1Telephone: 3675 Kensington.
2Telegrams: Apartment, London.
3
4Kensington Palace Mansions & Hotel,
5De Vere Gardens, W.
6
7Dear Mr Hodgson
8
9I shall like much to go to Shaw’s lecture but can’t go by
10underground its painted The doctors have forbidden it. Must go by Bus.
11Shall not care to go to the other lecture because I never go to
12lectures by men I don’t know. It is probably a jingo thing to work
13up the war feeling for Russia! & I’m sick of jingoes.
14
15I think the Bard of the Dimbovitza is in form the most perfect poetry
16I have ever read. Of course it was not written by Carmen Silver but by
17the other woman whom all that know her say, is the most wonderful
18genius. I have known several people who have known her. I don’t know
19whether to laugh or cry when I hear of you or any man however great
20his genius putting it into “literary” form. Its marvellous power
21is that it is the cry of wild nature, it is as if the rocks & trees, &
22the very earth its-elf, & all the primitive human instincts for once
23found voice & cried out – even the earth itself. The absolute
24perfection of its form so far removed the versification of the
25literary schools, is what gives it this power of expression.
26
27^Yours ever^
28Olive Schreiner
29
30I knew a man once who said that Chapman’s translation of Homer was
31so much better than the Greek original it was so literary & polished!!
32
33PS. Please be careful not to talk about my views on South African
34matters to others, - but I know of course you wont. What I’ve said
35^to^ you is for yourself alone.
36