1 Hanover
2 April 27th 1903
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 How can I thank you enough for your letter & the two wires I got today.
7 I would like more than you can think to be with you in your dear home,
8 which seems like a home to me too. But I can’t stand the climate at
9Pretoria; the last time I was there, I was six weeks in bed when I got
10home, & whenever I’ve gone out from Johannesburg in the winter its
11had the same effect on me. If only you lived in Bloemfontein! I wanted
12to go there but I hear there is not a house or room to be had. I
13don’t know where I shall go. I have spent £4 on advertising already,
14 & have had only one answer from a farm near Beaufort West, so I
15suppose I shall have to go there, though the people are great jingoes.
16If it wasn’t for my husband I should go to Italy & spend the rest of
17my life there; but I should always be fancying he was ill & perhaps
18needing me. I’d have my body brought back to this old country; but
19life is very hard here now, & I can do no more good here. When to keep
20silent is all you can do for your country, you may as well be silent
21in one place as another; & I would copy out & finish off one of my
22novels & so earn money if I were in Italy.
23
24 Thank you so much for your husband’s photo. Many of the folk here
25have been to see it. It’s very good, but a little "kwaai".
26
27 If Mrs de Wet (the General’s wife) is still in Pretoria please give
28my my kind regards. I should like so much to have a photograph of her.
29I hope her daughter’s heart is better. Give my love to Daisy when
30you write please. I hope she is getting all right, & will get quite
31strong. We are I am going down to Grahamstown to Jan Van der Berg’s
32trial on the 11th of May; they will do all they can to get him off &
33prove him not guilty, & so make it appear that our innocent men were
34present when the train was wrecked. If they do I don’t care what
35anyone says or how the politicians may weep, I’ll show the whole
36thing up in the English news papers. I never get any time for writing
37now; when my work’s done I’m just glad to get to the bed & lie
38down. But perhaps I shall be able to write a little during the winter
39if I get a warm place.
40
41 We are having a tiny little cottage build, the whole not much bigger
42than your dining room to move into when the parliament is over. There
43is not even a room to be had here. Miss Molteno & Miss Greene wrote
44this week that they were coming up, but but I had to wire & tell them
45not. I can’t understand what is the matter with country: it seems
46all gone wrong. It will be fifty years before its fit for a decent
47person to live in. We are going to have a public meeting here on the
489th.
49
50 I hope you are keeping strong.
51
52 Affectionate greetings to you all; & deep thanks for your really
53wishing to have me. I could have cried when your wires came today; it
54seemed so nice any one should care to have me.
55 Yours ever
56
57 Olive Schreiner
58
59 Have you read a nice book of poems by Earnest Crosby called Swords &
60Ploughshares, ^there are some good poems on South Africa in the book.^
61