13
14 How goes it with you? I wonder if this sunshine would be to you what
15it is to me - Life - creeping through every little pore in one’s
16body & brain. I had such a glorious day the day before yesterday lying
17on the top of a mountain with the sea down at the right, & these
18glorious table mountains on my left, & the town a little speck below,
19that you couldn’t see, & the bushes & the butterflies about you. It
20is like the Riviera only infinitely grander, wilder, brighter,
21intenser! But I am afraid to say too much, because of course it might
22not be to you what it is to me. It is my land, my own that I have been
23longing for in London fogs & summer mist & drizzels, shut-in with
24hedges & those terrible high walls in England that nearly break ones
25heart.
26
27 I have been making several friends for you here with your books though
28as a rule the people are the hardest narrowest hard-shell philistines
29that God Almighty ever made.
30
31 How about the school? Goodbye, my old comrade. I’m going tomorrow to
32see Bertie Everitt, my convict friend. He is working here on the
33breakwater. I like to think he is working under this blue sky. He must
34feel a bit free whenever he looks up, whatever he may feel when he
35looks down. Give my love to George Adams. I wear the sandals every day
36here in the house, they are so nice & cool in this hot weather - but I
37love the heat. I bask in the sun, like one of my dear old salamanders.
38
39 Have you heard anything of Karl Pearson: is he well? Oh I wish I could
40give him a little of this sunshine.
41
42 Olive
43
44 I’m still living in this big house all alone leave at the end of
45March for up country. If you could come then I would take you & show
46you the Karroo.
47
48
49

1 Sunday morning
2 Beautiful blue sky. Mountains twirling up into it.
3 Feb 15 / 90
4
5 Dear Edward,
6
7 I have just come back from the convict station where I’ve just been
8to see a lad with beautiful blue eyes. He has still 6 years to serve.
9He stood on one side of the wooden palings & I on the other, & He a
10police man between us. Behind us in the great yard were rows of
11convicts black & white in their marked dresses. I wanted to put my
12arms round them all. It was beautiful that the blue sky was over us
13all. Upwards we are all free, we can only chain each other sideways.
14He always seems to belong to me more than anyone in Cape Town. You
15must come out, & see the sunshine some day. I’m glad your work goes
16well. It’s beautiful to be here in a country where there are no
17hungry & over-worked.
18
19 I am living here in this big house alone, & I have been wanting to get
20a woman to come for the day just to help me scrub the floors & I am
21quite willing to pay 5/- a day, but I can’t get one though I’ve
22been trying for weeks. That sounds good doesn’t it. Servants & hand
23workers of all kinds can ask pretty much what they like here. Brain
24work is not quite so much in request.
25
26 I leave this at the end of March for a solitary place up in the Karroo
27about two hundred miles from here called Matjesfontein.
28
29^Good bye love to George Adams. ^
30
31 Olive
32
33
34

1 Cape Town
2
3 Dear Ed,
4
5 I expect you are all at Abbottsholm. Just a word because I want to
6communicate with you but I’m too stupid to write. It’s better here
7than I could have dreamed. I am going out to Vischhoek tomorrow.
8Address Vischhoek, Somerset West, Hotten-tots Holland, Cape of Good
9Hope. I’m going to have a "house" with only one little room bedroom
10& sitting room all in one.
11
12 This land is too beautiful. You must see it some day.
13
14 Olive
15
16 ^Give my love to George^
17

1 Matjesfontein
2 A wild place in the Karroo
3 200 miles from Cape Town.
4 Hour; 10 at night.
5 Sky; dark: mixed stars & dark clouds.
6 Date April 19 / 90.
7
8 Dear Ed’ard,
9
10 It’s a long time since a word passed between us. I’ve been living
11up here for about a year ^month^ now. I am enjoying the wild, barren
12karroo & the old stars, & the sunlight, & the thunderstorms even more
13than I had hoped, & I am very strong & well. I have three tiny rooms
14where I live alone & go over the way to fetch my meals. I shall likely
15be here for the next six months, all through our winter. It is already
16very cold, we are three thousand odd feet above the sea, & in winter
17the snow has to be shovelled away from the doors. But it is dry
18cutting cold. I like it almost as well as the hot weather. I am
19working when I’m not walking up & down & looking at the sky.
20
21 I am going to go up into the interior in 6 or 7 months time. I My
22plans are slowly ripening. Please tell me a little about yourself when
23you write. I am very happy, & it’s all right with me.
24
25 Give my love to our Bob. He’s the only friend I’ve made in the
26last three & a half years. He’s precious to me as a snowdrop in
27winter. I used to make many friends before, now my heart feels kind to
28everyone but I have no personal feeling to. He is the only person has
29made me love them, & I feel so grateful to him. I think I should
30always care about his wife & children & anything that belonged to him.
31Mrs Walters wrote to me a little time ago. She too seems to have seen
32Reddie as he is. There are many Hottentots & Bushmen near here, but
33they are all half civilized & always drunk. The way people drink in
34this country is simply terrible.
35
36 Do you know How did your visit to London go off? Fancy there really is
37a London! It’s all such a dream to me all life.
38
39 I’ve not any books at all here, & only see a newspaper once a week.
40
41 Goodnight.
42 Olive
43
44
45

1 Matjesfontein
2 Cape of Good Hope
3 South Africa
4 July 20 / 90
5
6 It was such a surprise & pleasure to get your letter last mail. I
7thought you had quite forgotten me Here in my solitude I can forget no
8one. I don’t know what I told you or didn’t tell you when I last
9wrote. This is a place up in the solitude of the dear old Karroo where
10I have been four months & am like to remain another six at least. It
11is not a farm because no farming goes on here but it all belongs to
12one man from whom I hire the little cottage I live in by myself. No, I
13have no friends here, but I am very friendly with all the Bushmen
14Hottentots Kaffers & am very well & very very happy.
15
16 I can understand now why that English life was such a death to me,
17shut out from the sun & mountains & planes that had made all my life
18before I went there. Of course it’s so beautiful to think of you all
19& feel I have you all safe in my heart forever & I am so thankful I
20had that life, but it will be a long time before I want any more of it.
21
22 Yes, I heard my good friend Karl Pearson was to be married: he wrote
23me a note. I think it is the best thing that could have happened to
24him & that he will be very happy.
25
26 I really have nothing to tell you, leading this quiet, happy life up
27here. I write a little, & read a great deal, & wish I could give you
28just one peep at our glorious sunsets.
29
30 Now I’ve given you all my news you must write soon again & tell me
31all about you all about you all. Give my love to our dear Bob when you
32write; & to George Adams when you see him, & come out here some day. I
33am sure you would see the beauty of my land so great so wild so
34untamed. I am still working up steadily towards my trip to the
35interior, gaining exact information as to what to take &c, & finishing
36my books which are to take me.
37
38 Please give my love to Isabella Ford if you should see her, I’ve
39been so glad to hear about her story but have not been able to see it
40up here. I am just reading Stanleys Travels.
41
42 Good bye.
43 Always yours
44 Olive Schreiner
45
46
47

1 Matjesfontein
2 Sep 4 / 90
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 You seem to have got very far from me some how Bob says he won’t
7come with me up country, but I dropped the last half of his letter
8before I had read it & couldn’t find it. Perhaps he said he might.
9 I am really seeing my way to the end of my work, & not long after Xmas
10I shall be able to give up all my time to working getting things ready
11for a start. That will take a couple of months.
12
13 Oh the heavens are such a clear, lovely blue here. You can’t think
14how near Heaven one feels when one looks up at it. I hope you will see
15it some day. Those people you want won’t come to you, and those you
16don’t, will.
17
18 I am going to have a great joy next week, perhaps; my brother is
19coming to stay two days with me. He’s such a noble fellow. Not a
20socialist in theory, but more of a socialist in practice than any man
21I know. Very broad & willing to let everyone go their own way. He’s
22a barrister.
23
24 I wish you could see the wonderful little plants here. Do you know
25I’m beginning to feel I should be quite
26
27^Have you heard anything of my dear old Friend Karl Pearson lately? Is
28he married I’m sure he’ll be very happy & have the best of all
29possible lives. ^
30
31 Olive
32
33 Address Matjesfontein
34 Cape Colony
35 South Africa
36
37
38

1 Matjesfontein
2 April 22 / 91
3
4 My dear old Edward
5
6 Why comes it in my heart tonight to write to you. I am sitting here in
7my little house alone with my lamp hanging over me, & suddenly just as
8I was going to turn in for the night the thought came I wanted to
9write. Perhaps it’s because a little while ago I was outside looking
10at the moonlight & felt so rested by it, & all restful & complete
11things remind me of you.
12
13 I really haven’t any news to give you. I’m living on here quietly
14enough with nothing ever happening & quite happy. I could live here
15forever if the warm weather would only last, but we are at the
16beginning of winter. I may have to go down the mountains a bit &
17return here when it gets spring again. I wish you could see our spring
18here in the karroo, all the barren plains one carpet for of flowers
19for two months. I hope you have come back strengthened & body & full
20of hope from India. Doesn’t the black nightmare of city life in
21England seem like a dream out here in the sunshine? But you know, I
22don’t think all people feel it as black as we do or this clear air
23as beautiful. I know people who say they would rather endure a black
24fog in a black slum than live the life we of solitude in a place like
25this. Yes, you must come here some time.
26
27 Give my love to our Bob, I’ve been going & going to write to every
28week. He’s one of the people I shall never forget as long as I live.
29
30 How is my dear friend Adams? Give him my love.
31
32 Did you see my friend Nelly in India?
33
34 I am so unreadable
35
36 Edward, isn’t it good to realize that there are other problems
37besides our Socialist problems, & other conditions of life quite
38important & beautiful besides ours? That’s the good of travelling.
39
40 I’ve got some beautiful friends out here. I’ll show you when you
41come.
42
43 Olive
44
45
46

1 My dear Edward,
2
3 I’m some how wanting to hear from you & I don’t! Bob wrote to me
4the other day, but didn’t give me any news of you, beyond saying "I
5suppose Edward has told you his own news." Of myself there is
6absolutely nothing to tell. I am in one of those stages when one is
7simply shaping what one has & setting it down. I write a good deal,
8not altogether badly. You see I have now more to set down, at least in
9the form I wish, than I could well do in twenty year. Many conceptions
10that lay before me clear, but too spread out for me to grasp, I am
11getting my fingers round a little. But the work will sh seem very
12small when it is done. I am still living alone at Matjesfontein. What
13of George coming out? That he would be better off here than at Home
14there is not the smallest doubt. How good it would be to see you out
15here. You ought to come first & spy-out the land. Come? What are you
16doing?
17
18 Good bye. I’ve sent for the new Towards D. Love to George & my dear
19old Bob if you are writing.
20
21 Olive.
22 ^
23Do you know a man, now out here, called Lionel Bradford? He is very
24like Karl Pearson. What do you think of him? I am strongly attracted
25to him in a sense, & in a sense repelled.
26
27 Olive
28
29 This question is only for you if you care to answer it.^
30
31
32

1 Sunday night
2 Cape Town
3 1892
4
5 Dear Edward
6
7 It is lateish & I am sitting upstairs in my little room in a boarding
8house & soon going to bed, I’m just writing to tell you that I’ve
9got Towards Democracy. Just the same morning a few hours before, I
10bought a copy of the new edition for my friends, Captain & his wife. I
11don’t know if I ever told you about them, he is consumptive &
12staying out here for his health, & his wife is going to have a little
13baby next month. He’s so like you, & all his ideas are so like yours
14that we’ve given him the name of Edward Carpenter, & his wife & I
15are beginning to think it is his real name. When I went to their
16little rooms tonight I found them reading TD. This I think put it in
17my head to write to you. Come out here, old Ed’ard. I want you to
18see Table Mountain. Tell our Boy, I wish I could show it him too.
19There’s no news to give you of myself. All things continue as they
20were in the beginning. I think this edition splendid of TD. To One Dead,
21 seems to me new, any-how, it never struck me in the same way before.
22Good night dear old Brother.
23
24 Olive
25
26 Love to dear old George. There is plenty of room for you all in dear
27old Africa. Come, but come about Nov October so that you may have all
28our beautiful summer. Even here, the winter comes.
29
30
31

1 Cape Town
2 May 23 / 92
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 It’s nice to think of you being in the world somewhere. It’s nice
7to think of all the beautiful souls everywhere. I’m sitting alone in
8my upstairs bedroom in a unreadable boarding house. It’s cold winter
9weather with pouring rain; it’s almost like England. H I’ve got no
10news to give you.
11
12 I’ve been sorry about those anarchist troubles. I’m so sorry our
13people do such things. I’m going to get Plato to read tomorrow to
14make the sky bluer.
15
16 There are no people that think or care about social or impersonal
17subjects in this country, that I’ve found. They are all philistines.
18Its so funny to find a whole nation of philistines without the other
19element at all. I’m getting more used to it, & up at Matjesfontein
20in the beautiful Karroo one doesn’t feel it at all. It’s a lovely
21life up there in the summer.
22
23 I’ve found a couple of people who can understand England’s Ideal a
24little, but they are from England. People here think anyone is mad who
25supposes that anyone could perhaps think anything nicer than a great
26deal of money. It’s a curious, curious study this whole society. I
27wonder what you would make of it!!
28
29 Good bye Ed.
30 Olive
31 ^
32Loving greetings to my old friend George. In weather like this one
33feels he is almost as well in England but in three months the rain
34will be over & the spring back again.
35
36 OS^
37
38
39

1 Mount Vernon
2 Cape Town
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 I’ve written to you, but I can’t find the letter now.
7
8 Write to me please sometimes. I’ve said so much in that other letter
9told you how the sunshines & all that, I can’t tell it again. I am
10sending you some photographs.
11
12 Good bye
13 Olive
14
15 You know I’ve been ill all the while or I would have written last
16week, because I want to hear from you.
17

1 They are bring out a cheap 2/- edition of S.A.F. I’m glad because
2the only people are I really care to read it are people struggling
3with material want & the narrowness & iron pressure of their
4surroundings who won’t be so likely to get a ^more^ expensive book.
5The only thing that ever induced me to write it out was the feeling
6that some soul struggling with its material surrounding as I was might
7read it & feel less alone.
8
9 I hope some day when your tired I’ll be able to help you a little as
10the thought of you helps me.
11
12 It’s very splendid here: even when it snows the air is clearer than
13in London.
14
15 Do you keep well in this terrible weather
16
17 Olive Schreiner
18
19 I liked your paper in To-day.
20
21
22

1 Matjesfontein
2 S. Africa
3 Nov 23 / 92
4
5 I’ve been lying in bed all day & reading that book of Francis Adams
6you sent me. It’s the first thing I’ve read with keen pleasure for
7a long time. I liked it better to day than ever before. Edward, you
8don’t know how bad things are in this land; we flog our niggers to
9death, & wealth as the only possible end & aim in life, is more
10recognized here than, I think, in any country in the world. I don’t
11mean that there aren’t classes who don’t feel so in every country,
12but then there are other classes, here there are not. It’s funny to
13be in a land which is all philistines! Good, nice, respectable
14philistines, but still nothing else. There are other individuals, but
15no other class. There are money making whites, & down-trodden blacks,
16& nothing between. And things will have to be so much worse here
17before they can be better; in Europe we have almost got to the bottom
18already & the tide is going to turn. I’m coming back in April, I
19think I told you to England. I hope I’ll see you. I’ll be there
20from the beginning of May to the end of July: then I must go abroad
21again, either to the Engadine or Egypt. I thought Africa would make me
22better, but it’s been an unremitted down hill all the time.
23 I was so glad to feel when I was reading Adams’s book today how
24little the world needs one, how much better & stronger folk than
25oneself there are to carry on all work that one fancies one has to do.
26I don’t know why that book seemed such a help to me today. Our warm
27weather is going to begin at last. Its so beautiful to know it must
28come. This has been the coldest year that the oldest people in South
29Africa remember. We have had more cold & rain this November than we
30generally have in the depth of winter. Is your book about India out?
31Do you know Francis Adams? Are you fit?
32
33 Good bye. Love to all Friends.
34 Olive
35 ^
36Bob doesn’t like my little story so I’m sure you wont. But anyhow
37it’s true!!
38 OS^
39
40
41

1 Xmas day
2 1892
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 I want to write to you this day. It’s so nice here. I’m staying at
7the old farm where I used to live when I was a young girl & where I
8finished part of An African Farm. It’s a beautiful, wild place, one
9of the most beautiful in the world & I wish you were here to see it. I
10always have been thinking of you since I came here. The wild bush of
11mimosa thorns comes right down to the house & its full of wild animals.
12 The other day we caught a little baby monkey with a long tail in the
13tree just behind my window, & there are heaps of Baboons one hears
14fighting in the trees. The day before yesterday we killed two snakes.
15Early in the morning I was walking on the mountain reading by myself,
16& almost trod on one. Soon after in the house, the girl was making the
17tutors bed, & she heard something fall off. It was a cobra, & we’ve
18got them both in bottles. I like to feel this wild, untamed life with
19"the will to live" still strong & untamed in it, seething about one.
20It makes the old strength come back into ones heart. It’s
21beautifully hot here. You know how lovely that is, the fierce clear
22sunlight shining full on you. Yesterday I went alone on the top of a
23koppje & took off all my clothes & wandered about for hours in the hot
24dry sand & thorny bushes. Its delightful to feel the sand direct on
25one. In England it’s so cold one must cover & peep & have conviction
26of ?sin all the while. I’m staying here with a big family a father &
27mother & eleven children, nearly all grown up. They are such a
28beautiful big family you’d enjoy seeing them all round the table.
29The day after tomorrow we are going to make a big party & climb the
30high mountain behind the house.
31
32 A young farmer who lives 30 miles off is coming with his two sisters
33to go with us. He’s a beautiful fellow draws me greatly, he’s
34something like Waldo, but fiercer & stronger. One day he may make one
35of the few & first men who have ever made a stand in South Africa.
36That is my dream for him. Now in our public life all is low low ebb.
37It has almost broken my heart. I’m so glad to get away here for a
38little while to this dear old wild nature. There are big leopards in
39the bush & every thing nice. I like them better than politicians. One
40feels so sure here, that everything is in a transitional state, & that
41the bigger time is coming some day. It’s harder to feel it in the
42world. If ever you come to Africa you must come & stay here with these
43friends of mine. I’ll give you a letter of introduction, & they’ll
44all love you. Everyone is very busy now reading Morris’s "News from
45Nowhere" which I brought with me. I’m going to send them all your
46books. I’ve been here nearly a month now & must soon be moving on to
47see my little mother. I shall only be able to stop in England three
48months, say May, June & July, then it’ll be too damp. Will you try &
49let me have a look at you while I’m in London?
50
51 The sad side of our life in Africa is our native question. I’m
52writing a paper on it now.
53
54 How does the world go at Mill Thorpe. Drop me a line if you have time.
55Love to George & his wife, & send this note on to our Bob because I
56haven’t time to write him any Xmas letter.
57
58 Your little sister
59 Olive
60
61 The tutor here is a young consumptive Englishman from Oxford whom I
62got a place here for because he was very ill in Cape Town. He’s a
63socialist, the only socialist I’ve seen since I left England. People
64haven’t heard of socialism here, except a few workmen in the big
65towns.
66
67^All the people here about still call me "de kleine schoolmisses" "the
68little schoolmistress" it’s so nice & so funny. All my English life
69seems sometimes a dream, only when I walk alone in my old places in
70the bush I feel a lot of the fire is burnt out. I wish you could see
71these mimosa trees in flower, they are so nice. ^
72
73 Olive
74
75

1 Dear Old Ned
2
3 I’m coming home in April next. It will be beautiful to see you all.
4Old Bob & George & all of you. Couldn’t you come out here this
5summer & go back with me in April. Summer here is fine, winters are
6bad. I’ve had measles been up two months but quite fit again. Very
7well & happy.
8
9 Good bye
10 Olive
11
12 Alice had a peep at you. Said you looked at always. Everyone is very
13good & kind to me here, but I want to see my old comrades.
14
15 The only hope for Africa lies in the English people being unwilling to
16aid in these these things; but I fear there is no hope; no hope!
17
18 You can have no idea reading the paper at Home, where it will seem
19moderate & simple enough, what a storm it has raised in this country.
20You know what wildly excited socialist orators say that capitalism is
21in England & America; - well, that’s what it realy is here. You
22can’t picture anything worse! You don’t know what capitalism is in
23England. You’ve never seen a hord of men sweep down on a country, &
24take possession of every thing!! lands, mines, public works,
25Government, - everything! And we are so powerless. We are just like a
26tiny fly caught by the hindlegs in a huge spiders web. It’s no use.
27Good bye dear old boy. Cron sends his love to you. So do I.
28
29 Olive
30
31
32