1 Alexandra House
2 Denmark Place
3 Hastings
4 Dec 21 / 84
5
6 My dear Mrs Cobb
7
8 Thank you for Matthew Arnold’s speech: it interested me very much.
9
10 I shall be very glad to know how it is that W.H. Smith got his
11monopoly It is a great injustice But the real evil, it seems to me,
12lies deeper.
13
14 When the writer refuses to be lead by the public, & labours over his
15least picture with the same implacable faithfulness to nature that the
16man of science has to show before he reaches any truth; when he
17forgets the circulating libraries & the publishers, & the paying time
18& works as though he & his work were alone in the world, at last, in
19the long long run, the public must follow him, even two old ladies in
20the country. The two old ladies are so strong because writers are so
21faithless; they walk with one eye on thuth, & one eye on society & the
22publishers returns. Neverthe-less the harm that a man like W H Smith
23can do is very great; the writer may starve before the long long run
24comes, though ^of course that doesn’t make any difference in his duty.^
25
26 Thank you much for your letter. I shall like to come & see you, & hope
27I shall be able to come up to London in February.
28
29 Some friends of mine have been writing to me about a woman’s weekly
30paper or a monthly review which they would like to see started on a
31rather large scale. I cannot say I feel much sympathy with such a plan;
32 do you? The disease from which we are suffering, is the
33classification of men the human race according to the sexual
34difference which is not a sound basis for classification in any but
35purely sexual matters. We are human beings in the first place men &
36women in the second. We want the wall of separation between the sexes
37two halves of the human race done away with not made higher. Don’t
38you sometimes feel that workers on the woman’s side make as great a
39mistake, as men have made on the other in this matter.
40
41 I hope you are feeling a little stronger now. You looked so weak the
42last time I saw you.
43
44 Yours very sincerely,
45 Olive Schreiner
46
47 I hope your sister is better. After Friday my address will be 4
48Robertson Terrace.
49

1 4 Robertson Ter
2 Hastings
3 Jan 9 / 85
4
5 Dear Mrs Cobb
6
7 Thankyou very much for for Mr Pearson’s lecture. It would be
8difficult for me to tell you how much I liked it. Except in Ibsen’s
9writings I have never met what I hold to be the true view of the woman
10question. It is most gloriously expressed in Mr Pearson’s essay. I
11don’t think he has any right to keep it unpublished. As to
12crude-ness, there is something in the almost colloquial freedom of the
13style, that I think adds to the effect, & any attempt to express the
14ideas more measuredly might spoil the freshness.
15
16 I have a great deal I would like to say, but I am under the doctor’s
17orders not to write at all for a few days. I only write now because I
18want to know if before I return it I may send that lecture to my
19friend Mrs Walters I know she will take great care of it, but please
20don’t say I can if you would rather not. Can’t you get Mr Pearson
21to publish it? Has he written anything else on the woman question?
22
23 Miss Müller has been down here for a little while & I have seen her
24every day. I think I have made a little impression on her, but she
25still looks upon men as "played out." It seems to me that most of
26these workers in the woman cause are like workmen carrying on stones
27for a builder of whose plan they have no conception. They think they
28are building a little room for themselves, & in the end it is a great
29hall into which all the world may come. I like so much what you told
30me about your Xmas. Thankyou for your letter. I think that by knowing
31where to ?save oneself one sometimes adds immensely to one’s working
32powers.
33
34 I have glanced at Rhys David’s & see I shall like it very much. Have
35you read the first part of "Ghosts"? You must not judge of the whole
36by that.
37
38 Yours sincerely
39 Olive Schreiner
40
41
42

1 4 Robertson Terrace
2 Hastings
3 Jan 19th 1885
4
5
6 My dear Mrs Cobb
7
8 Thank you very much for your letters. I think I quite understand what
9you said about that lecture. I think that the effect that friend has
10upon friend is very often, not that they give any new idea, but that
11they call into activity the ideas that are latent in their mind.
12Thanks for letting me send the MS to Mrs Walters. I send the P.C. she
13has just sent. I let you know what she says in her long letter. Of all
14my women friends she is the one I feel nearest to me. There are other
15people I love more but she & Henry Ellis always seem like parts of my
16own nature living away from me. They are the only people for whom I
17have that kind of feeling. Have you ever had it for anyone I wonder.
18It is such a restful kind of friendship. You know they can’t go away
19from you because it’s what you naturally are & what they naturally
20are that binds you.
21
22 I hope you are better now. I am worse. I cannot leave my room.
23Sometimes it comforts one so to think what little things we
24humanbeings are. It doesn’t matter about one’s work after all,
25someone else will do it. That makes one able to be so quiet.
26
27 I get plenty of stamps every week, & shall like to send some.
28
29 Yes, it is nice that men & women are beginning to grow nearer to
30eachother. The old state of affairs seems to me more & more just like
31a disease.
32
33 I hope you have got the M.S. safely. Couldn’t you get Mr Pearson to
34publish it merely for private circulation? I must write & learn about
35"Ghosts."
36
37 Very sincerely yours
38 Olive Schreiner
39
40 Please excuse want of clearness every thing is very hazy to me.
41

1 19 Charlotte St
2 Feb 12 / 85.
3
4 My dear Mrs Cobb
5
6 I am going to ask Miss Lord to come on Thursday afternoon. I think you
7said that would suit you better than Wednesday. I thought after you
8had left that perhaps if I had begged I might have been able to get
9you to stay the evening, & then we should have had time for a quiet
10talk. There are so many things I should like us to talk over.
11
12 I do hope you will be able to come even if Miss Lord can’t. Please
13remind me that there is a question I want to ask you when you come.
14It’s about a little half mental half physical fact with regard to
15which I should like to have other people’s experience. I often think
16that a thing quite as necessary as that ^women &^ men should understand
17& know more of eachother is that women should know really & understand
18more of one another, & each woman not be so much shut up to
19generalising from her own single experience. When you try to argue
20with men about many things they will turn round & say, ‘Ah yes, that
21is all very well, but you are speaking for yourself most women do not
22feel or think so,’ &c. And one doesn’t always know what to reply,
23does one?
24
25 Good bye,
26 Olive Schreiner
27
28 If Mr Pearson would care to come with you to meet Miss Lord I should
29be glad to see him.
30

1 Hastings
2 March 25 / 85
3
4 Dear Mrs Cobb
5
6 Miss Müller has written to ask me if you would let her see Karl
7Pearson’s lecture. Her address if you care to send it ^is^
8 58 Cadogan Pl
9 W.
10
11 The letter of Mrs Walters which I enclose gives very exactly my
12feeling with regard to love. When I have time I want to write more to
13you on the subject.
14
15 I have asked someone else the question that I asked you, & they have
16given me the same reply. Why I feel the matter of importance is
17because it bears indirectly on the all important question, "Ought
18there to be two moral standards, one for man, one for woman?" My own
19feeling is very strongly that there ought not. But this can only be
20proved or disproved, by showing how like or unlike, the natures of men
21& women are, especially on the sexual side. Every thing I learn, every
22deeper insight I gain into human nature shows me that the difference
23is small, the resemblance great. But I should like to know as well as
24to feel. I think you are very right in what you said in your last
25letter. ^with regard to the frequency of entercourse between men & women^
26Putting the physical question quite aside, it seems to me too
27important, too serious, &, where men & women love eachother, too
28beautiful ^a thing^ to be made common. Physically speaking I am quite
29unreadable sure you are right.
30
31 I hope you have found some suitable women for the club, & I hope you
32are not tiring yourself too much.
33
34 Olive Schreiner
35
36 Do you perhaps know of any young man who would do what Mrs Walters
37wants?
38

1 4 Robertson Terrace
2 April
3
4 My dear Mrs Cobb
5
6 Thank you for your letter. Will you please send me another copy of
7that pam. on "Socialism." I want to send it to a very interesting man
8I am writing to. He is a Scotsman lives at Carlisle. His father was a
9gentleman’s gardener, & he himself was a railway clerk for a long
10time, & now lives by selling coals on commission. He is entirely a
11self-educated man, but very intellectual & very interesting He is a
12very earnest socialist of the Carpenter type. I don’t know any one
13who has written to me that I feel so unreadable interested in.
14
15 About Edith Simcox. Havelock Ellis wrote to her & sent her a copy of
16the pamphlet. She didn’t like it at all.
17
18 How goes it with the club? A delightful woman came to see me the other
19day, do you know anything of her, a Miss Marks, a young Jewess lives
20with Madame Bodichon? I should think she would be a splendid woman for
21such a club, but of course I don’t know enough of her yet to speak
22with certainty She is one of the most fascinating little specimens of
23humanity I have yet seen, a kind of emotional Miss Müller. She has I
24believe made some valuable little mathematical invention of some kind
25She is going to be married next month. Her little flushed face looked
26so lovely when she was telling me about it. One can’t help laughing
27secretly at the thought of those wiseacres who imagine that
28cultivation can kill out a woman’s emotional nature!
29
30 Yes, how funny that you should hear of Mrs Walters again. I wish you
31knew her personally. I don’t think I am in any way blinkered in
32thinking hers such a rare & beautiful nature, one that unfolds as you
33get nearer to it.
34
35 We have had such a glorious day here. The sea has been all shades of
36blue. It made one happy to look at it. I think I shall be coming up to
37town the week after next. Shall try to get rooms at Hampstead. I hope
38the spring is making you feel stronger.
39
40 Ever sincerely yours
41 Olive Schreiner
42
43 Sorry to trouble you about the pamphlet but have forgotten the
44publisher.
45
46
47

1 Sunday
2
3 Dear Mrs Cobb
4
5 I return the books. Both interested me much. They are both young, but
6they have that noble power & originality that is in all Karl Pearson
7writes, something that no age or experience can give.
8
9 I enclose a vol. of Marsten’s poems for you to look at, but almost
10doubt whether you will care for them. Moore has been to see me & is
11coming again tomorrow. I like him. I don’t know whether you will
12care for the "Mummer’s Wife". It is science, & not poetry, & not
13philosophy. If you care for Darwin’s "Variations of plants & animals
14under domestication" you will probably like it, if not not. I was
15going to spend yesterday with Miss Müller at Pengbourne, a number of
16interesting women were to be there, but I was prevented by visitors.
17
18 I go to Desborough on Sat. & return on Monday. I should so like you to
19meet Mrs Walters. I must manage it when they come to live at Bedford.
20But perhaps you may not think her so wonderful as I have made out,
21just at first.
22
23 I hope you are well & happy.
24
25 Yours affecty
26 Olive Schreiner
27
28
29

1 41 Upper Baker St
2 Wednesday
3
4 My dear Mr Pearson
5
6 If possible I shall be there on the 9th. My life is such a whirl, (Did
7you ever try for a little while to slip between surfaces with out
8piercing them?) that I am not sure I shall have time for the paper. If
9you can wait a day or two till I am settled in my new quarters I will
10write & let you know. But if there is any other woman you think would
11do it well, you had best write to her. If I did write I should write
12quite frankly. More & more I see clearly that in our minds, & in our
13intercourse with our fellow men there should be no corner of which we
14say, "Here the light of day must not come."
15
16 Yours very sincerely
17 Olive Schreiner
18
19
20
21

1 My dear Mr Pearson
2
3 Just when I’d posted my note yours came.
4
5 The 9th will suit me well if I am still in Town; but you must not
6count upon me as a speaker, I cannot speak to more than one person at
7a time.
8
9 I thought you would have heard about Miss Müller from Mrs Cobb or
10should have written sooner. It would be very nice if you were to come
11across her abroad.
12
13 Yours sincerely
14 Olive Schreiner
15
16
17
18

1 9 Blandford Square
2 Saturday
3
4 My dear Mr Pearson
5
6 I shall not have a minute to write the short sketch. I think yours
7will be quite enough. If I possibly can I will be there on Thursday.
8
9 Yours sincerely
10 Olive Schreiner
11

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Sunday.
3
4 Dear Mr Pearson
5
6 Thursday or Wednesday will suit me, & the evening as well as the
7aftenoon. I am my own mistress now. I have a quiet room here in which
8we could meet, but perhaps the Temple would be more central for us all.
9 Miss Sharp must decide, but please let me know at once, on account of
10other engagements. I have thought of one great deficiency in your
11paper, but perhaps it was intentional. As far as it went it I was very
12complete, but it left out one whole field, to me, ^personally^ the most
13important one,
14
15 I hope you will have your paper printed.
16
17 Yours sincerely,
18 Olive Schreiner
19
20 The long climb would be no draw back.
21
22
23

1 Dear Mr Pearson
2
3 So very sorry I did not see you yesterday morning Have written to tell
4Miss Sharpe I am coming on Friday. Are we to meet there? Shall keep
5Thursday open till I hear from you.
6
7 The omission was "Man." Your whole paper reads as though the object of
8the club were to dis-cuss woman, her objects, her needs, her mental &
9physical nature, & man only in as far as he throws light upon her
10question. This is entirely wrong.
11
12 I have no doubt that the motive of the Pall Mall is mean.* God
13sometimes uses the devil for his own purposes; even the press.
14
15 Yours very truly,
16 Olive Schreiner
17
18 I think you certainly ought to have that paper** printed. Please do so,
19 it will be very useful.
20
21 ^I think you might best add the note mentioning the omission, if you
22think it one.^
23
24
25

1 Sunday
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 Thankyou very much for your letter. When I came home I carried on our
6conversation for an hour or more walking up & down my room. Yes, I
7knew you felt these things, but perhaps not in the way a woman can
8feel them.
9
10 Sometimes when I have been walking in Gray’s Inn Rd & seen one of
11those terrible old women that are so common there, the sense of
12agonised oneness with her that I have felt, that she was myself only
13under different circumstances, has stricken me almost mad. Do you
14think any man could feel so? I feel so about all these poor women.
15
16 //I agree with you that the Criminal Law Amendment Act, will not touch
17the matter, there will be not one prostitute in England less at the
18end of the year because of it, nor because of any law that could be
19passed. What then has the Pall Mall done? - Simply this - it may have
20warned a few sl girls, & it may have roused a few thousand women from
21their long selfish sleep ^on sexual matters^; if it has done this it
22will not be a small thing; it’s effects will tell after many days. I
23do not know if you will at all sympathize with me, but my feeling is
24not one of hatred to the men who do these things. One is irresistibly
25driven back to look at the women who bore these men, & in whose hand
26they lay for the first twelve or fourteen years their life. What have
27these women done for them; upon the most solemn, the most beautiful,
28the most important and the life & death giving side of their natures,
29how have they ^been^ instructed? Unreadable Of course you may say that
30these women were themselves the slaves of men, where were they to gain
31the physical, the intellectual ^& the moral^ knowledge, which would
32enable them to teach their sons the beauty importance of the sexual
33sides of their natures. This is quite true; & so we come back to the
34old point, that we can^not^ hate any one. Man injures woman & woman
35injures man. It is not a case for crying out against individuals ^or
36against sexes,^ but simply for changing a whole system. When we have
37pure strong mothers able see the beauty & importance of the sexual
38side of life, we will have pure strong men able to guide themselves
39nobly. Before that day comes women will have to have to have made
40themselves absolutely free of material dependence on man, their
41reasons & their wills will have had to be cultivated. It seems a long
42way off, but I always feel that it must come at last & I do think the
43Pall Mall letters have been wise if they have awakened only a thousand
44women.
45
46 I saw Dr Donkin yesterday. He is going abroad in August ^September^ &
47October, but will, I think, like to read us a paper in November; but
48he would like to know more about our particular standpoint. I have
49sent him your paper, & told him about Mr Parker.
50
51 Thank you for the copies. I should like a few more, as I want to send
52to Miss Lord, Roden Noel &c all people who are interested in our
53subjects.
54
55 Yours very sincerely,
56 Olive Schreiner
57
58 I hope you be able to read my handwriting I am writing very hurriedly,
59as I fear you may be leaving for Germany tomorrow. I hope you will
60have a restful time there. Don’t you think Mr Parker might give us
61his historical paper in October instead of November.
62
63
64

1 16 Portsea Place
2 Tuesday night
3
4 My dear Mr Pearson
5
6 I am almost always at home in the evening, but if you could send me a
7card at any time you would be sure to find me in. I shall be at home
8tomorrow afternoon & evening, but shall have many visitors in the
9afternoon till six, so we could not well talk.
10
11 I will write to arrange about the meeting with Miss Müller next week.
12
13 You
14 Visitors have come. Have much I wish to speak of to you.
15
16 O.S.
17
18
19

1 16 Portsea Place
2 Connaught Sq
3 W.
4 Tuesday
5
6 My dear Mr Pearson
7
8 Miss Müller (to whom I sent your paper) is very anxious to meet you.
9She has written to ask me to ask you if you will go up the river on
10Sunday. She has a boat, & goes every Sunday. Generally starts about
11half past 11. I am sure you will like her. I shall go too if I am able.
12 There seems to have been some mistake, no one wrote to ask her to
13write a paper for December. I understand at that meeting that you were
14going to, so did not write myself.
15
16 She is very busy working at it ^the paper^ now. Who is to read the
17November Paper? I should think Mr Parker’s Historical Paper would
18come well then. It would be beginning at the beginning. My paper
19isn’t written yet, but it’s going to be soon.
20
21 I shall call it "False Classification". I envy you your long quiet
22rest out of the world.
23
24 Yours very sincerely
25 Olive Schreiner
26
27 If you can’t go on Sunday – but I hope you will be able to –
28perhaps you would call on her some day, her address is 33 Brompton Sq
29
30
31

1 16 Portsea Place
2 Connaught Sq
3 Sep 23 / 85
4
5 My dear Mr Pearson
6
7 Thankyou very much for your letter. It was not any one of the facts
8but some of your deductions from them that seemed to me hastily set
9down! To explain just what I mean would take a small book. Would you
10been able to come in tomorrow evening or any other time. I want to ask
11you about the last part of my paper, which bears on the last part of
12your letter.
13
14 Yours very sincerely
15 Olive Schreiner
16
17 The extract you sent me has made me feel I wouldn’t like to read my
18paper at the club at all. I felt so before but more so now. The Editor
19of the Fortnightly says he will be glad to publish it unreadable in
20the Review. Then one knows one speaks to the great public of
21intellectual men, so pure, at least, that they can look at the great
22facts that underlie human life, & see that they are beautiful &
23wonderful. Please don’t repeat this to anyone.
24
25

1 Thursday night
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 I am afraid you thought I was very rude to you this evening.
6
7 I’ve had a good deal of trouble lately which has somewhat unstrung
8me. That must be my only excuse
9
10 Yours sincerely
11 Olive Schreiner
12
13
14

1 Saturday
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 Miss Sharp has just left me. We have had a delightful talk. I have
6seldom spoken to any one whose mind seems so open & clear on these
7subjects; I am sure no man or woman had fear that she would regard
8what they said from a narrow stand point. She seems to have (a rare
9quality in a woman owing to her narrower life!) a very impartial mind.
10I am so glad she came. She I think would be able to write us a paper,
11probably a better one than mine. I know I can write stories, but I
12don’t think I write papers well. The Doctor has ordered me not even
13to rea write letters for a week so, I am going to do nothing but
14unreadable ^look^ for dissipation. When you have an hour to spare I
15shall be ^very^ glad to see ^you &^ tell you what I think of Mary Wols. I
16shall read the book tomorrow morning.
17
18 I go to see the Socialist in the afternoon & perhaps perhaps I may see
19you there. Dr Donkin says Mr Parker has asked him to come as a visitor
20to the next meeting; I should like my friend friend Henry Ellis to
21come. Shall send the name to Miss Sharp.
22
23 Yours very sincerely
24 Olive Schreiner
25 ^
26I am reading Mr Parker’s notes on your paper & am much interested.
27
28 Thankyou for your note. I think Mrs Wilson’s letter one of the most
29interesting I ever read. Would you mind my reading some of the last
30part to Dr Donkin? I won’t till I hear from you.^
31
32 ^Any afternoon next week I shall be in in the evening I am going to
33theatres.^
34
35
36

1 Friday
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 The two last leave 3 & 4 f express most exactly my own feelings. I
6also sympathize most strongly with what you say as to f child-getting
7as the end of sexual relationship. What you say about attraction I do
8not at all agree with. Please when next you come remind me of it, I
9want to give you my theory & see what you think of it. Dr Donkin came
10this morning but brought another man with him so I couldn’t talk
11about the club. I am now expecting Miss Müller. I had a letter from
12her this morning saying her paper was quite ready. It is a great
13pleasure to me to talk to you, & I shall be glad to see you any
14evening if you will drop me a card in the morning.
15
16 O.S.
17
18 I carried on our conversation for hours after you went, mentally.
19
20
21

1 Tuesday
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 Müller & I & a Mr Martin & perhaps Dr Donkin are going up the river
6in her boat next Sunday. We shall be so glad if you will come too. I
7write now as you may be making other arrangements. Please let me have
8a card in reply at once. Have you read Symonds’s "Stella Maris" in
9his last volume of poetry the "Vagahunduli Libellus." If you have
10please tell me what you think of it: to me it is so wonderful.
11
12 O.S.
13
14 P.S. Miss Müller has just been. She fears it may rain on Sunday or be
15cold, so want us all to come to lunch at half past one at 86 Portland
16Place on Sunday. Will you be able to come I am writing to ask Mr
17Thicknesse also.
18
19^Mrs Cobb is coming to see me on Thursday afternoon & stay till 9
20o’clock. ^
21
22 Thanks for book.
23
24
25

1 We have just given up the river because we feared it would be wet &
2cold on Sunday. Did I give you the address 86 Portland Place Nothing I
3have read by a man has made me feel so near to man as man as reading
4the Stella Maris. It is a series of sonnet in which is told the story
5of a man of high intellect who love a woman merely for physical beauty,
6 with strong passion; & of the bitterness that follows. It is the old
7old story of the immortal soul trying to feed itself with earth, but
8it is told here in a way that comes nearer to me than any where else.
9
10 N I should like to see the miniatures. The third of the four great
11truths is one that comes home to me very much now, but in a healthy
12mind it ought to be ^followed by the fourth.^
13
14 ^I mentioned Mrs Cobbs coming because I thought perhaps you might like
15to come in about eight or half past in the evening She stays till 9.30.
16 It would be nice to have a talk together.^
17
18 O.S.
19
20
21

1 16 Portsea Place
2 Connaught Sq
3 Oct 9 / 85
4
5 I am feeling somewhat troubled about what you said last night. I would
6pain me deeply if you got into any trouble through any thing any
7friend of mine said of the club. I can fully understand how painful it
8must be to have it spoken of by non-sympathetic people. I can only say
9it has given me pain only to think of such a thing. I saw Miss Müller
10this morning. She says of course if you can’t come in the evening
11come to her house for lunch as arranged.
12
13 Yours very sincerely
14 O.S.
15

1 Dear Mr Pearson
2
3 I made a mistake so we all went to 86 Portland Pl. & had to go down to
4the club. Miss Müller was very disappointed She went up in a cab to
5the house to see if you were there, & we waited lunch till half past
6two.
7
8 Ye I wanted to talk with you. Your letter of yesterday pained me very
9much & I wrote you a rather bitter letter, but I’m glad I didn’t
10post it, as I’m sure you didn’t mean what your letter seemed to
11imply.
12
13 Dr Donkin would or could no I thought that the men at the club were
14perhaps laughing at you for going to talk with a lot of old maids and
15man-haters about your man’s rights, & so I felt sorry for you. As it
16is if such things as you say are said about the club I as ^probably^ the
17youngest woman there & whose name would most certainly be mentioned,
18think I should give most pity to myself, certainly more to all my the
19young unmarried women than to the married whose established position
20&tc. makes them far less liable to be hurt by things that are said. I
21did not tell Dr Donkin that you in any way mentioned Ray, but asked
22him about him ^on my own account^ & said that I understood men in the
23club were making remarks that hurt you. He was very much cut up about
24it, & said he would of course not come to the meeting. I agreed he was
25had better not come, & was not coming myself, (as if there is any
26blame it rests entirely upon me) but thinking it over today I feel it
27would cause much talking, and Miss Müller would be hurt. As she reads
28the paper & says she has seldom been able to speak with such freedom
29to any man & to Dr Donkin, I have thought it better he should come,
30much against his will, as he is morbidly sensitive; but if he were to
31stay away it might cause people really to think there was something to
32be concealed. I don’t know what you may or may not know of Dr Donkin;
33 but after three years of close acquaintance, the impression left on
34my mind is that there is no man, not even yourself in whom I feel
35great trust, whom a woman can so completely trust as Donkin. I think
36this feeling is unreadable universal among the women who know him. He
37has felt greatly interested in the club, & has much wished to meet you.
38 & if you I feel more acutely for his sake than for mine, & go to the
39club with great difficulty & with a bitter conquest of pride. I am
40very thankful my paper is not to be read. Please do not think I asked
41Dr Donkin to come: he told me Mr Parker had asked him when they had
42their talk. I very long ago made up my mind that I would not ask any
43one, or take a more prominent part in the club that I could help.
44Please don’t send this letter the round of the women of the club,
45though apparently a public letter it is really private, as I am
46writing in great hurry & have not time to pick my words. I have not
47told Dr Donkin what you said in your letter so he is meeting you with
48the kindest feelings. Please do not show him too pointedly what you
49may think of his being there, as I am making him go because I think it
50better. You will not be troubled in future with anything that I have
51done. This letter seems nastier than I mean it to be. I have sincere
52respect for you & feel in some ways more sympathy with you than I have
53ever felt with any mind. But I think it would have been better if you
54had kept the club entirely to yourself, & a circle of personally
55intimates friends, all with
56
57 Experience has proved to me that With regard to "free love" I have
58long made up my mind that it is a peculiarly devilish thing. I believe
59most strongly that no union should be formed except in the hope of its
60being lifelong, though I differ entirely from the persona ^orthodox^
61view of ^its^ being right to keep on the union when love has died. As
62long as it is I kept on it should be rigorously & closely held to, but
63I believe it may be right, if does not cost too much suffering to
64others openly & frankly to break it. I have a large number of personal
65men friends in London of all kinds, but of this I am sure that not one
66of them, least of all worldly men like George Moore-, would believe it
67possible for me to belong to any society in which there was any
68treatment of love that was not pure & high. I am not so wonderful &
69good as they think me, but it has struck me almost pathetically how
70readily, even in what are called men of the world if you will but
71strike the right note, you ^a woman^ can call out the higher & more
72ideal nature that by does slumber in every man. It is principally by
73personal action & interaction that we shall rise to a higher state.
74All this is the a kind of answer to the last part of your letter.
75
76 I am very weary tonight & am afraid this is very confused.
77
78 O. Schreiner.
79
80 ^Miss Müller says she said Albermarl St but I don’t think so^
81
82

1 Saturday
2
3 Dear Mr Pearson
4
5 Thank you for your letter. I am not able to answer it because I have
6to fight against everything that makes me think or feel. If my
7friendship is of any value to you please know you have it. We are
8always wanting to make life bright & beautiful to others, & yet we
9unreadable who want it so can’t help paining each other. Please know
10when you come on Monday evening you are coming to a friend. I do not
11believe that story of about Miss Müller, she would not have been so
12unloyal to another woman. I will not be there on Sunday, she has not
13asked me. I hope I did not make you feel unhappy the other night.
14
15 Olive Schreiner
16
17 ^I think I would like to see Mrs Wilson very much. Could you give me
18her address I often go up to Hampstead Heath to rest ^^& might go to see her^^
19Or you & she might come, to see me if you liked.^
20
21
22
23

1 [page/s missing] I would like to meet Mrs Wilson somewhere at tea; if
2that was what you meant: was it?
3
4 I am leaving for Dover to rest for three days with Miss Haddon. It is
5always rest for me to be with her: one feels one has got to something
6so really true. I return on Friday. My address will then be 21 Upper
7George St. It is about half a minute’s walk from this.
8
9 I am reading Aspasia. I like it. It is a book to read slowly & enjoy
10as one does poetry, sucking it in it. May I keep it a little longer?
11
12 Yours O.S.
13
14 If Miss Jones is at the ^next^ club meeting, will you talk to her a
15little if you have time? She has great admiration for you mentally
16joined the club just mainly for the sake of knowing you I think. It
17would give her great pleasure. I had no special wish she should join
18the club; I don’t think she likes me much, as a strong anti
19Hintonian but she full of beautiful qualities, & when she talking to
20you you are sometimes started by a glimpse of a really beautiful soul.
21She has very little pleasure in her life.
22
23
24

1 9 Blandford Sq
2
3 I liked to come very much yesterday. How nice your little room is with
4all it’s brown books. I liked Mrs Wilson but I can’t talk when I
5want to.
6
7 Please send me your paper, I will like to see it very much, but I
8won’t have anything to say. If that Ruskin thing comes to anything I
9think I could get some nice names for it, P. Marston’s & different
10artists’ &c, so on. They only want more or less known people I
11suppose? A friend of mine sent Ruskin some Cape ^South African^ shells
12she had collected & he wrote her such a beautiful little letter. It is
13such an awful thing when that sense of your own possible complete
14wrongness comes upon you; but it must be more awful when it comes at
15the end of the life’s work.
16
17 Olive Sch.
18
19 Do you, or does Does Mr Thicknesse know anything of a man called
20Arnold White? I should be glad of anything you could tell me of him.
21
22 O.S.
23
24
25

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Wednesday
3
4 I am sorry I can’t remember Mr Parker’s address. I have been much
5interested in the paper. Of course I agreee with very little of it,
6but the first muddle about the A.B.C. is very good. The last little
7bit doesn’t to me seem worthy of you. I have a feeling that you are
8trying to prove a foregone conclusion for some purpose or other. Do
9you understand what I mean? Generally you reason right out, without
10caring where your reasoning takes you; so it be true. I don’t ^feel it^
11in this case. It may be my blindness.
12
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15 I am going to dine with Miss Müller this eve. to meet Mr Chapman. I
16shall ask him who that miserable article on Chastity was by. I think
17it was by unreadable a man called Aldis.
18
19 ^Please really read Whitman. You will like him so much.^
20
21
22

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Thursday
3
4 I hope you did not mind what I said about your paper; did you? I got
5quite unhappy thinking about it last night. I feel as though I I told
6Mr Thicknesse too that I didn’t like the last part; but he loves you
7so that it doesn’t matter what one says to him. I think what pains
8one is to find those one has looked on as friends have, have spoken of
9one to those who are not sympathetic & don’t like one. After Mr
10Thicknesse had gone Miss Müller burst out against the club & against
11me. She said what she said ^in her paper^ came like a revelation to all
12of us, we pretended not to have heard it before; we were too great
13cowards any of us to answer her, or ^to^ agree, with what we knew was
14the truth. I tried to say to say that what we opposed was her not
15defining what ^im^ morality & sin were, but Mr Martin, a friend of hers
16to whom she had evidently told about it; turned round on me & said "It
17wasn’t so; it wasn’t so, it wasn’t so, It isn’t true, it
18isn’t true!" I was never more astonished in my life & of course
19became silent, I didn’t say another word in justification of our
20conduct. I tell you this because you, Mr Thicknesse or Mr Parker, may
21be writing notes on her paper, & perhaps might unreadable & put ^write^
22them differently if you knew how bitter she felt. She has never been b
23see me since, the meeting; & she I thought she must be very bitter by
24the remark she made to Mr Thicknesse & myself at dinner about the club
25being made up of old maids &c. I think she is now in a nervous &
26unstrung mental & physical state, caused by her very rapp wonderful
27mental growth lately, & I wouldn’t like us to say anything very hard
28on her at the next meeting. She is a plucky, fearless, brave, truthful
29little woman, & that’s a great thing, to say of a woman. I think if
30some man such as you could get near to her & treat her mentally with
31sympathy you might help her a great deal. Don’t forget about Miss
32Jones on Monday. I would like so much that you & Henry Ellis should
33know eachother, but he is so silent & has such a thick shell & so many
34prickles, & you have such a thick shell & so many prickles, that if
35you did meet you mightn’t know each other any better than before. I
36think the best thing in life is to find the people who belong to us, &
37when I see people who seem to belong to each other I feel such an
38irresistible wish to bring them together. But it doesn’t succeed
39sometimes. Please send me Mrs Wilson’s address I want to write to
40her. ^I do like her very much.^
41
42 ^Don’t mind please what I say about what you write. I like to
43criticise your writings freely.^
44
45 ^I’m so glad you’re so young; you’ve got so many years to work to
46grow still. I thought you were much older till Mr Thicknesse told me,
47I’m very glad.^
48
49
50

1 Friday
2
3 Thank you for the letter. I had a nice note from her this morning. I
4do feel intense interest in "the Russians". for a time it was almost
5an absorbing interest. I believe the next great blow for human freedom
6that will be felt all round the world, will be struck there. But now,
7just now, I don’t see what work my nature has there. You must live
8among people, be one of them, work from inside is your work is to be
9true. At least it is so with a nature like mine. One of my day dreams
10for years was to go to Russia & become a nihilist. Now, today, I see
11another work but I don’t know what the future will bring.
12
13 //Sometimes years pass, as you say the ^your^ last four have, & we feel
14they are years of decay, we are growing old, & we feel a kind of
15despair; then of God cometh not with observation." Sometimes while we
16are regretting that our branches do not blossom; there is a great
17store of sap silently rising & forming, which will cover them with
18blossoms afterwards, – one day.
19
20 It’s so wonderful that we never know the meaning of what is going on
21within us? isn’t it. You will do some great work some day (perhaps
22not everything you think of now) but you will grow silently for some
23years first. I’ve never done any of my real work yet, but I think I
24begin to see what it is. I don’t despise the work you have done, but
25it doesn’t in any way represent you.
26
27 Yours ever
28 Olive Schreiner
29
30
31

1 Sunday night
2
3 After I got into the cab with Miss Müller she said all the women’s
4papers were first rate &c. I thought it was very generous of her as
5they were against her.
6
7 Thank you very much for the book. It has not of course the same
8wonderful breadth & charm that Wilhelm Meister has, but it has
9something of the same breadth.
10
11 Did Wilhelm Meister make the world seem so large & open to you when
12you read it the first time?
13
14 You know if ever you care to come & see me you must please come, just
15as you would if I were a man.
16
17 I thought Miss Eastty’s paper & Miss ^M^ Sharp’s first rate. Didn’t
18you?
19
20 Olive Schreiner
21
22 Weren’t you very much pleased with the meeting? I was.
23
24 There are some things I rather want to talk over with you some day if
25you have time. Something you said at the club interested me very much,
26I should like to ask you about it.
27
28 OS
29
30
31

1 Monday night
2
3 I send back Aspasia Thank you very much for it. Have you any book
4about that woman whose pictures you showed me? I know nothing about
5her. I should like to. There must be so many brave beautiful souls,
6men & women, buried in the mist of those back centuries. It is
7sometimes so nice to realize that the great beautiful souls we know of
8are only a moiety of those who have lived. Perhaps the most wonderful
9souls have lived & died know only to themselves! It’s sad in one way,
10 but in another it makes one feel so rich.
11
12 I’m coming on the 29th to South Place
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15 Mrs Cobb came to see me this afternoon: it rested me to see her
16beautiful face.
17

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Thursday night
3
4 I send you my old copy of Emerson. Don’t read it of course if
5you’re not inclined. It doesn’t teach one any thing; it doesn’t
6give one any new ideas. The day I read the essay on "Selfreliance",
7was ^a^ very great day to me unreadable. I always thought I was alone
8till then. I hope you’ll like him. I should like you to. All my
9other friends I grow older than & past; but he is just as much to me
10today in London as he was when I was a girl in the pine woods. Thank
11you so much for having remembered that I wanted a book about Jerome.
12Are you working at your
13
14 Yours ever sincerely
15 Olive Schreiner
16
17 Excuse it’s being such an old copy. I can’t have it bound because
18it wouldn’t be the same.
19
20
21

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Thursday
3
4 Could you let me have again (it’s only for myself) your reply to Mr
5Parker’s criticism of your paper. I think you ought to read it, or at
6least to say the same things in the club one day.
7
8 About Miss Hadden I think it would give her so much pleasure if you
9asked her to be a member of the club. If you can’t take more women,
10you know I would be glad to give her my place I think ^& still always
11come to the^ club as a visitor.
12
13 Please let me know in what part of London South Place is. I have sent
14the paper to someone else. My friend Mrs Philpot & I think several
15others are coming on Sunday. She has read your "Woman’s Question" with
16much sympathy. If you think of it at any time I wish you would send
17her your Socialism Pamphlet. She is just ready to be influenced by it.
18Her address is 13 South Eaton Place SW.
19
20 I wish she could know you.
21
22 Mrs Wilson is coming to see me next Tuesday evening. I am looking
23forward to it.
24
25 I was so glad to see you & Thicknesse the other evening. Knowing you
26has been a help to me in ways you wouldn’t think of.
27
28 Yesterday I went to see some girls in the Magdalene ward at "Barts". I
29feel more & more I must know more of them.
30
31 Olive Schreiner
32
33
34

1 Sat. night
2
3 My dear Mr Pearson
4
5 I shall be glad to see you on Monday. Will you kindly address this
6letter to Mrs Wilson as I have not put down her address & have
7forgotten it.
8
9 Yes, I wish you could get away to perfect solitude for a couple of
10years; quite away, where you couldn’t write or get too many letters
11even. I am sometimes afraid that your physical strength may not stand
12permanently the tention under which you live, you are though you look
13very strong. Substantially I am sure we quite agree about the
14attraction & impulse, it is really a question of words – words,
15words.
16
17 What I wanted to see again was not your last paper, but your letter to
18Parker.
19
20 O. Schreiner
21
22

1 Dear Mr Pearson
2
3 You need not think I shall repeat what you said. I exercise a large
4discretion with regard to the things that are told me, that than the
5speak often would himself. I am not likely to repeat either that or
6anything else you might say to me.
7
8 I do not think a devil rules the laws of the Universe (better stated
9as, "the general relationship between things") has no more ^conscious^
10relation to & is no more guided by our little wants & desires, &
11sufferings, than the express from Manchester to London is guided by
12the thought of the dust when it drives over & crushes it on the rails.
13Universal existence never appeared to me so serenely beautiful as now.
14
15 Please be careful not to your mother or anyone to say anything about
16Mrs Diclander, it might get her into serious trouble.
17
18 O.S.
19
20^I want to propose Miss Hadden as a visitor to the next meeting. Will
21you second it? ^
22 O.S.
23
24
25

1 Thursday at 5 will suit me. If I should not come don’t wait.
2
3 Thank you for the lecture. I sympathize more with the underlying idea
4expressed in it than with anything I have yet seen of yours. I think
5your words completely veil your meaning from those who have not
6already the idea. Some who were there completely misunderstood you.
7
8 O.S.
9
10
11

1 Private
2
3 I write as I may not have time to speak. Would you care to come to a
4New Life meeting on the 21st. It is to be held at Williams’ Library
5Gower St. Carpenter, & I think Miss Lord, will be there.
6
7 I wish you & Dr Donkin could get a little near to each other. Perhaps
8you are too different. There is such a pure sweet gentle boyish side
9to his nature, you would like that if you could see it. Do not mention
10what I told you Karl Pearson. My way is all dark about me still.
11
12 Your visit rested my brain more than anything has for weeks.
13
14 O.S.
15
16 ^This letter of Carpenters may interest you as you are going to meet him.^
17

1 Sat. night
2
3 I haven’t been able to go about with the Ruskin paper because I’ve
4not been well all the week. Pleas I’ve sent it to the Hon. Roden
5Noel, unreadable ^who^ will send it on to you. Miss Lord is out of town,
6Mrs Andersen wouldn’t sign. Will you be a seconder for Miss Hadden?
7Mrs Walters is very enthusiastic about your Russian article in the
8Cambridge paper. She took it to a news paper editor – but it’s too
9long to write, I’m so tired.
10
11 The letters I’ll send you tomorrow are from that woman I told you
12I’d like you to know if you think you could be of help to her. I
13don’t want you to be running yourself out in new directions, only
14you will go running yourself ^out^ whether I propose something new or
15not.
16
17 I wish my friendship could be of some use to you; only it seems I can
18only come near to people who want stimulating or comforting, & you
19don’t want either; you want rest. That it is what you need eh?
20
21 Olive Schreiner
22
23 ^Did you see that delightful little bit about George Eliot in the
24Atheneum the other day.^
25
26
27

1 Sat night
2
3 I send you Mrs Walter’s letter. I have been thinking about Hinton.
4We, I, must not be too bitter against him. ^I am sure that he was mad.^
5He was open in what he did. Mrs Barnes has thrown a great deal of
6light on his character to me. She says that he often told her that if
7when he was forty he had "quietly taken a mistress as other men do,
8nothing of all this would have happened." He used to sit Miss Haddon
9naked on his knees, & play with her: his theory was that a man’s
10wish for contact with a woman’s body was right, & must be gratified.
11His theory & ^his^ practice ^worked it out^ unreadable the unreadable of
12physical contact between women & men. My loathing for Hinton grows so
13strong that it is painful to mention him, I but I want to be just to
14him. I think the depth of degradation to which he sinks woman makes it
15harder for me than it would otherwise be.
16
17 Thank you for your letter. All you said was true. Karl Pearson-, I am
18absolutely in the dark. I think & think, & think, & stand motionless.
19Where there are many duties which is the highest. I feel that
20something in your past has thrown light on my present, other wise I do
21not know why I write
22
23 ^to you. I, yes, I have my work to think of; & I have the most
24beautiful human soul that ever was in my hand. Am I to take it up, and
25crush it! I, when I have wilfully let it see how I loved it! Yes, I
26have my work to think of.^
27
28 Olive Sch
29
30^I must have a talk with you about Hinton. You are going too far to one
31side. You are just in the state I was in about Hinton a year ago when
32I read his thoughts on Home Place. Miss Haddon has just called. ^
33
34 OS.
35
36 Please come this evening.
37
38 ^I hope you will be there on Monday. The meeting begins at 7.30 but
39some of us are going at seven, can you come then early.^
40
41
42

1 [page/s missing]
2
3There is something very pathetic to me in the fact that as Hinton was
4in his dying state he cried out that it was all a mistake all wrong,
5wrong, wrong. That every thing he had written in the last seven years
6was to be burnt & thrown away. Poor old brother soul, rather than
7crush it, let us find out some better & nobler mode of relationship
8than he or the past have dreamed of. I say this not preaching to you
9but to myself.
10
11 OS.
12
13 One must be very careful of what one says because of Miss Haddon & her
14school. We must not crush other human lives. It is the men Hintonians
15that I feel so bitter against.
16
17
18

1 Tuesday night
2
3 You surely are to be trusted. I have felt much pained by some thing, I
4have heard you have said. What Mrs Walters wrote was on my solemn
5promise that it was for you, & you alone. But what I said to you you
6the other night was far more important. To no human being but your
7self, not to Donkin, would I have told what I did but I feel sure that
8I am mistaken. [papertorn] As you know, I care nothing in a matter of
9principle what is said of myself. I have lived alone & in poverty from
10my childhood [papertorn] for far more abstract principles than the
11Hintonian. But the sacrifice is is one that must be made by each
12individual for himself not forced on him by others.
13
14 Please forgive my writing so, I am feeling troubled tonight & not very
15sure what I am writing. Can you come, if only for a few minutes
16^tomorrow Wednesday,^ on ^or^ Thursday evening, as I can’t explain in
17writing.
18
19 It was a disappointment to me that you were not at the New Life.
20 Olive Schreiner
21
22 In truth I am suffering horrible remorse. One has no right to speak of
23others however perfectly one may trust.
24
25
26

1 My dear Mr Pearson
2
3 Thank you for the pamphlets. The Ethic of Freethought I like best of
4all your writings that I have seen. Ellis tells me it is out of print;
5have you perhaps another copy that you might spare me? I want to send
6it to some one at the Cape. I return the Martin Luther paper. I do not
7like it very much. I sympathize strongly with the main idea. But you
8sometimes make assertions in it which it does not seem to me you
9yourself would ^quite^ be prepared to defend. You seem to wish more to
10prove your point than to get at the truth, & that is a quality I
11don’t see in anything else of yours. It interested me very much
12though ^& in style is splendid.^ I have taken the liberty of lending the
13Rights of Women it to a friend who wanted to see it very much. I hope
14you won’t mind.
15
16^I will read it & return it as soon as she sends it back. I have
17written my paper but it is about ? times the length it must be & shall
18have to condense it still. ^
19
20 Yours very sincerely
21 Olive Schreiner
22
23 ^I was very glad to hear that you were working at mathematics. I was
24afraid there was no one thing on which you were concentrating yourself.^
25
26 ^The great danger some of us have to fight against is too much
27splitting up of ourselves.^
28
29
30

1 There will, I think, be a letter mine in the Daily News tomorrow.
2(Thursday). I hope you are having a good Xmas time.
3
4 O.S.
5
6
7

1 Thursday
2
3 Glad to see you tomorrow, any time after 8. Want to talk over my Daily News
4letter with you. Going to spend tomorrow afternoon with Carpenter
5
6 Olive Sch.
7
8
9

1 Note
2
3 In the foregoing paper, the main points ^with regard^ to woman’s
4position & nature which it might be desirable to deal with, have been
5enumerated with satisfactory completeness.
6
7 But there has been an oversight, remarkable & very suggestive. One
8half of our problem has been left out. Man, his opinions, his
9intellectual & physical constitution, the wants of his nature, his use
10in the world, his dependence on the social circumstances by which he
11is surrounded; these, & other ^& the minor^ problems opening out of them
12are not even indicated. On these subject many of us feel that our
13ignorance reaches its profoundest depth; & that if our society fails
14to ^unreadable^ throw light on them, it must be pronounced a failure
15over half its field.
16
17 Dear Mr Pearson
18
19 ^I don’t know if you with care to put the above as a note at the end of
20your paper; do it or not, & put my name or not, as you like; only
21please have your paper printed quickly. The club ought to pay for it.
22We must see about this at the next meeting.
23
24O.S.^
25

1 9 Blandford Sq
2 Monday night
3
4 It may seem strange that I have a certain sharp satisfaction at the
5thought of receiving money help from you. I do not need it – I can
6do my work at Shanklin – I will now better than before – For for a
7long time the sense of satisfaction will remain.
8
9 On Wednesday evening Miss Haddon is coming to talk with me. If you
10thought it well to talk the ^matter^ over straightly with her, you might
11come; but it hardly seems right that you should run yourself out any
12more than can be helped. You are looking far from well the last month.
13That apart, it would be well if you could meet her here.
14
15 Your letter to me this morning was valuable, but less so than some you
16have written lately.
17
18 Olive Schreiner
19
20

1 The New Life meeting was very interesting. I wanted you to have been
2there. I leave for Shanklin in the Isle of Wight next Friday. I shall
3remain here for five months. I should like to have one talk more with
4you before I leave. Could you come on Sunday evening I can’t take up
5the police question properly now; it would cost me too much. I must
6wait till I have my other work off my hand.
7
8 There will be a short letter of mine in the Standard tomorrow. I
9should like to talk the whole matter over with. This morning – but
10I’ll tell you about it when I see you.
11
12 Olive Schreiner
13
14 Mrs Cobb is coming to spend Monday afternoon with me.
15
16
17

1 Dear Mr Pearson
2
3 In the hurry of going down to Brighton & other business I have quite
4forgotten to say that I must be quite wrong in what I said I about
5having told Mrs Cobb about Mrs Haycraft & talked about Miss Jones &c.
6I have had so had so many things to think of lately; that she is much
7more likely to be unreadable right than I am. I hope you will realize
8this. I have always prided myself on my very exact never mistaken
9memory in matters of life, but lately I have often forgotten things. I
10leave for Shanklin on the 14th I could give a cry of joy when I think
11of it, though I must be sitting alone there with the sea fog. I wish
12you were going to rest too. It will be so hard for you to curl up here.
13
14 Olive Schreiner
15
16 Please send the enclosed to Miss Clemes. I am always troubling you. I
17always forget addresses &c. Come if you can. I leave London on the
1814th.
19
20 Olive Schreiner
21
22
23

1 Royal Spa Hotel
2 Shanklin
3 I of W.
4 Sunday morning
5
6 I did not think my letter was difficult to understand not so difficult
7as yours are. What I meant was that I have now the greatest desire –
8necessity – to produce, but absolutely no impulse to give out to
9others what I do; & your letter, by showing you felt interest in my
10work gives a slight impulse in that direction. I presume if you
11didn’t feel interested in it you wouldn’t have written as you do.
12
13 When I said sharp satisfaction I meant sharp satisfaction. I asked
14Miss H to come & meet you; she said she thought it she would rather
15not. Mrs Cobb had written to explain to you. I send you my letter to
16her which you may read as it is about yourself, & then please send on.
17It was a pity you & she did not meet. Things are always so much better
18talked over face to face. My fear is you were too much knocked up.
19
20 I wish you were in a place as quiet & restful as this, in this whole
21huge hotel no one but myself & one man. I am sitting in the great
22glass house that covers in the front of the hotel, with the blue sea &
23sky outside. I would be rather glad if you would send me a card in a
24few days time as I am a little anxious to know how you are.
25
26 Olive Schreiner
27
28 Ray came to see me before I left, & I liked him
29

1 [page/s missing] I am sorry to say I fully agree with your letter. Had a long
2letter from Ray yesterday on the woman question I should like to send it you,
3but don’t know if he would like it It is very truthful &
4straightforward, - poor old Ray.
5
6 The bit of letter I enclose is from Ellis.
7 O.S.
8

1 I think Miss E would make a splendid member of the club. She would do
2well on the committee if you have not yet someone else. Thankyou for
3the papers. Are you curled up. I am.
4
5 O.S.
6
7
8

1 Royal Spa Hotel
2 Shanklin
3
4 Thankyou a great deal for your letter. It was the only time I’ve
5laughed since I came here Miss Hadddon’s letter is not to be shown
6to anyone else, you are to send it back to me when you’ve read it.
7 I hope you will go to Stanmore. ^Please curl up.^ I am glad you are well
8physically but these flashes of vigour if you if one uses them to the
9uttermost will send you down lower afterwards. What I wish is that you
10had time to brood over your ideas, to let them grow of themselves. I
11send you a bit of one of Dr Donkin’s letters because there’s a
12mention of the Woll. Club in it. He seems more interested in it than
13any of us. Don’t mention it to any one but my mind is very nearly
14made up to go out to the Cape, at the beginning of March. One can earn
15one’s living so easily there, without bei & I can’t quite manage
16this climate. I am well enough but it’s sad. I hope the next meeting
17of the Club will be good.
18
19 Olive Schreiner
20
21 Please send my your photograph. I will send you mine when I have one.
22
23 I’ve not answered Miss H’s letter I can’t waste more time over
24Hinton
25

1 Shanklin
2 Saturday
3
4 My dear Karl Pearson
5
6 Your letter was good for me. I can’t write now. I am in a good deal
7of trouble.
8
9 Olive Schreiner
10
11 I send you Ray Lankester’s last in confidence. Please be nice to
12Donkin on Monday.
13
14 All that I know is that I am not a marrying woman; when it comes to
15the point my blood curdles & my heart is like stone
16
17 OS
18
19
20

1 Tuesday night
2
3 I have had three very terrible dreams in my life that have printed
4themselves upon me as a part of my life. I had the fourth last night.
5They’re quite different from other dreams, like visions, you almost
6fancy they’re real. I thought I had a little red haired servant boy.
7I was looking at him, & suddenly something flashed upon me, & I asked
8him if he had killed you. He denied it at first & then he said yes he
9had drowned you in a large dark pond of water. The horror of the dream
10was the walking round & round this pond & thinking that you were down
11in the middle of it. It doesn’t seem horrible when you tell it but
12it was most awful unreadable ^to dream.^ When I half woke with that kind
13of horror, the funny thing was that I thought, "Ach it isn’t true,
14he isn’t dead, he’s only curled up" & I went to sleep again. It
15all looked so ridiculous when I woke this morning, but I’ve not been
16able to shake you out of my mind for a minute. I was going to write to
17you this evening: No, Karl, you will not get hard & bitter, your
18nature will broaden out into greater richness.
19
20 When a human being who has been part of us, who has helped that which
21is our true self to grow, dies, then we have this great thing left
22that they live as it were in us still. However dead one part of them
23may be, that part of them which is in us, their influence, is still
24living, & we can determine to make it live more & work more, so that
25part of them at least shall be living & growing. Many people
26wouldn’t understand, but you will. I have always felt that about the
27only man who ever helped my life & who killed himself. We can work out
28& further as it were their incompleted lives. I have had a thought
29this evening that perhaps it would be good for you to come down here
30for a couple of days & walk about in the pine woods, & you need not
31^come to^ see me, or I could walk with you sometimes if you liked. But
32perhaps it is best you should be among as much work & change as
33possible. Sometimes one wants quiet, & sometimes one doesn’t. There
34is something strangely peaceful & strengthening in getting away alone
35into the pine woods. If you feel inclined to write to me before next
36Saturday this will be my address. After that, Somerset House,
37Christchurch Rd.
38
39 Always yours
40 Olive Schreiner
41
42
43

1 5 Sea View Terrace
2 West Hill Rd.
3 Bournemouth
4 Feb 18 / 86
5
6 I should much have liked to hear Mr Parker’s paper. Have you or he
7ever read a certain large History of Prostitution by an American? It
8is not to be had at the British, but if you subscribe to the "London
9Library" or have a friend who does you can get it there. It is well
10worth reading, a better collection of facts of on that subject from
11Grecian times downward that^n^ is to be found anywhere else in English
12or French. I don’t know what they may have in German on the subject,
13do you? I think it would be a valuable thing if all the members of the
14club who felt inclined were to study the C. D. acts Blue Books on the
15subject. I must read more. I have studied the one for 84 I think. If
16you want it, Ellis will send it you, he has it. It is a mass of
17information one needs to study not to read quickly.
18
19 What thinkest thou of the riots? You see I have changed my camp. I got
20here yesterday. A multitude of reasons compelled my leaving Shanklin,
21but I have for it an undying affection. It has a wild individual
22beauty about it that no other place ^that I have^ in England has.
23Bournemouth is beautiful too. Does it ever strike you as such a
24comfort that wherever you wander there will always be solid earth & a
25sky, something of nature near you. even if it be obs-cured by houses &
26smoke? Just as I was writing it came upon me with a thrill of
27restfulness as I looked at the little bit of grey sky through my
28window It’s been raining here all day, now it’s going to leave off.
29 I have one big room for living & sleeping in so I can satisfy my
30Bohemian desires to the uttermost. I’m curled up. You said you would,
31 & now you don’t.
32
33 Olive Schreiner
34
35
36

1 Have just opened my Emerson & found a ticket for the Sunday Lecture.
2Please excuse imbecility of last note. Been ill in bed more, or less
3ever since I came here. Thought change would do me good, but hasn’t,
4sufficient excuse for dreams.
5
6 O.S.
7 Somerset House
8 Bath Rd.
9
10
11

1 Somerset House Bournemouth
2 Feb 5 / 86
3
4 Dear Mr Pearson
5
6 I’ve not heard of you from any one for a great while. I hope you are
7working.
8
9 I have long conversations with you & I do the talking for you too, &
10you are always then a "prig", I make you say such priggish things.
11
12 I like Bradshaw. It must have been rather a rare soul, & greatness is
13some so much greater when I it works slowly & as it were in the dark.
14
15 I am very happy; being here so still has been so good for me. But will
16you please write to me when you have anything to say.
17
18 My mind is fully made up as to my course of duty. My time of unreadable
19I have never been so dissatisfied as lately with my-self, but the
20wavering has been the result of unsettled principle. "How much does a
21man owe to himself, how much to ^an^others? How far much does general
22work stand before work for the individual." When we show contemptible
23weakness & vacillation, it is always because some profound first
24principle is not reasoned out & settled. It is like trying a case in
25court, with advocates on both sides, & no judge. Any way in which you
26managed to stretch out a hand of friendship to Doctor Donkin would be
27a matter of personal thankfulness to me. I alone know how pure &
28tender & beautiful his nature is. No, I am long years past that stage
29in which one only "studies" humanity. It I can t only love them now.
30They all seem like part of myself.
31
32 You know, Karl, that I know my life work is to help those miserable
33women.
34
35 Your friend.
36 Olive Schreiner
37
38 ^My friend Mrs Philpot, a doctor’s wife wants to know you & would be
39a fine married woman in the club. Are you inclined to know her? It
40would be nice if both she & her husband were to join.^
41
42 ^I’m going to send you one of my allegories to read.^
43
44
45
46

1 Somerset House
2 Bath Rd
3 Sunday night
4
5 Would you care to meet my friend Eleanor Marx Aveling? She is a woman
6of genius though she never has done & probably never will do any thing.
7 Donkin would arrange for you to meet at his house at tea, if you
8cared & I wish I could have introduced you to each other.
9
10 I have heard much of that man Roberts I met at your rooms I think I
11should like him a great deal. Wouldn’t he be good for the club?
12
13 Don’t trouble to reply unless you care to meet Eleanor; if you
14don’t I shall unreadable
15
16 O.S.
17
18 ^If they don’t get it I’m going to let myself out on this question O.S.^
19

1 What is the book’s exact name, & when will it be out?
2
3 O.S.
4
5 My feeling about R. is like yours. I wish you knew more of him. I will
6write more about him.
7
8
9

1 Tuesday evening
2
3 You must feel as if a great weight had rolled off you. You will
4perhaps feel better in health now that is done. I am glad you are
5going soon. I hope you will have no one with you. Abroad with the
6warmth, & the sunshine you will not be lonely. Please tell me exactly
7the name of the book, & how soon it will be ready.
8
9 I always feel with Ray Lankester that he is a vast engine without a
10driver. He needs to be saved from his own unreasoning power, & made
11conscious as it were. You could help him if you got near him. I might
12– but I’m not going to help men anymore – I want a place where
13its warm & to lie down in the sun on the ground. I can’t write
14letters any more. I haven’t finished my allegory.
15
16 Olive Schreiner
17
18 I don’t care ^so^ much whether I ever see you again, but I want you to
19attain your full height unreadable Absence from London is necessary
20for that; better for years than for months. I wish I could take you
21out of all your present life & put you in a new one.
22
23 I am living in one room at the top of a house. It is beyond the Bath
24Hotel among the pines. I can’t go out, so I make the kettle boil all
25day. I want the tea, but it’s such an
26
27 ^interesting occupation. My kettle isn’t a yellow one like yours
28it’s a little cold black one. Are you going to move from your rooms
29as you thought?^
30
31
32

1 Friday night
2
3 I didn’t mean I wouldn’t help "men" if I could, I meant anybody.
4
5 I like Miss Easty’s letter. She is a freed woman.
6
7 I hope I shall understand your book: I shall tell you if I don’t. I
8want something new; something before which I can sit like a little
9child & learn: if it puzzles me so much the better.
10
11 It isn’t that I didn’t want to write, - it’s that I can’t.
12I’ve been ill. I can’t bear to talk about it unreadable but the
13spring’ll soon be here now. Tomorrow week I’m going to try a new
14place called South Bourne-on Sea. It’s the point of the Bay; nearly
15touching the needles in the Isle of Wight. Its about two miles from
16Christchurch, do you remember Christchurch? South-Bourne is just a few
17houses out on the point – sand & tufts of rough grass – a wild
18bleak sort of place, Shanklin is a city compared to it. I think there
19are ten Houses.
20
21 Who If you meet Mrs Philpot you will be disappointed, if you meet
22Eleanor you will be delighted. Mrs Philpot is one of the people you
23have go to help. Eleanor would help you ^I think^ as she does me. She is
24like mental champagne. I hope you’ll see each other really when you
25meet. I wish I could be there too. Don’t tell any one about my being
26not well. I hate people to know I’m ill, it cuts one somehow. I
27don’t mind you.
28
29 Will you if it doesn’t bother you send me that New Werther & the
30play you wrote, & tell me how long ago they were written.
31
32 Have you ever thought of going to Egypt? It must be so glorious there.
33Watch the sun rising over the large planes, it’s great clear
34unblinking eye opening slowly! The Egyptians couldn’t help building
35those wonderful temples & carving those wonderful images. Italy must
36be beautiful, but it must be the beauty of your lover whom you love,
37not that other beauty.
38
39 O.S.
40
41 I’ve ?not Do you ever go ^along^ to the British Museum, & just wander
42about not trying to think for study & then
43

1 I have read that paper. I think it splendid. Who is the woman? It’s
2the best paper by a woman I’ve ever read. I agree with her on almost
3all points but the one you mention
4
5 O.S.
6
7 ^Is the writer Mrs Caird?^
8
9
10
11

1 I want much to write notes on paper, but don’t like to keep it
2longer now. Please send it back to me some time. Please would you
3think if the writer would not mind (if it’s Mrs Caird, I’m sure
4she would not) send it to Dr Donkin to read. He will return it the
5next day. It would be a favour to me if you see your way to do it. All
6the cases the writer gives go for nothing because she does not give
7all the circumstances in any one.
8
9 O.S.
10
11 I will send you my address at South-Bourne as soon as I know it myself.
12
13
14
15

1 Oxford House
2 Southbourne-on-Sea
3
4 The enclosed will show you what kind of woman Mrs Philpot is – not
5clever, but intelligent.
6
7 You will love my Eleanor I know.
8
9 Don’t get better. I am going to live in the Convent at Harrow with
10the dear nuns, at the top of the hill! I shall be coming up in a
11fortnights’ time. No one can come & see me there.
12
13 Yours ever
14 The wandering-Jew
15
16 Do you leave on the 10th
17
18
19

1 Oxford House
2 South Bourne-on-Sea
3 March 23 / 86
4
5 Dear K.P.
6
7 I return the book. Many thanks. If you come across something very good
8please send it me.
9
10 Have you ever noticed what a strange thing absence is: with some
11people you find it puts them quite away from you & with others it
12seems to bring them nearer to you.
13
14 I have found out today that Mary Wollstonecraft & Godwin are buried at
15Bournemouth. I do you know on which burial ground.
16
17 I want to go & see Heine’s grave in Paris one day. He belongs to me
18more than any body.
19
20 Was the writer of that paper Mrs Caird? The ideas are just like what
21she has expressed to me in speaking. It gives one hope to hear such
22brave free words from a woman.
23
24 //I went to-day to see Shelley’s monument at Christchurch. The man
25who made it ought to be killed. That ghastly dead thing Shelley!
26
27 Shelley couldn’t die: he never died. "I change, but cannot die." He
28was like one of his little skylarks. I picked up a little dead one
29this morning, just decaying & passing back into the dear old earth &
30grass. To make Shelley lie there forever, a dead half naked man in the
31arms of a woman. This afternoon when I came out of the church, it was
32a wonderful afternoon - blue sky, & white clouds forming & reforming.
33They spoke much more of him.
34
35 How are you getting on with all your work? I am better today than I
36have been for two months, it is the sunshine.
37
38 There are so many skylarks here. I think they are making love at this
39time of year. that is why they are singing so. I saw a black beetle to
40day, the first I have seen in England.
41
42 I enclose a letter to Miss Sharp which please send on.
43
44 O.S.
45
46 What I say to Miss Sharp is in answer to what y she said to me, not
47what you sent me, but she said almost the same
48
49

1 St Dominic’s.
2 Mutrix Rd.
3 Kilburn N.W.
4 Sunday afternoon
5
6 I have just come back from a ^solitary^ walk into the country to a place
7called Hendon.
8
9 I sent you that poem of Miss Jones not to bother you about Hinton, but
10because I felt sorry for her when I read it; poor little soul! shut up
11in a body that doesn’t adequately express it. Has it ever struck you
12what a terrible thing it must be to have an external individuality
13which repells people from you instead of drawing them next to you?
14She’s wanted my love & friendship so, & I’ve been so selfish not
15caring to "give myself out" to meet her - I feel so sorry for her but
16I don’t know what to do for her exactly. She writes unreadable sadly
17that I won’t help her & I could if I liked.
18
19 //Have you ever read Montaigne’s essay on friendship? I sometimes
20feel that he is my favourite writer, & that ^that is^ my favourite of
21his essays. Yes, friendship between men & women is a possibility, &
22our only escape from the suffering unreadable which sexual
23relationships now inflict. I was going to say, why it are poss it is a
24possible thing only when both ^man & woman^ unreadable have reached a
25certain height of ^in^ intellectual development not reached yet by the
26many - but when I remember such beautiful things as my friendship now
27ten years old with my old diamond digger who can hardly write a decent
28letter & reads nothing but his bible & paper, then I feel that even
29that is not true. But is there not always a possibility ^of^ for the
30consciousness of sex difference & the desires which spring from it
31creeping in, & spoiling the beautiful free frank friendship? - No, not
32when the friendship is true. unreadable For, suppose that friendship
33exists between a man & a woman, (friendship I take it, is that
34con-dition in which through the influence of sympathy one stretches
35out, & takes in^to oneself^ as it were, another personality, desires its
36health, its growth, its happiness, as an end in itself just as one
37does one’s own:) & suppose in addition to this general sense of
38oneness & sympathy, - no, I won’t go on with this, I’ll put it
39short.
40
41 The most ideally perfect friendship between a man & a woman that I
42know of is one where the man in addition to unreadable sympathy with
43the woman’s whole understanding ^intellectual nature,^ feels that she
44is to him also sexually perfect; unreadable without friendship such a
45feeling would disturb & bring intense bitterness & sorrow; with that
46friendship the fact that such a feeling exists on one side only adds
47to the quiet beauty of the relationship. If I ^so^ loved a man
48unreadable that I felt he were the only human being it would have been
49possible for me to unreadable love wifehood under; yet it would never
50touch my friendship ^for him^ I should never even feel a wish that he
51should know it. "And if I love thee, what is that to thee?" that is
52the passion that grows out of friendship; not the old cruel sensual,
53"You must be mine! I will win your love though you die for it. I will
54tear you to pieces but I must have you."
55
56 This passion you may say is a new thing. Yes, & so are the electric
57telegraph & the steam-ship; but they are not less real for that. There
58is nothing in which the race develops so much as in its forms of
59affection. But is it not possible that though a feeling of sex-love
60may not interfere with the most perfect, cold & reasonable friendship
61when felt on only one side, that, if it were mutually felt it would
62grow so strong as to kill out the more complex intellectual passion? -
63I cannot say from experience, but I can see no argument in right
64reason why it should do so. That friendships are possible between men
65& women ^unreadable^ without the least sex feeling on either side I have
66proved over and over again - the only question I have ever asked
67myself has been does "sex attraction" kill friendship? I think not.
68
69 This letter is muddled, I am so tired after my long walk - that
70delightful kind of tiredness when one has got muddled by the fresh air.
71
72 It will be so splendid for you on your holiday. I hope your mother^’s
73illness^ will not make you carry a certain anxiety with you.
74
75 Don’t trouble to reply to this. When one is getting one’s holiday
76feeling on one, even the must of a letter to a friend is unrestful.
77
78 I wrote you a very nasty letter the other day but tore it up again.
79You must have hurt me very much by that letter you wrote me ^at Portsea Place^
80because I can’t forget it. It comes back to me again when I thought
81I’d forgotten all about it.
82
83 I can’t come to the Club because I’m not "allowed out" after nine
84at night: the house is locked & the nuns go to bed then. It isn’t
85like London this quiet house with the nuns in their white & black
86dresses walking so silently about. I haven’t spoken to a soul today.
87I have my meals alone in the little sittingroom. How peaceful & dead
88these women’s faces are, only one has still got strife in it. She
89has only been here five years. It is after nine or ten ^years^ that they
90get that look.
91
92^I am sending you a little bit of a story of mine: you are not to read
93it just because I send it. I wouldn’t read anything of yours if I
94didn’t feel inclined. It’s the last chapter of a large novel I
95wrote long ago. I haven’t looked at it since I finished it some
96eight^^nine^^ years ago! I couldn’t look at it now. A friend was looking
97over some of my MS. the other day, & said they liked this. unreadable
98The novel is the story of a woman who begins life a wild passionate
99nature full of longings for love & knowledge & sympathy; & slowly she
100learns to renounce, & renounce, & renounce. I think In the part I send
101you she is at the Diamond Fields at the Cape; she has given up all her
102money, & is earning her living by ironing. By chance she finds that
103the man she once loved, & for whom she thought all feeling had died
104forever, is in Kimberley & has died of fever; she goes to lie with his
105dead body, & takes fever also, & then comes the bit I send. I can’t
106bear even to look at the outside of the old yellow MS. I don’t know
107what I drag them about with me for. I often try to burn them, & it
108gives me such pain. It seems as if I were burning the people in them.
109And yet I am afraid they will publish them after I am dead.^
110
111O.S.
112

1 St Dominics Convent
2 Kilburn
3 Monday
4
5 Dear Mr Pearson
6
7 I sent you that MS. not because I thought it good, but because I
8thought you might feel the kind of interest in it I feel in your old
9writings. You ought not to have read it now while you are so busy. I
10wonder what the work is you have had to relinquish for the time. If it
11is writing perhaps it is well so. Have you ever noticed when you are
12obliged even by illness to leave work unfinished, your mind seems to
13mature it, ^unconsciously^ & you come back to it, & are surprised to
14find with what added force. I am only sorry because of your holiday,
15it will press a little like an unseen weight on your mind all the time.
16
17 //Much of what you say about creative unreadable ^work^ is true; only
18it’s not the whole truth. If I should have anything I should want to
19say while you are away I suppose I can send it to the Temple, & it
20will be forwarded.
21
22 I don’t know what you feel with regard to pictures, but ^if they’re
23anything to you^ you ought to go & see Holman Hunts exhibition at 148
24New Bond St, if you have not seen unreadable it & have time before you
25leave. They give me a peculiar kind of joy, a deep restful kind of
26feeling. In the Christ’s face in the Shadow of Death there is a look
27that it seems to me no picture as embodied yet, something which
28expresses to me the aspiration of our modern world. It is all that old
29Christs are not. I believe unreadable the Jewish carpenter really
30lived unreadable
31
32 I am getting on with my work. You are the only person almost I expect
33to like it - & perhaps you will not. Thank you very much for your
34letter.
35
36 Yours very sincerely
37 Olive Schreiner
38
39 At Basel you are going to the place which above all others I wish to
40see. My father was there as a student. Ever since I was a child I have
41been picturing the hills he used to go to to botanise with the friend
42he loved. Are there hills at Basel? Don’t you think that German men
43have truer friendships ^with each other^ more often than Englishmen? I
44am going out of my convent tomorrow to meet Mrs Clifford.
45
46
47

1 St Dominics Convent
2 Mutrix Rd
3 Kilburn
4
5 There is to be at 7 o’clock Monday eve. next, at 1 Adam St, Adelphi,
6Strand, a meeting of the New Life. Frei, a Russian friend of
7Tchykovsky’s is going to discourse on his socialistic experiences in
8America. Will you not come? I shall be there at seven but have to
9leave again at eight.
10
11 I hope it has been a good time abroad.
12 O.S.
13
14 ^Have just remembered that tomorrow Monday is the Woll. Club. Came out
15from the Theatre this afternoon pressed under your elbow; but you have
16to look down such a long way to see me that I suppose I was invisible.^
17
18
19

1 St Dominics Convent
2 Monday
3
4 I think that one of the things most difficult of attainment & found
5only in the men & women of the most developed type, is that power of
6analyzing & of resisting the association of ideas, which results in
7being able to separate the man from the opinions he may hold; &, yet
8more, to separate in the man the man the weak & false part, from the
9true, & in the theory the false from the true. I think this is a
10condition of mind which it is most difficult to find in a woman
11because her narrower life has allowed of less development. I do not
12know how you would reason out the relation of this quality to sexual
13differences, - but this is an old matter of difference between us.
14
15 //With regard to Miss Haddon; she does not see that the great aim in
16life is to dis-cover truth, i.e. the true relation between phenomena,
17the fact which is - & having found it that our duty is never to shut
18our eyes to it or to help other people in shutting their eyes to it -
19so she could never be to me an "angel of light". What she ought to do,
20holding is to sacrifice home friends, relations, good name, the
21sympathy of those she most prizes, for the sake of what she holds the
22truth, (I know two women in Africa & one in England whom I should
23expect to sacrifice children, friends, good name, in the cause of
24abstract truth. How many do you know? How many men even?). Miss Haddon
25is not an angel of light. The Christian spirit, is strong in her, but
26there are many beautiful sides to her character. The other afternoon
27when I saw her we were talking of men of genius, & how much greater
28you feel some individuals to be than their work makes it possible to
29prove that they are. You were mentioned as a man of this type, & she
30broke forth generously, that one felt you were a good & great man &
31added that "after all he has done valuable & good work as well". This
32seems a very little thing, but it seemed to me very magnanimous. One
33so seldom finds a humanbeing who can look at another, without being in
34anyway blinded by that persons relation to themselves. I feel grateful
35now to any one who will show me a little bit of the ideal.
36
37 //Sometimes I have thought I saw in you a little swerving from that
38following after the absolute truth, & it has cost me some pain, but I
39will write of that some other time.
40
41 I send you my copy of Walden; it’s a very bad edition, the extracts
42are not well arranged. On page 320 you will find his adequate excuse
43for having left the woods, on 323 a little allegory that pleases me a
44great deal. Perhaps it is only people who for many years have led a
45wild absolutely solitary life that see much in him, but parts you will
46like.
47
48 I am going to write a preface to Mary Wollstonecraft if they will let
49me say just what I want to say.
50
51 Yours ever
52 O. S.
53
54 It was good of you to think of that at Basel.
55
56 I did speak to you coming out, & to Mr Parker; but you didn’t hear
57me. I was so glad to see you.
58
59 //When that poor wretch is to be taken off to the torture the second
60time Beatrice ought to have taken all the guilt on herself, forging in
61it, clearing her mother & her brother. The judges should have
62condemned her to instant death., & she The curtain should fall as she
63is led off with a beatific smile upon her face. "Not guilt! God’s
64avenger!" Your last sight of her should be of something calmly
65triumphant. Don’t you think so.
66
67 ^I am going to the Harrow Convent on Saturday.^
68
69
70
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1 Convent
2 Wed. night.
3
4 I think if you read your paper & Parker’s criticism together, they
5would form the most valuable paper that has yet been read at the club,
6& I say this highly as I think of Mr Parker’s ^last^ paper. I
7couldn’t write on "man’s prejudices" because I don’t believe
8there are any prejudices peculiar to man. I don’t think anything so
9complicated and intellectual runs with the sex difference. I stand
10open to correction, but the conclusion which up to the present I have
11been led to, is that this, that the mental difference with ^which^ is
12correlated with & answers to the physical sex difference, will be
13found to consist almost entirely in an emotional difference showing
14itself in the emotions connected with sex. The differences I mean are
15such as these - that there is in in the human male a tendency to prize
16the female more before he possesses her, & in the female to prize the
17male more after she has been sexually possessed by him. Of course
18friendship & sympathy & many other things may enter to obscure this.
19but I think a subtle & wide analysis will show it is there, & other
20difference of the same kind. I, however, feel still too uncertain that
21I have & see too much on the other side to write on the subject. May
22be I am all on the wrong tack. It seems to me that with out direct
23scientific experiment - such as I once mentioned to you - no certain
24conclusion in the matter can be arrived at, only a somewhat strong
25probability.
26
27 If I go out to the Cape I will send you a very interesting paper for
28the club, being the views of Hottentot, Kaffir, Bushman & Basuto men &
29women, taken from their mouth^s^, & set down word by word in answer to
30my questions, of course giving my questions also. This would be of
31real value.
32
33 I never thought of the cheap edition of Mary Wollstonecraft knocking
34ours on the head; but it doesn’t matter, one only wants people to
35read it & this will be cheaper. I doubt whether I shall be able to
36write the preface. Rhys is broad minded enough himself but the book
37has to pay. What I have to say of Mary Wollstonecraft is not to excuse
38her & not ^even^ to justify her; but to show that her greatness lay in
39this, her view with regard to marriage; & her action with regard to it.
40 That she is the greatest of English women because she saw a hundred
41years ago with regard to sex & sex relationships what a few see today,
42& what the world will see in three hundred years’ time. This will
43not be what Rhys wants I think. I shall see him on Sat. week & tell
44you what he says.
45
46 //The letter I enclose will I think interest you. I hardly like to
47show it to anyone because all expression of deep feeling is sacred;
48but it throws an interesting light on the question whether the love of
49offspring is not as strong in the one sex as in the
50
51^other. When you remember that mentally & physically the writer is like
52Ray Lankester in type though more refined & not one given to
53expressing "emotion" the letter speaks more strongly. It is strange
54how his whole nature seems to have been touched, it is years since he
55wrote to me so tenderly as this. Don’t show the letter to any one
56else. ^
57
58 O.S.
59
60 I suppose there are thousands of men feel so to their children though
61no one suspects it. It is monstrous of the Hintonians to say that a
62woman’s desire for children corresponds to a man’s desire for
63sexual love. A woman’s desire ^^for children^^ corresponds to a man’s
64desire, is the same.
65
66 Reading your paper ^^letter^^ over I see I have entirely misunderstood you.
67 I thought you meant you would read that very good criticism of
68Parkers on your first paper & then & then yours in reply to him. They
69would form a splendid ground for dis-cussion.
70
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72