Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box5/Fold1/1912/35
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	29 July 1912
Address From	De Aar, Northern Cape
Address To	Chambers, St Georges Street, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who To	William Philip ('Will') Schreiner
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 William Philip ('Will') Schreiner, 29 July 1912, UCT Manuscripts & Archives, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The address this letter was sent to is provided by an attached envelope.

1:  De Aar
2:  July 29th 1912
3: 
4:  Dear old Man
5: 
6:  Thank you very much for the pictures. I like the one doubly where you
7:  & I show because I am holding your arm. I’m so glad you have got
8:  away for a little time to Mossel River; I hope your stay will be
9:  longer than one week. You must need rest.
10: 
11:  I think it is many years since I boiled over with rage at any thing as
12:  at Rubusana’s daring to tell white women their place was the home,
13:  & voting against our being allowed to join the Provincial Council. My
14:  mouth is in future forever shut when I am arguing with the women who
15:  state that because the Kaffir is black has wool instead of hair, is
16:  much unlike us in other physical matters & has ages of savagery behind
17:  unreadable him, where we have civilization his place is the Kraal &
18:  the field of manual labour. If the mere difference of her sexual
19:  function & size makes her unfit for being the equal of the white man,
20:  what of the native, one step removed from savagery! If the place of a
21:  woman is in the heavy physical drudgery of domestic labour – which
22:  "the home" means to all but the handful of wealthy women with over
23:  £400 a year which means they can employ other women to work for them,
24:  then as as Cresswell would say "the place for the Kaffir is his Kraal".
25:  But enough.
26: 
27:  Alles ten besten. Dear, you don’t know how much I love you & feel the
28:  world is not empty for me while you are in it. Villa Flandre & its
29:  folk & the dear ones in England fill a bigger place in my thought than
30:  you can understand. I was very surprised to hear Ursie was going to
31:  take up medicine: Alice Corthorn’s letter to me a month ago said she
32:  was
33: 
34:  ^certainly going to take up nursing. I am so anxious to hear her plans.
35:  Except two picture post cards I have not heard from her since I was in
36:  town at Xmas time.^
37: 
38: 
39: 

Notation
'Personal' is written on the envelope attached to this letter.