Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	HRC/OliveSchreinerLetters/OS-JOANHodgson/6
Archive	Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday 21 May 1920
Address From	Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To
Who To	Joan Hodgson nee Wickham and John Hodgson
Other Versions

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 Joan Hodgson nee Wickham and John Hodgson, 21 May 1920, 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. The day has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.

1:  Friday Night
2: 
3:  Dear John & Joan
4: 
5:  Thanks so much for thinking of me. I long to see Mary Elizabeth, & you
6:  both & your beautiful house in its spring dress. But I can’t manage
7:  the journey. If your station was Victoria I might as its only a couple
8:  of paces from the bus to the platform but I can’t manage the other
9:  the least walking exertion brings on attacks of angina pectoris. I am
10:  leaving for South Africa on August the 13th when Oliver my nephew goes
11:  out. Its my last chance as I can’t travel alone, & I can’t face
12:  the life in this room any more I’ve not been out of London since
13:  that visit to you even or a day; its like being sentence to solitary
14:  confinement now I cant walk. I can just get to the shop at the corner
15:  & the little restaurant where I have my food. The doctors say I am mad
16:  to think of going out – but there comes a time when one doesnt care.
17: 
18:  Did I tell you Dots little one is to be born in July. I am very
19:  anxious about her away alone there under the Equator. But a friend of
20:  hers is going up from South Africa to be with her. It takes much
21:  longer to get from South Africa to the place where she lives than to
22:  come to England.
23: 
24:  Send me a snap of Mary Elizabeth if you have one.
25: 
26:  I expect the spring is lovely now out in your beautiful world. Here
27:  one can barely realize it is spring Perhaps later on I shall be well
28:  enough to manage the journey & come for a day.
29: 
30:  Thank you so much so very much for asking me.
31: 
32:  Kiss Mary Elizabeth for me
33:  Aunt Olive
34: 
35:  ^I cant send the wire till tomorrow because Ive no one to take it for
36:  me to the post office^
37: 

Notation