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Letter ReferenceElisabeth Cobb 840/1/2
ArchiveUniversity College London Library, Special Collections, UCL, London
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date9 January 1885
Address From4 Robertson Terrace, Hastings, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToElisabeth Cobb nee Sharpe
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to University College London (UCL) and its Library Services for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.
1 4 Robertson Ter
2 Hastings
3 Jan 9 / 85
4
5 Dear Mrs Cobb
6
7 Thankyou very much for for Mr Pearson’s lecture. It would be
8difficult for me to tell you how much I liked it. Except in Ibsen’s
9writings I have never met what I hold to be the true view of the woman
10question. It is most gloriously expressed in Mr Pearson’s essay. I
11don’t think he has any right to keep it unpublished. As to
12crude-ness, there is something in the almost colloquial freedom of the
13style, that I think adds to the effect, & any attempt to express the
14ideas more measuredly might spoil the freshness.
15
16 I have a great deal I would like to say, but I am under the doctor’s
17orders not to write at all for a few days. I only write now because I
18want to know if before I return it I may send that lecture to my
19friend Mrs Walters I know she will take great care of it, but please
20don’t say I can if you would rather not. Can’t you get Mr Pearson
21to publish it? Has he written anything else on the woman question?
22
23 Miss Müller has been down here for a little while & I have seen her
24every day. I think I have made a little impression on her, but she
25still looks upon men as "played out." It seems to me that most of
26these workers in the woman cause are like workmen carrying on stones
27for a builder of whose plan they have no conception. They think they
28are building a little room for themselves, & in the end it is a great
29hall into which all the world may come. I like so much what you told
30me about your Xmas. Thankyou for your letter. I think that by knowing
31where to ?save oneself one sometimes adds immensely to one’s working
32powers.
33
34 I have glanced at Rhys David’s & see I shall like it very much. Have
35you read the first part of "Ghosts"? You must not judge of the whole
36by that.
37
38 Yours sincerely
39 Olive Schreiner
40
41
42
Notation
Pearson's lecture on Hamerling was given at Cambridge for a conference on 'Moral teachers of the present day' on 30 April 1885, and he had given a manuscript copy to Elisabeth Cobb. See also Robert Hamerling (1882) Amor und Psyche Leipzig: n.p. The David Rhys David publication referred to cannot be established, but Schreiner was very interested in the writings by Rhys David and his wife on Buddhism. 'Ghosts' is: Henrik Ibsen (1881) Ghosts (trans. Henrietta Frances Lord) London: Griffith, Farran & Co.