1 Hanover
2 Feb 9th 1907
3
4 Dear old Ed’ard
5
6 I send you a bit of a letter I’ve just got from a very dear &
7remarkable friend of mine, Mrs. Earle. She the grand daughter of an
8Earl, I mean a an Lord Earl, all her relations are lords & ladies, but
9she’s a grand old Radical. She’s over 70 & as young & lovely in
10mind as if she were 20. I’m going to tell her to send you some of
11her books with which I think you’ll like. How she will love you when
12I tell her, as I’m going to in my letter today, that you were an
13anti meat eater twenty five years before the fashion came in. She is
14quite mad on the no meat question. Its She quite wrong about my meat
15eating. I’ve not eaten meat or soup practically now for one year & a
16half, & never taste it when I’m in my own home, live principally on
17sour milk & a very very little dry biscuit (bread & sugar are worse
18for me than meat). What I contend with her is that what suits us does
19not of necessity suit everyone. Here are the Boers one of the biggest
20& most powerful races the world has yet seen who live entirely almost
21on meat. My objection to meat eating is & remains the horror of eating
22ones animal brothers. I never pass a flock of sheep, or cattle with
23their dear large restful eyes but I get a stick in my heart. Of course
24people like Mrs. Earle with generations of port drinking overeating
25aristocrats behind her ought for purely physical reason to eat meat or
26take any stimulating diet. I believe that nearly all the diseases of
27the wealthy ?men classes in England, might be cured by a non-meat diet.
28
29 Everything is going on all right with me. I am still at Hanover living
30quite alone now as Cron has his business at De Aar where I can’t
31live, I stayed there a month & nearly died. He’s coming over on the
3224th of this month to see me ^which is our wedding day^ & then on the
3324th of March which is my birthday. It is very hard to be separated
34from him, but I stay here so that if he were ill or wanted me I could
35go at once.
36
37 He is going to start a newspaper at De Aar, a general paper, but it
38will support labour, the doing away with the disabilities of sex, &
39above all seek for justice for the native, the one great all important
40problem here now. The different white governments here are going to
41bring on a terrific native war here within the next few years! They
42will likely bring on a small one in Natal next May. There is no one
43here to defend the native because it doesn’t pay.
44
45^Good bye dear old Brother. I had my likeness taken here the other week
46by a little travelling photographer who goes round to take the Boers,
47if its a passable likeness I’ll send you one. Do you ever see
48anything of our old Bob? Is he changed or much the same as ever? ^
49
50 Olive
51
52 Dear Isabella has written a fine paper on the woman question. I’m
53writing at my book.
54