May 25 Monday – In Pretoria, South Africa Sam wrote to Livy:

Livy darling, I am sending “A Monk of Fife” to you. I have just finished it. There is no “Joan” in the May Harper; so it is finished. …

The political situation here is absorbingly interesting, but it is not possible for a stranger to get an entirely clear understanding of it. One thing seems plain: that Brer Rhodes meant to overturn the government; it also looks suspiciously like the leading Reformers were accessories; but when you have gotten that far your head begins to whirl & you have to give it up.

Sam also mentioned that Smythe would advise her to take the steamer of June 13 and they would join them at East London, S. Africa, which would keep Livy and Clara a week longer in Durban than originally planned (they actually left on June 6). Sam also revealed he’d written “old Joe a letter of 8 or 10 pages last night” [MTP].

Sam gave his “At Home” lecture on moral regeneration at Caledonian Hall; it ran 80 minutes [Philippon 17]. After the lecture Sam went to the Pretoria Club [Parsons, “Clubman in S.A.” 248]. Sam’s notebook:

Supper at Pretoria Club. Rather poor introduction but I got a good text out of it. He was one of the no-speaker kind. Mr. Wessells toasted the chairman [Johann Rissik] & said one very killing thing: “The Chairman has intimated that the quality of veracity has been left out [of] Mr. Clemens’s make-up; Mr. C. has said that the Chairman is a man of innumerable virtues. The result is obvious” [Parsons, “Clubman in S.A.” 249].

Livy wrote to Alice H. Day that she may be surprised some time in Aug. or Sept. to receive a note from her introducing a young Mr. Jameson. Livy hadn’t seen him but his parents were kind to her and Clara in Durban [MTP].