1 Eastbourne
2 Aug 7 / 97
3
4 Dear old Will
5
6 I was glad of your letter. You must need rest dear, the difficulty is
7to get it any where this side of permanent rest – which some how the
8soul draws back from strangely the nearer the actual prospect
9approaches.
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11 We sail for South Africa on the 21st of August in the Tantallon Castle.
12 I think the Inneses will be our fellow passengers, of which I’m glad
13as I have a great solitude upon me on board ship, with so many folks
14about. I have been a bit worse again the last week & we are going up
15to Yorkshire to spend the last days there, so that I may be a bit
16freshened up for the voyage.
17
18 I think the doctors have made a great mistake in sending me back to
19Africa. The climate is better than anything in Europe, but there are
20other things out there.
21
22 Don’t let little Will in any way over work himself. It the pressure
23borne in early life, that breaks ones speed later on. Give my love to
24Fan & the little ones. Tell her that if you can put us up, as she
25proposed we shall be glad to come to you for a few days; if not ask
26her to get a room for us at an hotel in at that boarding house in
27Rondebosch if she can. I don’t know how long I shall stay in Cape Town
28it depends how fit I feel for the journey.
29
30 The dear old man is looking a bit better; but isn’t fit.
31
32 Cron sends love. The other night I thought in the middle of the night
33that he was fast asleep when he suddenly broke out "That Ollie is a
34sweet child!" Good bye dear Laddie. Perhaps it is because I myself am
35so played out that I feel every one else must be, but I have a feeling
36about
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38 ^Rhodes, that he will grow smaller & smaller, in few years we shall
39look for him: his place will be there, but it will now know him.
40
41 Olive^
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