1De Aar
2Nov 6th 1907
3
4My dear old Havelock
5
6I sent you last week a letter that should have been posted four ^or three^
7weeks ago, but it was mislaid between the leaves of my pad. I shall be
8glad to see your book on Spain. It will be invaluable if only it’s
9in your simple concise style like when you wrote letters to me. Not
10one word too much not one for show or ornament – & therefore all so
11ornamental. Yes, Lewes’s Life of Goethe is one of the two or three
12biographys in the world really worth reading. It’s long years since
13I read it as a young girl before I went to Europe, but I was a
14passionate lover of Goethe’s, & if it had not been true to the man,
15the real man of the writings, I should have felt it at once.
16
17A man can only write the life of a man whom he understands & of whom
18he understands not only one side but all the important sides. & Lewes
19was particularly fitted to understand Goethe. Most people seem to
20think any smart writer who gets all the documents about him can write
21of any man. The older one gets the more one realizes there can be no
22absolutely true life anyone except written by themselves & then only
23if written for the eye of God. Only after long years looking back does
24one really understand oneself sometimes.
25
26I’m still living here in this little room in the veld, in the dust &
27sand & wind of this great terrible plain, & yet I’m happier than
28I’ve been anywhere for twelve years. If only I could get well a
29little & go on with my book.
30
31What have the women quarrelled about?
32
33Good bye.
34Olive
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