In answer to a question from BBS, these letters are not original but ones I have made up based on the sorts of things I think they might have written about. The stuff about Elgar comes from the internet site diary about his life.

7 Lansdowne Crescent, Worcester
September 1st, 1905

Dear Harold,

What a very interesting letter you sent last. I do very much enjoy hearing about your new country which shall soon be my country too. Do feel free to talk to me in the letters about whatever you wish to in regard to your work. I may not understand it, but I must learn about it. I don’t properly understand how you go about mining for tin. You talked about the women panning for it – rather like people pan for gold, but that is not how you obtain most of the ore, I am sure. Is the system mechanised? It sounds as if there is money to spend on using the latest methods, so please tell me a bit more about how you do it?

I admit that I had to have Father’s help in finding out where your quote came from. Good old Chesterton. We started our quoting with him, and we are now back to him again.

I expect you will get this one very easily. There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Do you have access to newspapers? Would you like me to give you some of the headlines of importance that I think may be of interest to you? For instances did you know that Lord Curzon has resigned as the Viceroy of India? Perhaps you are better informed than I am in which case I will not tell you what you no doubt already know.

As I have reached the ripe old age of twenty five, I am so pleased that I have my diamond and sapphire ring to flash if anyone dares to insinuate that I am on the way to being an old maid. May and I will continue with our education and our pastimes and we are pleased that the new season will soon begin for classes.

Margaret Tree has got a job working in the city for one of the councilors. She works each day from 11-1, and finds it fascinating. Jessie spends some time working in her father’s office. I wonder if May and I should look for paid work. We still do our charity bits – May with reading at the Blind School and me with finding ways of helping the poor people with clothing. Father is increasingly busy with his committees and his work. I feel like I say the same things over and over to you, but our lives are very much a repetition from one year to the next. From next May onwards that will not be the case for me – as you will be presenting me with a whole new life.

The Wagner quote was by Edgar Wilson Nye. I hadn’t heard of him either, but I thought it was quite clever. Here is another music one. I think I should have no mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.  It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain.  Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

I expect you will find that one very easy.

Much love,
Muriel

*****

Lahat, Perak
September 30th, 1905

Dearest Muriel,

How I look forward to your letters. I am pleased that you didn’t find my ramblings too boring. As far as you sending me tidbits of information, I would welcome them. We do get some newspapers but often the news is very old, and we have little time. Even if I have heard things before, it will be interesting to find out what you think is important in the world.

I have read most of George Eliot’s books and did recognise the earlier quote as coming from her. And I do know my Chesterton pretty well, and have got a copy of Heretics. Who are your favourite authors?

Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?

You asked about the mechanization of the site.

From very early on there were pumps to drain the water. One of the early Frenchmen on the site, Jacque de Morgan, was a civil mining engineer, and it was he who set up the methods that we still use to a large extent.

In Papan, a dam was built by the Mandailings, possibly with the help of the Chinese, to supply hydraulic power to the mines in case of drought. The Mandailings themselves are skilled in dam construction and have great engineering skills.
Their leader, Raja Bilah, bought his first machine, a horse-powered engine imported from England but found out that it could not be used. One can picture the poor Mandailings, not understanding the meaning of horse-power, spending days and weeks trying to figure out how to harness the machine to their ponies!

The furnace used by the Mandailing smelters in particular required charcoal made from hardwoods, and large tracts of forests were cleared merely to extract these timbers. In 1888, the Perak Government banned the use of all Chinese furnaces except ones which employed only ordinary firewood.

The ban was accepted in Lahat, where most of the Chinese smelters had already switched to the other form of furnace due to the scarcity of hard timber for charcoal. Previously Western companies had difficulty getting into the smelting business, but after the ban, they began to establish their agencies in Kinta at Papan, followed by a new branch each year, successively at our three mines, Batu Gajah, Lahat and Ipoh. The manager who was stationed at Ipoh came to control the purchasing and freighting agencies all over the region.

So In 1891, Sir George Maxwell visited Papan, which in those days was a bigger town than Ipoh, met Raja Bila, who he said was a grand old man and arranged for the English to take over much of the mining industry.

I think that is enough for one letter about the history of this place and how it works. I could just say that we use pressurized hoses to loosen the sand that surrounds the tin with its other complex metals, and it washes into the river where the tin, being heaviest, falls to the bottom. The resulting metal mixture is sent along a magnetic belt and the tungsten sticks to the belt, and the tin is then recovered in quite a pure form.

I must admit that it is my impression that this a very lonely life for white woman, and the ones I’ve met generally finds the climate more trying than the men, as most of their time is necessarily spent in the bungalow. You must make sure you bring with you your sketching and painting materials, and writing equipment so that you can entertain yourself for those long lonely hours when I am at work, and before the children come.

One thing we must discuss at some time is the education of any children we may have. Most, when they are old enough to be educated in England, are sent back there to boarding schools, and I imagine you met many girls at your school whose parents worked abroad, as I did in mine. But I have thought that with this separation there comes the inevitable break up of the home life; the children either having to forego the parental influence or the wife having to remain in England with them and thus be parted from her husband. I wonder if perhaps when our children are old enough for school, I will have earned enough money and had enough adventure for me to choose work back in England.

I hope this letter will not be too heavy to go by the basic rate, as I have only enough stamps to cover that.

All my love,

Harold

*****

22nd October, 1905
Lansdowne Crescent

Dear Harold,

It seems so strange for you to be talking about the education of our children, as if they had already been conceived and born. But I do agree with you that I wouldn’t like them to be sent home on their own. The ones we had at our school, many of whom became my good friends, were very lonely and so much missed out on having a family to go to for the holidays. We had several of them staying with us during the breaks.

I didn’t recognise your last quote. I would guess Karl Marx, but I don’t really know. I found it a bit hard to understand.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. Now, who said that?

I don’t think I told you much about the town of Warwick itself when I last wrote.
Warwick is built on a low hill above the Avon, and, according to the guide book, is one of those towns that leaves one with a sense of wonder. (I do agree.) Not just for the famous castle which is thought to be the finest medieval castle in England, nor the soaring church tower, nor its wealth of historic buildings, but rather the atmosphere of the place, as if history was all there in one package."
According to my research, ‘Warwick was founded in about 914, by Ethelfleda, a daughter of Alfred the Great, but following the Norman Conquest, it was the Beauchamp family, Earls of Warwick for over 400 years, that really gave Warwick its character. (You know of course that May and I are friends with the current Beauchamps who now live in Great Malvern.) It played a particularly important part in English medieval history, because Richard Neville, who married Anne Beauchamp, succeeded to the estates. His dazzling political and military manoeuvres in the Wars of the Roses, earned him the title of 'Kingmaker".'

Another place we visited was Wroxhall Abbey the country retreat of architect Sir Christopher Wren, set on the site of a medieval abbey with 27 acres of grounds and gardens complete with Wren's Walled Garden. John rather fancies the idea of being the chaplain for the Abbey if the position ever comes vacant.

I would like to spend time in that area, but that will depend on how May feels about another trip there.

You asked about my favourite authors. I would have to list Shakespeare and Dickens at the top, and then the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskill, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Mrs. Henry Wood (who came from Worcester you know), Henry Fielding, Wilkie Collins. I have eclectic taste, as you will see from this list.

I have another small snippet of news for you. The actor Henry Irving died last week. And going back a bit, on September 8th there was an earthquake in Italy that killed thousands and destroyed 25 villages. I also read that there is a new Anglo-Japanese treaty which provides for Japan to help safeguard India. And there are plans to connect the Far East and the U.S.A. by submarine telegraph lines. You might be more interested in those things than I am.

I might also inform you about the Three Choirs Festival which was of course in Worcester this year. In early September, the Mayor, Hubert Leicester seconded by the High Sheriff, resolved unanimously: ‘That pursuant to the Honorary Freedom of Boroughs Act, 1885, the Honorary Freedom of the City of Worcester, be conferred upon Sir Edward William Elgar, Musc. Doc., LL.D; in recognition of the eminent position which he, a Citizen of the Faithful City, has attained in the Musical World; and that he be admitted as an Honorary Freeman accordingly.’

Among the items on the programme were new works: the Introduction and Allegro and the 3rd Pomp and Circumstance March. Mr. Jaegar was there, and the composer Havergal Brian. The Mayor and members of the Corporation went to St. George’s Catholic Church with Mr. Elgar, both Edward and his father had been organists there, and the new Mayor had been the choir master.

On Festival Day there was a procession making its way from the Guildhall to the Cathedral with the Mayor, the High Sheriff and all the aldermen in their civic robes and Elgar walking solemnly in their midst, clothed in a strange gown which puzzled most of the onlookers. Upon inquiry this turned out to be the Yale University gown and hood which Elgar hastened to wear on the very first occasion that a Doctor of Music’s robes were needed at any of his public engagements. It was also lovely that  Elgar turned as he passed a certain house in the High Street on his way to the cathedral and saluted an old gentleman whose face could just be seen looking out of an upper window. It was his father, who was watching the honour being paid to his son by the city of his birth. Being very old and growing feeble, he was unable to leave his room; but what must his feelings have been on looking out of that window and seeing before his very eyes the fulfilment of his wildest dreams!

Gerontius followed the ceremony, conducted by Atkins, and then the Mayor’s luncheon for Elgar. Atkins Hymn of Faith for which Elgar had written the libretto, was in the afternoon. Elgar conducted the Introduction & Allegro at the evening concert. The next day, Elgar conducted the Apostles in the morning.

The composer Thomas Dunhill (one of his pieces was being performed at the festival) is quoted in the paper as saying: ‘He was most adorable to me. His praise of my song pleased me more than I could express. He was staying in some school-house which he had taken for the period of the festival. A long table occupied the whole length of the large dining-hall. Elgar sat at the head of this, and a place was reserved for me immediately on his right. ‘Remember,’ he said with emphasis, ‘this is your place every morning you are here.’ To a young musician, only just free from the shackles of student life, this was a thrilling privilege for which I was quite unprepared, for Elgar is now at the summit of his career and was entertaining a large house-party of close friends and ardent admirers.’

Needless to say we went to all the concerts and enjoyed every note.

Love,

Muriel

*****

15th October, 1905
Lahat, Perak

Dearest Muriel,

I know this letter will cross yours in the post, but I must send off this small gift. I hope you will like the bag, which was done by one of the Chinese women whose husband works for me. She was so thrilled when I told her I was buying it to send to my future wife.

I’m afraid you caught me out with your last quotation, and I haven’t time to find a pithy one to return to you now. I will do better with my next letter.

I think of you always with love and affection,

Harold

*****

November 15th 1905
Lahat, Perak

Dear Muriel,

This will be too easy for you I know. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.

Let me tell you a bit about Ipoh the largest centre in our district. Ipoh grew from a small village in the 1880s to Perak's largest town. The centre of the richest and most populous district in Malaya, Ipoh is home to the professional elite, diverse ethnic groups and significant minorities. Missionaries, private associations and philanthropists helped to develop a variety of schools. The press calls Ipoh the 'Hub of Malaya'.

I hope this won’t sound too much like a lecture to you, as I am copying it out of a book.

The name Perak for our region means the Land of Grace.

The federated states of Malaya including Perak are under the protection of Great Britain, but are not British possessions. Each state is under the rule of a sultan, who is assisted in his legislative duties by a state council, upon which the resident, and in some cases the secretary to the resident, has a seat, and which is composed of native chiefs and one or more Chinese members nominated by the sultan with the advice and consent of the resident.

The administrative work of each state is carried on by the resident and his staff of European officials, whose ranks are recruited by successful candidates in the competitive examinations held annually by the Civil Service commissioners.

The sultan of each state is bound by treaty with the British government to accept the advice of the resident, who is thus practically paramount; but great deference is paid to the opinions and wishes of the sultans and their chiefs, and the British officials are pledged not to interfere with the religious affairs of the Mahommedan community.

In the actual administration of the Malay population great use is made of the native aristocratic system, the peasants being governed largely by their own chiefs, headmen and village elders, under the close supervision of British district officers. The result is a benevolent autocracy admirably adapted to local conditions and to the character and traditions of the people.

The mountain ranges, which cover a considerable area, run from the north-east to the south-west. The highest altitudes attained by them do not exceed 7500 ft., but they average about 2500 ft. They are all thickly covered with jungle.

The taller hills are exclusively composed of granite, as also are some of the lower ones. The ores of the following metals have been found: lead, iron, arsenic, tungsten and titanium, gold, silver, copper, zinc, manganese and bismuth.

Thus endeth the lecture. I greatly look forward to your next letter.

Love,

Harold