Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Edward Carpenter 359/95
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 January 1911
Address From	Oudeberg, Graaff-Reinet, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
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 Edward Carpenter, 31 January 1911, 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:  Oudeberg
2:  nr. Graaff Reinet
3:  Jan 31st 1911
4: 
5:  Dear Ed
6: 
7:  I was glad to get your letter. I don’t know why I’ve had you so
8:  much in mind of late. I’m glad you’ve got your friend George with
9:  you to make it homelike. Give my love to dear Kate Salt. I’m staying
10:  up at a little wayside "Hotel" at the top of a mountain pass. It’s a
11:  wild weird solitary place, a little flat roofed house standing by the
12:  roadside. Just before my bedroom door across the road yawns a huge
13:  gorge full of rocks & prickly pears, & every where are wide deep
14:  gorges & valley down which you look (I think gorges & valley are so
15:  fine when you look down at them from above. Just behind the house
16:  rises the huge crest of the Oudeberg, the highest peak, crowned with a
17:  gigantic circlel of precipice hundreds of feet high that no one has
18:  ever been able to scale. When I went for my walk early this morning
19:  there were thousands of baboons calling & climbing all over the
20:  mountain. It was very grand. I love baboons in these wild solitudes:
21:  they bring one back to the pre-historic past. There is no one in this
22:  place but the "Hotel" man & his wife & the barman & the baby, &
23:  unreadable some black servants. Sometimes carts or waggons go down the
24:  mountain pass; but except for that we have no connection with the
25:  world. We get our post once a week. If I keep on feeling as well as I
26:  do now I expect I shall stay here for a couple of months. It would be
27:  rather fine if Bob & you were here. You could go into one "kloof" &
28:  meditate, Bob could go into the next & meditate mathematics or
29:  invensions; I could go into a third & listen to the baboons, & at
30:  mealtimes we could all meet, & at night lie out together on the warm
31:  rocks & sand looking at the stars, & talking if we want. I never feel
32:  lonely in the morning & all day; but towards evening & at night I
33:  begin to long for "folks as one loves."
34: 
35:  I’m working a bit at my book. If ever I should finish it perhaps
36:  I’ll bring it home to England myself to publish but I don’t think
37:  I ever shall finish it - but I mean to try to the end.
38: 
39:  I’ve no news to give you. You see I’m so out of the world, I
40:  don’t even know what’s going on parliament or the country
41:  generally. I wish I could have a long talk with you Edward. As one
42:  grows older one gets more & more shut up within oneself: & I think it
43:  causes a kind of internal spiritual congestion!
44: 
45:  Are you writing anything? I liked Edith Ellis’s little essay about
46:  you: but I detested what she said about Hinton & the other fellow.
47: 
48:  It’s very sad to think George Adams is gone. I always seem to see
49:  him about the house at Millthorp.
50: 
51:  Good bye: send this note on to Bob as I can’t answer his this week.
52:  I’m full of thought about that invention of his. I hope it’s
53:  something to do with "wings." I’ve hungered for wings ever since I
54:  could desire anything. One day they will discover a way of condensing
55:  force in some convenient way, & you’ll fasten the container onto
56:  your back between your shoulders & then spread two beautiful butterfly
57: 
58:  ^wings on each side - & away you’ll fly. I’ve always known people
59:  must fly, some day, just as there must be perfect love & fellowship on
60:  earth sometime. Our dreams are prophetic because we are part of life. ^
61: 
62:  Good bye,
63:  Olive
64: 

Notation
The book Schreiner was 'working a bit at' is From Man to Man, which she was spasmodically editing, having completed Woman and Labour. Edith Ellis?s 'little essay' about Carpenter and also Hinton and Nietzsche appeared as: Mrs Havelock Ellis (1910) Three Modern Seers London: Stanley Paul & Co.