Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box6/Fold2/1916/43
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 4 October 1916
Address From	Dawson Place Mansions, Pembridge Square, London
Address To
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, 4 October 1916, 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 date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Dawson Place Mansions
2:  Wednesday
3: 
4:  My dear old Brother
5: 
6:  I wondered why when I woke this morning I had a pleasant feeling at my
7:  heart to which I’d long been a stranger, & then I remembered about
8:  Ol. I am so glad. For you, dear, more than for him. Your old face
9:  looked so troubled, so oppressed the last time I saw it. It it our
10:  Bill, or affairs in Africa or just the weight of life generally that
11:  is pressing on you? You need rest & change of that I’m sure.
12: 
13:  Does the boys fellowship mean anything monetarily as well as the
14:  honour? Would he have to live at Cambridge to enjoy ^get^ it. Of course
15:  it doesn’t matter a bit; the thing is that they have recognized the
16:  value of our Boy. It seems to me some how a greater honour than if he
17:  had passed that final big exam he was working for. Its a sort of free
18:  gift, & means to me more.
19: 
20:  I wish old man Fred was here to rejoice with us.
21: 
22:  Thanks dear for your loving thoughts. I’m managing all right. The
23:  air here doesn’t suit me very well & I shall get other rooms if ever
24:  I can, where I can have my own food & am closer to the bus. But I have
25:  quite a clean airy room here, & one can’t have every thing in this
26:  world.
27: 
28:  Yesterday Adela had a motor car lent her by one of her rich friends, &
29:  she took me for a drive to Hampstead which picked me up a bit. She had
30:  seen in the paper about Ol, & was so glad. I’ve just had a note that
31:  Alice Corthorn is very ill with influenza & I am going down to see her
32:  now. Oh if she had not adopted that terrible child. Maddie Holland has
33:  just been & I told her about Ol.
34: 
35:  Good bye my dear old brother.
36:  Ol
37: 

Notation