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Such a woman, for instance, as the Kaffir woman spoken of by Olive Schreiner in this passage, is the rare exception. But so far Olive Schreiner is undoubtedly right. When the revolt at length takes place it is in answer to an immediate and pressing need of the whole community.
It is not remarkable, therefore, that Rhodes should fall into the habit of confiding in Miss Schreiner, whom he found was "miles above" the people about him. He used to hold long conversations with her and to initiate her into many of his plans for the future, plans in which the interests and the welfare of the Cape Dutch, as well as the Transvaalers, used always to play the principal part.
Over the sea, in America, Poe, Whittier, Bret Harte, Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman. Here in Australia, the seed springing up! Even in South Africa, that Olive Schreiner writing like one inspired. By heavens! There are moments when I feel it must be a proud thing to be an Englishman." "Bravo, Geisner! You actually make me for the minute," cried Ford. "You should be!
Schreiner, at that time the Premier of the Cape Colony, who in June refused, with complacent optimism, to furnish it with arms, saying that, "there is no reason for apprehending that Kimberley is in danger of attack," and that "the fears of the citizens are groundless and their anticipations without foundation."
Later on, Miss Schreiner, who was an ardent patriot, having discovered what she termed and considered to be the duplicity of the man in whom she had so absolutely trusted, refused to meet Cecil Rhodes again. Her famous book, "Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland," was the culminating point in their quarrel, and the break became complete.
It is always asserted that he possesses the vices of both parent races and the virtues of neither: that he is born especially with a tendency to be a liar, cowardly, licentious, and without self-respect." Olive Schreiner herself is the first to admit that there are exceptions.
The War Office, however, was to a certain extent on the alert and distrusted the optimism of Schreiner and of a high military official who had been for some years in South Africa. Officers were sent to Kimberley to organize a scheme of defence, but having regard to the susceptibility of the Capetown Government it was done secretly and confidentially and Schreiner was outwitted.
After having rallied around him all that was honest in South Africa; after having been the petted child of all the old and influential ladies in Cape Town; after having been accepted as their leader by men like Mr. Schreiner and Mr.
Olive Schreiner, in "Woman and Labor," lays it down as almost axiomatic that "the women of no race or class will ever rise in revolt or attempt to bring about a revolutionary readjustment of their relation to society, however intense their suffering, and however clear their perception of it, while the welfare and persistence of society requires their submission; that whenever there is a general attempt on the part of the women of any society to readjust their position in it, a close analysis will always show that the changed or changing conditions of society have made women's acquiescence no longer necessary or desirable."
Schreiner, when questioned by one of his friends about the rumours which had reached Cape Town concerning a projected invasion of the Transvaal by people connected with the Chartered Company, repudiated them with energy. Mr. Schreiner, indeed, declared that so long as Mr.
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