Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	HRC/CAT/OS/1a-xi
Archive	Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday 21 May 1884
Address From	7 Pelham Street, Kensington, London
Address To	24 Thornsett Road, South Penge Park, London
Who To	Havelock Ellis
Other Versions	Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 20; Draznin 1992: 57-8

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Havelock Ellis, 21 May 1884, Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. This letter has been dated by reference to an associated envelope and its postmark, which also provides the address it was sent to. The last insertion is written on the back of the envelope.

1:  7 Pelham St.
2:  Thursday
3: 
4:  Dear Mr. Ellis,
5: 
6:  I have so much to say about Hinton & Hinton’s views (I have some
7:  questions to ask too) that I shan’t try to say it to-day. Thank you
8:  much for your letter & for the proofs.
9: 
10:  I send you a little bit of my friends first letter. I would like to
11:  send you all of both. In the second she tells me of a lady (of several,
12:  but of one especially,) whom Hinton knew when she was a widow & whom
13:  he tired to make love him, & of how she burnt his letters & would
14:  never have anything more to do with him, &c, &c.
15: 
16:  The writer of the letter I send you is a Freethinker, & freer in ther
17:  her thoughts on social & moral questions than on any other. Though
18:  married happily herself she does not believe in formal marriage, but
19:  ^only^ in a marriage of mutual consent &c, &c. So you see the ordinary
20:  narrow prejudices will not have acted in her case.
21: 
22:  Hinton says much in those proofs that I have thought & felt but never
23:  seen expressed before; but, I think, I see what he does not see, &
24:  where his theory [part of page torn away]
25: 
26:  human nature & in woman nature in Hinton. There is something to me
27:  infinitely touching in that last little note you read me of
28: 
29:  [part of page torn away] I am going to see Herbert Spencer on Sunday week.
30: 
31:  Did Hinton aply the same measure to man & to woman? Would he have been
32:  satisfied if his wife had had six “spiritual husbands”? I mean this
33:  really as a question.
34: 
35:  I am writing this lying down; I hope you can make it out.
36: 
37:  ^Please send back the enclosed.^
38: 
39:  ^Have just got your note. Sunday suits me very nicely.^
40: 
41: 

Notation
The ‘little bit of letter’ enclosed is no longer attached. Draznin’s (1992) version of this letter is in some respects different from our transcription. Cronwright-Schreiner’s (1924) extract is incorrect in various ways.