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High Commissioner's Office, Johanessburg.
Feb: 15: 1903
My dear old Nan
Many thanks to you & Mother for your letters. Mother is still the Mater Lacrimosa – poor body. You must try to cheer her up. I am sorry about Mrs Tudhope – she was a nice body, though West Country. I will try to write to Dan, if I can find time. I had a good many letters this mail – Uncle Willie & Aunt Kate, Sandy Gillon who laments the depravity of the age, John Nelson, Mrs Balfour, a short scribble from Lord Rosebery, and a number of letters from the mothers of intending settlers, including curious & obscure letters of introduction. As far as I can gather from the papers John Edgar seems to have been appointed to the new Chair of History at the Cape University. I hope it is my
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worthy John, as I should like to get him under my watchful eye again.
I have had a very busy week – having had two conferences – one on Valuation & the other on Town lands, at which I had to take the chair. Also I am preparing an enormous despatch on the whole work of the New Colonies, which Joe desires to have sent home – a regular 'Lord Durham's Report'. Last night I went for a long walk in the dark with Lord Milner. We scrambled up a hill, & I was in mortal fear lest I should be responsible for some fatal accident to the High Commissioner. However we got safely home, having talked nothing but the classics the whole time. H.E. is very tired & overworked,
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and indeed this whole show is getting almost too big for the present staff. I want a holiday but I see no chance of one for months. I am very healthy but working at high pressure tries the nerve of even so nerveless a person as myself. However we'll warstle through. I met a dissolute old Scotsman up in the North on the Portuguese border in the centre of fever swamps. I asked him how he kept his health. "Oh," he said, "I just keep the fear o' God constantly before my eyes – and tak' plenty o' whisky!" Weel, the first is sure necessary in these times.
As you will have heard by this time, Botha, Delarey & Smuts have declined to join the Legislative Council. This means
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trouble, I fear. The reasons they gave were so excellent that one couldn't argue with them. We could have dealt with Delarey himself, but the others persuaded him.
I have just been reading the 'Heart of Midlothian' with the greatest admiration. What a genius Sir Walter was! There has been nothing like Madge Wildfire since Ophelia. Why don't you overcome your repugnance to Scott?
I am staying with the Lytteltons now when in Pretoria & find it hard to keep my conversation at the proper intellectual level. Miss Lyttelton will talk about Dante & Ibsen, & it is no good pretending ignorance & asking if they were horses.
With much love to all
Your affectionate brother
John
