Stubborn referentialities: The Olive Schreiner epistolarium

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Stubborn referentialities The Olive Schreiner
epistolarium the South African past
Liz Stanley University of Edinburgh

• The Mss Schreiner
• The Schreiner epistolarium
• Rhodes, the great might
• have been
• A whole new story Trooper Peter
• Halket Rhodes at the hanging tree
• Outslimming slim Jannie
• Stubborn referentialities

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Schreiners main publicationsThe Story of an
African Farm (1883)Dreams (1890)Dream Life and
Real Life (1893)The Political Situation (1896)
Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897)The
Woman Question (1899)An English South Africans
View of the Situation (1899)An interview with
Olive Schreiner (in Hobson 1900)Closer Union
(1909)Woman and Labour (1911)The Dawn of
Civilisation (post. 1921)Thoughts on South
Africa (post. 1923, orig 1890)Stories, Dreams
and Allegories (post. 1924)The Letters of Olive
Schreiner (post. 1924)From Man to Man (post.
1926)Undine (post. 1929)
Manuscript sources (excluding letters) Humanities
Research Centre, Texas National English
Literary Museum, Grahamstown South African
Library, Cape Town
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around 25,000 letters other epistolary matter,
of which c7,000 now extant on 3 continents, in
10 major archives, around 40 significant
collections present edited collections SCCS
Cronwright-Schreiner (1924) The Letters of Olive
Schreiner Richard Rive (1987) The Letters of
Olive Schreiner vol 1 (nb. no vol 2) Yaffa Claire
Draznin (1992) My Other Self The Letters of
Olive Schreiner and Havelock Ellis 1884 - 1920
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The Schreiner epistolarium
I turn with such a keen kind of relish to the
external world I have the same kind of feelings
to objective things that a person has to solid
food who has been ill for months and begins to
eat again it is something quite different from
ordinary hunger. My nature craves it (OS to HE,
25 April 1890)
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an epistolarium

• the letters as an epistolary record in its own
  right
• the unknown relationship between the total
  surviving letters and those destroyed
• the relationship of manuscript letters with
  ur-letters produced by transcribing, selection
  publication

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• It has its own shape or structure, concerning
• sets of correspondents
• temporal dimensions
• elisions silences
• gaps destructions
• interpretational framing by the canonical
  Schreiner scholarship

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• It has its own shape or structure
• There is an emergent but internally consistent
  epistolary voice, involving
• a marked inversion of public private
  writing practices
• invoking silence use of the impersonal form
  one
• the use of fictive devices
• tailored to interests of relationship with
  particular correspondents
• changes over time an emergent
  inter-personal epistolary ethics

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• It has its own shape or structure
• There is an emergent but internally consistent
  epistolary voice
• A strong referential basis linking text, people,
  context action
• the letters have particular meaning because to
  from people involved in events
• a dialogical relationship both within outside
  the letters
• a part of producing, not just commenting on,
  political change

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• The Schreiner epistolarium has its own shape
  or structure
• There is an emergent but internally consistent
  epistolary voice
• A strong referential claim links text, people,
  context, action

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Rhodes, the almighty might-have-been

• a man of genius who enlarges the horizon
• OS shrinks from any public or private
  association with him
• he has looked good evil in the face
  deliberately chosen evil
• he sees things people without a veil
• he corrupts thro money power, magnetism, also
  love trust
• the evil lust for gold Empire, doing anything
  to achieve his ends
• its a system (monopoly, capital, speculation,
  exploitation) not a man, but something in SA
  has fed built him up systemically
• he strikes back thro intermediaries at anyone
  who opposes this system

• the Raid broke his main power-base, but
• his wriggling he might always come back, by
  any means he can
• provoking orchestrating a war is his last card,
  something to use to regain power
• the war will not crush the Boer Republics,
  because of how they will fight, but destroy Br
  influence in SA
• its aftermath will bring Union, but this will be
  retrograde politically
• eventually, in 50 years or so, as we have sown
  so shall we reap with regard to the native
  question as set up by Rhodes

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A whole new story Trooper Peter Halket
Rhodes at the hanging tree
About six oclock I woke, jumped out of bed.
Cron asked me what was the matter, I said a
whole new story had come to me just as I woke,
I told him all just as it stands but short...
(OS to Ettie Stakesby Lewis, 25 December 1901,
UCT BC1080)
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I have Did I tell you Id been writing an
allegory story here called Trooper Peter Halket
of Mashonaland. I havent quite done it yet
(OS to GW Cross, 5 Feb ?1896, Cory MS 14,
462) About six oclock I woke, jumped out of
bed. Cron asked me what was the matter, I
said a whole new story had come to me just as I
woke, I told him all just as it stands but
short... (OS to Ettie Stakesby Lewis, 25
December 1901, UCT BC1080)
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1. Schreiners getting of wisdom about Rhodes,
the almighty might-have-been He might have
all that was best greatest in South Africa to
his side. We that would have loved him so,
honoured him, followed him! but he has chosen,
not only to choose the worst men as his
instruments, but to act on men always through the
lowest sides of their nature, to lead them
through a narrow self-interest instead of
animating them with large enthusiasms. And he
might have done it! For the present I feel to
him not as to a man who has only one path open to
him, but as to a man who had, who has looked
steadily carefully at both, chosen the lower!
He is to me an almighty, might-have-been. (OS to
Will Schreiner, 13 August 1895, UCT BC!) 2. The
tragedy of Rhodes for South Africa We fight
Rhodes because he means so much of oppression,
injustice, moral degradation in South Africa -
but if he passed away tomorrow there still
remains the terrible fact that something in our
society has formed the matrix which has fed,
nourished, built up such a man! It is the far
future of Africa during the next twenty-five or
fifty years which depresses me. I believe we are
standing on the top of a long down-ward slope.
(OS to John X. Merriman, 3 April 1897, SAL MSC 15)
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The full fledged Trooper Peter Halket(i) came
so completely at once
All my stories come to me that way I never
consciously try to make one, but none except
Peter Halket ever came so completely at once,
they are sometimes only in bits for months before
they are ready. With Peter Halket I was at the
Kowie had slept heavily all night from one
oclock, a most unusual thing with me. About six
oclock I woke, jumped out of bed. Cron asked
me what was the matter, I said a whole new
story had come to me just as I woke, I told him
all just as it stands but short. I had nothing
further from my thoughts that the writing of such
a book the night before I was busy on my stray
thoughts a book of that title. I just as I
opened my eyes saw Peter Halket on the kopje
heard the voices talking. (OS to Ettie
Stakesby-Lewis, 25 December 1901, UCT BC1080)
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The full fledged Trooper Peter Halket(ii)
copying out
I have been copying out a little bit of my
Allegory story about Mashonaland. Its curious
but I would give hundreds of pounds if that story
had never come to me, yet now I feel I must
publish it. It will make Rhodes the Chartered
Company very bitter against me all conflict is
so terrible. (OS to Betty Molteno, Wednesday,
?30 September 1896. UCT BC16) Ill send you my
story Peter Halket when Ive done copying it out.
I know you will call it a Christian story, but
its not, its only human!!!!! (OS to Betty
Molteno, 21 October 1896. UCT BC16)
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The full fledged Trooper Peter Halket(iii)
proofs of facticity
With regard to Peter Halket being over drawn,
dear Laddie perhaps much as you know about most
points connected with South Africa more than I
do I may know some aspects of the Northern
matter better. You see I have known intimately
such numbers of young men up there, from their
letters, the journals they have sent me, from
the conversations we have had with some of them
in Kimberley when they came down (OS to Will
Schreiner, 15 March 1897, UCT BC16) I wish I
could write you a long letter tell you of some
facts I know with regard to Chartered doings in
the North. I fancy few people have been in the
position to learn all we know.. (OS to Will
Schreiner, 18 March 1897, UCT BC16) Did I tell
you of the educated Christian Kaffir who came to
see us the other day? I fancy I did. He had been
up in Matabele-land talking to the chiefs and
indunas there The Chartered Company are trying
to drive them down into the fever swamps to live
where they all must die by inches. Ah my dear
friend, it is these things that are so terrible
to me. Sometimes I feel ashamed to look at a
black man. But we can but each of us live out our
little life, doing the best we can with the
little fragment of strength that is given us.
(OS to Betty Molteno 16 December 1897, UCT BC16)
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• Ambiguity of claims status
• Over-complicated reading practices to get the
  point
• If factual, then fictive elements devalued

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Out-slimming slim Jannie
Yesterday I read of the troubles in Port
Elizabeth. I wish I knew you will sic taking as
broad sane a view on our native problem as you
took on many European points when you were there.
The next few years are going to determine the
whole future of South Africa in 30 or 40 years
time. As we sow we shall reap. We may crush the
mass of our fellows in South Africa today, as
Russia did for generations, but today the serf is
in the Palace where is the Czar? Jan dear,
you are having your last throw throw it right
this time. You are such a wonderfully brilliant
gifted man, yet there are sometimes things
which a simple child might see which you dont!
You see close at hand - but you dont see far
enough This is the 20th century the past is
past never to return, even in South Africa. The
day of princes, Bosses, is gone forever one
must meet the incoming tide rise on it, or be
swept away forever. OS to Jan Smuts, 28 Oct
1920, Pretoria Smuts
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Give my love to Neif Jan. Tell him to take care
of my Indians Natives for me while Im away!
OS to Isie Smuts, 18 Oct 1920, Pretoria Smuts
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Give my love to Neif Jan. Tell him to take care
of my Indians Natives for me while Im away!
Oh, Isie dear, if one has suffered so much as I
have all my life since I was a girl, especially
in these last years, one realizes how unnecessary
it is we should ever inflict suffering on each
other. It we human creatures did nothing, but
help deal generously with one another, life
still inflicts physical anguish enough on us to
make human life bitter. I suppose you wont be
coming down to Cape Town till parliament meets. I
dont agree with my husband that Gladstone ought
to be recalled, as we might get some one worse in
his place, I dont wish the ministry to resign.
Except Jan Malan you have no men of great
ability in this ministry, but if another
government came in with such men as Fichart
Freemantle in it should we not be much worse off?
The outlook in Africa depresses me terribly.
Goodbye dear. OS to Isie Smuts, 18 Oct 1920,
Pretoria Smuts
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Jan dear, you are having your last throw throw
it right this time. You are such a wonderfully
brilliant gifted man, yet there are sometimes
things which a simple child might see which you
dont! You see close at hand - but you dont see
far enough. I do hope you will get Isie to come
down when the parliament meets. I want so to see
her. Thine ever Olive This is the 20th century
the past is past never to return, even in South
Africa. The day of princes, Bosses, is gone
forever one must meet the incoming tide rise
on it, or be swept away forever. OS to Jan
Smuts, 28 Oct 1920, Pretoria Smuts
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Stubborn referentialities Some concluding
comments
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Manchester University Press 2006 ISBN
0-7-190-6568-2
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Helen Dampier Liz Stanley (2007) Parallel
Narratives Photographs in Boer Womens
Testimonies, Narrative and Fiction Conference,
University of Huddersfield. (2007, in press)
Cultural Entrepreneurs, Proto-Nationalism and
Womens Testimony Writings From the South
African War 1899/1902 to 1948 Journal of
Southern African Studies Margaretta Jolly Liz
Stanley (2005) Letters as / not a genre Life
Writing 2 75-101. Liz Stanley (2007, in press)
Views dont make any difference between
friends dealing with political disagreements in
some Olive Schreiner franchise letters South
African Historical Journal. (2006) Mourning
BecomesPost/Memory, Commemoration the
Concentration Camps of the South African War
Manchester Manchester University Press and New
Brunswick Rutgers University Press. (2004) The
epistolarium on theorising letters and
correspondences Auto/Biography 12
216-50. (2002) Imperialism, Labour and the New
Woman Olive Schreiners Social Theory Durham,
UK sociologypress. (2002) Shadows lying
across her pages Epistolary aspects of reading
the eventful I in Olive Schreiners letters
1889 1913 Journal of European Studies 32
251-66. (2002) Mourning becomes the work of
feminism in the spaces between lives lived and
lives written Womens Studies International
Forum 25 1-17. (2001) "Mimesis and metaphor in
the interpretation of lives holding out an Olive
branch to Schreiner criticism Women's History
Review 927-50. (2000) "How do we know about past
lives? Methodological and epistemological
matters" in (ed) Alison Donnell and Pauline
Polkey Representing Womens Lives Women and
Auto/Biography London Macmillan 3-21. (1999)
Is there life in the contact zone?
Auto/biographical practices and the field of
representation in writing past lives" in (ed)
Pauline Polkey Womens Lives Into Print The
Theory, Practice and Writing of Feminist
Auto/Biography London Macmillan 3-30. (1993)
"On auto/biography in sociology" Sociology 271
pp.41-52 (republished in (ed, 2006) Robert L.
Miller Biographical Research Methods London Sage
Publications). (1992) The Auto/Biographical I
Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/Biography
Manchester University Press, Manchester. (1989)
'Olive Schreiner free women, all women' in (ed)
Janet Todd Dictionary of British Women Writers
Routledge, London 593-597. (1985) "Feminism and
friendship two essays on Olive Schreiner"
Studies in Sexual Politics no.8, Sociology
Department, University of Manchester. (1983)
'New women, free women, all women Olive
Schreiner' in (ed) Dale Spender Feminist
Theorists The Women's Press, London 229-243. Liz
Stanley Helen Dampier (2007, in press)
Fictive and factive devices in Olive Schreiners
Letters and her Trooper Peter Halket of
Mashonaland in (eds) Kate Milnes et al Narrative
and Fiction Huddersfield, UK University of
Huddersfield Press. (2006) Simulacrum diaries
Time, the moment of writing and the diaries of
Johanna Brandt-Van Warmelo Life Writing 3
25-52. (2006) Knowledge, the moment of
writing and the simulacrum diaries of Johanna
Brandt-Van Warmelo in (ed) Kate Milnes et al
Narrative, Memory and Knowledge Huddersfield
University of Huddersfield.