The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-06
OLIVE SCHREINER.

Her PrO-BOer Candor ana Appeals tC
 Americans Inspire an Unfatterine
 British Sketch.
 It is not given to many men, still less
 to many young girls, to wake up one
 fine morning and find themselves fam
 ous Olive Schreiner did this.
 An inexperienced but well-educated girl of German Lutheran parentage, she
 was born and brought up on South African farm in the Karoo-that wide,
 treeess, almost arid, desert stretching from Worcester and the Paarl right
 away to the De Aar and even beyond. She imbibed with every breath of the glorious, invigorating, elastic air of the
 veldt something of that independent isolation of character, that introspec-
 tive analysis of motive, which is charac- l teristicof the cravings of cab1ned
 soul of limited knowledge l Olive Schreiner published( under the
 pseudonym of Ralph Irony The Story of an African Farm" and almost
 at once 1t leaped into fame. It was a
 wonderful book. The more so when it
 was known by what sort of a young
 girl it was written. The book was cal
 
 direct simplicity made it powerful. and | it's living, breathing life of the veldt, it's accurate and convincing local color, it's novelty of scene, and, at that time, the glamour and romance of new country for story writers, all helped 1t on the gigantic success which it at tained, and undoubtedly deserved.
 But the book was not the woman. She became terribly receptive to f1attery, lost her simplicity, and lost all the spon- taneous charmoof her earlier work.
 There came more books from her pen; but they were sadly deficient in all the qualities which marked out "The Story of an African Farm as the book of decade. They lacked coherence. form, simplicity, and conviction. The author ess seemed to have lost all sense of per- spective and to have assumed a critic al standpoint for which she was not fit ted.
 Without rhyme or reason--for she Is an English subject-Miss Schreiner took LID a violently anti-British position and launched forth upon an unconvincible public books and pamphlets letters and manifestos, which were obviously in- spired by misplaced zeal for an ill-un- derstood cause.
 After the Matabele war Miss Schrein- CT thought fit to write a brochure en- titled Trooper Peter Halkett." It was a dire failure from every point of view, being neither true nor good Since then her writings give her the pose of dis appointed woman-which Is pity, for she has much natural talent.
 More recently "An English South Africans View of the Situation" has from her pen It is hysterical, and silly. Here is a spec1- mem
 'We English South Africans s* *be- gin to ask ourselves, What means this breed of armed and hired soldiers on South African soil? Why are they here?' And the only answer that comes back to us, however remote and seemingly impossible, is War! | Tonight we laugh at 1t, and to-mor- row when we rise up it stands before | us again, the ghastly doubt-War- in South Africa! War-be- tween white men and white! War! | Why? Whence is the cause? For whom? For what? And the question gains no answer!"
 All this is the sheerest nonsense. The good lady knows all about it, and yet asks silly questions which have been practically answered time and again by he recorded experience of thinking, healthy sane folks who have lived years and years among the Transvaal 3oers.
 Miss Olive Schreiner married and, apparently, such was her belief in the luminous virtues of her maiden name hat she has not entirely discarded 1t, md is now known as Mrs. Cronwright- schreiner. Her husband is a simple, straightforward, honorable man, some what overwhelmed by his wife's literary rolubility.
 Her brother is MT. w. F. Schreinr, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. )f him much--good bad, and indiffer- mt has been said. But no one with any of the man has impugned lis honesty of purpose, his sincerity, or lis patriotism. His convictions lead i'm to support the Dutch Afrikander Party, and In many of his political ac- ions he may have been illadvised. But he is now at one with the loyal sts and cordially supporting Sir Alfred Iilner and her Majesty's Government. 1ll's well that ends well.
 The American newspapers, with enterprise, have succeed d lately in obtaining and publishing igned communications from various sading Boers-Gen. Joubert, pr. Leyds, nd President Kruger among the num- CT. Miss Schreiner herself is the ac- redited correspondent of New York aper at Cape Town.
 Being the medium of presenting the 'oer aspect of the present quarrel to he American public, 1t is obviously a