Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box7/Fold2/Aug-Dec1919/1
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday August 1919
Address From	9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To
Who To	Betty Molteno
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 Betty Molteno, August 1919, 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. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.

1:  Tuesday
2: 
3:  Darling Betty
4: 
5:  I was so glad of that news, that Alice had been for a walk. I cannot
6:  but feel that doctors may mistake our darling Alice’s type & not
7:  realize how nervous it is. She looks like a person whom no emotion
8:  would ever react upon physically, but really I think its quite
9:  possible that mental worry over things has weakened her entirely; &
10:  that if she gets to good stimulating sea air she may regain all her
11:  strength in the most delightful way. Are you going to Trevone? I do
12:  hope you’ll find it lovely there if you do. You need something to
13:  pick you up.
14: 
15:  I know your loving heart & Alices will be glad to know that as I see
16:  more of Edna I quite fall in love with her. There is something that
17:  slowly opens upon you – a charm, I quite understand how Oliver fell
18:  in love with her. I thought she was quite ordinary at first & now I
19:  think she’s beautiful. She is so sweet with Fan too: this is a great
20:  joy to me.
21: 
22:  I send you Mrs Solomon’s little note. Of course you have read your
23:  “Nation.” Isn’t that article on Wilson by Jordan fine. He’s
24:  the one American pacifist I know of who has stood out all through the
25:  war; he was too powerful & influential for them to imprison him.
26: 
27:  Give my love to our darling Alice. Oh what weight will go from my
28:  heart when I know she is strong & well again.
29: 
30:  Good bye dear. No letters have come for you.
31:  Olive
32: 
33:  I am going to ask Dr Sayer to have a meeting for the South Africans in
34:  her house. She may not feel able to.
35: 
36:  I’ve just reopened my letter to tell you that Olivers wife is going
37:  to have a baby. I knew it the moment I saw & told Ursula ^who said it
38:  couldn’t be.^
39: 

Notation
No article on Wilson by someone called Jordan appeared in The Nation in August 1919; however, Schreiner read a wide range of reviews, journals and newspapers and perhaps the title given is a mistake.