Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Edward Carpenter 359/4
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 12 April 1887
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 126

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 Edward Carpenter, 12 April 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Alassio
2:  Italy
3:  Tuesday night
4: 
5:  My dear old Friend
6: 
7:  I don’t know why I suddenly want to write to you unless it is that
8:  there’s a man here, who looks exactly like you, such a nice French
9:  man with his wife, & I saw him walking up the passage just now. I
10:  never talk to them but I feel a little thrill of pleasure whenever I
11:  see him. When you & Oates go to Capri I wish you’d come round this
12:  way & sleep here a night. I’m nice now, I’m not like I used to be.
13:  And I’d take you & show you both my ruined church, & you never saw
14:  any thing so nice. I am sure send you ought. You’ll do much more
15:  work when you get back for having a little rest. Let me have the song
16:  book please. I’ll send you my book when it’s done - which will be
17:  never.
18: 
19:  The little sheep here are so nice & they walk about after their
20:  shepherds. It seems to me that everything here is so beautiful. The
21:  sea & sky are such a lovely blue now.
22: 
23:  Edward, do you know I’m beginning to see our Socialist movement much
24:  more clearly & as a whole since I’m here, & can look at it from a
25:  distance, & I see many things with regard to it that were not clear to
26:  me before we might in fact many things have got clear to me of late on
27:  many subject. And at the same time I have a feeling stronger that ever
28:  before of the mystery & insolubility of things. What little tiny
29:  children we are & what does it mean
30: 
31:  Good night; now, I must write. I am just having a little rest in
32:  talking to you. If ever you know Karl Pearson will you try to love him
33:  very much? You will bring him just what he needs, & perhaps he would
34:  strengthen you a little as he has strengthened me so much. I wish I
35:  was a man that I might be friends with all of you, but you know my sex
36:  must always divide. I only feel like a man, but to you all I seem a
37:  woman! Has George’s wife got her baby? There is a pretty little
38:  Italian peasant baby here that I am so fond of. The men here seem so
39:  happy & do nothing & sit in the sun. The women look tired & over
40:  worked, but yet happier than ours. I am living pretty cheaply here
41:  because the hotel keeper took me for less because I came when there
42:  was no one, but I somehow feel reproached because I am enjoying so
43:  much. You know the kind of feeling. I ought to get through more work
44:  than I do with everything so comfortable.
45: 
46:  Olive
47: 
48:  ^Send back my dreams. I don’t want to loose that MS. The two printed
49:  ones are feeble & were written long ago. OS^
50: 
51: 
52: 

Notation
The book that will 'never be done' is From Man to Man, and the allegories referred to appeared in Dreams. Which particular allegories Schreiner is referring to cannot be established as she was writing a number of them at this time. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect