"Not love uniting you but greed, gold-thirsty native policy, cheap labour" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | HRC/CAT/OS/5a-v |
| Archive | Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | Sunday 3 October 1915 |
| Address From | Trevaldwyn, Llandrindod Wells, Wales |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Havelock Ellis |
| Other Versions | Draznin 1992: 493-4 |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| 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. In the absence of other information, dating this letter has followed Draznin (1992), who has done so by reference to a version in the Lafitte Letters typescript in the British Library. The letter is on printed headed notepaper.
|
1Trevaldwyn,
2Llandrindod Wells.
3Sunday
4
5Dear Havelock
6
7You talk of bright cold weather! We here have had nothing but rain &
8dense mist & fog for two weeks not one bright day. Here among the
9Welsh mountains the winter comes two months earlier than in England.
10The mountaintops have been covered with snow. The fog is so dense
11every morning that you cannot see the houses opposite & all the
12afternoon it pours. I would leave at once only I don’t know where to
13go. I simply cant face all the insults one meets looking in London for
14rooms, so I’ll have to try Bude when Miss Hobhouse returns ^if she
15does return^ but the sea never suits me. London is the only decent
16place in winter My dear friends here are so kind & I shall be so sorry
17to leave them. Their house has been a true home to me.
18
19If ever Edith or you should know of a cheap Hotel, like those 5/- bed
20& breakfast places where there they would take an Englishperson with a
21German name please let me know.
22
23You can’t understand that its our hideous English hypocracy I hate,
24not that we fight all nations do that. Read the article on “Martial
25Law in Ceylon” in the New Statesman. We are executing people whole
26sale there & in India because we being great & strong states have
27conquered them as small ones & execute them as soon as we only fear
28they will rise. Yet if Germany executes ten people in Belgium for
29rising against her you even you Havelock Ellis are horrified. Yet if
30you were not an Englishman you would see there is nothing more wicked
31in conquering & killing & executing Belgians than Dutch Republicans in
32South Africa or Singalese in Ceylon. I don’t believe one Englishman
33in 10,000 can see straight.
34
35^I thought your article in the Nation so good So much more life &
36purity of out look than your articles sometimes show^
37
38^I’m choaking for breath all day long but I’m trying to write.^
39
40Olive
41
2Llandrindod Wells.
3Sunday
4
5Dear Havelock
6
7You talk of bright cold weather! We here have had nothing but rain &
8dense mist & fog for two weeks not one bright day. Here among the
9Welsh mountains the winter comes two months earlier than in England.
10The mountaintops have been covered with snow. The fog is so dense
11every morning that you cannot see the houses opposite & all the
12afternoon it pours. I would leave at once only I don’t know where to
13go. I simply cant face all the insults one meets looking in London for
14rooms, so I’ll have to try Bude when Miss Hobhouse returns ^if she
15does return^ but the sea never suits me. London is the only decent
16place in winter My dear friends here are so kind & I shall be so sorry
17to leave them. Their house has been a true home to me.
18
19If ever Edith or you should know of a cheap Hotel, like those 5/- bed
20& breakfast places where there they would take an Englishperson with a
21German name please let me know.
22
23You can’t understand that its our hideous English hypocracy I hate,
24not that we fight all nations do that. Read the article on “Martial
25Law in Ceylon” in the New Statesman. We are executing people whole
26sale there & in India because we being great & strong states have
27conquered them as small ones & execute them as soon as we only fear
28they will rise. Yet if Germany executes ten people in Belgium for
29rising against her you even you Havelock Ellis are horrified. Yet if
30you were not an Englishman you would see there is nothing more wicked
31in conquering & killing & executing Belgians than Dutch Republicans in
32South Africa or Singalese in Ceylon. I don’t believe one Englishman
33in 10,000 can see straight.
34
35^I thought your article in the Nation so good So much more life &
36purity of out look than your articles sometimes show^
37
38^I’m choaking for breath all day long but I’m trying to write.^
39
40Olive
41
Notation
The 'Martial Law' article in the New Statesman has not been traced. Ellis's article is: Havelock Ellis (1915) 'War and the Birth-Rate' The Nation 15 September 1915, p.829; it promotes "a wise poplicy of negative eugenics", a stance not likely to have been acceptable to Schreiner. Draznin's (1992) version of this letter is in some respects different from our transcription.
The 'Martial Law' article in the New Statesman has not been traced. Ellis's article is: Havelock Ellis (1915) 'War and the Birth-Rate' The Nation 15 September 1915, p.829; it promotes "a wise poplicy of negative eugenics", a stance not likely to have been acceptable to Schreiner. Draznin's (1992) version of this letter is in some respects different from our transcription.