"Dinizulu, my boy Jim" Read the full letter
Collection Summary | View All |  Arrange By:
< Prev |
Viewing Item
of 1895 | Next >
Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold3/1900/36
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateFriday 16 July 1900
Address FromBeaufort West, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToFrances ('Fan') Schreiner nee Reitz
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
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 Beaufort West
2 Friday morning
3
4 Darling Fan,
5
6 I was so glad I stayed over that day & saw you & my Dot. I hope she is
7getting on all right: the dear child seems sweeter & sweeter as she
8grows older.
9
10 I am very distressed as to plans about meeting Cron. He says he is
11going back to Johannesburg. I can’t go back, because I can’t do
12any work there I am ill all the time; & I must earn my living; so Wil
13the only chance I have of seeing him perhaps, for years is while he is
14in Cape Town now. He will be staying with his mother, but they
15wouldn’t have room for me & I can’t go out to the suburbs at this
16time of the year ^& they are all so strongly jingo that it would be
17painful for all.^ Could you try & find out if there are any ^not jingo^
18boarding houses, or places where one could get rooms, in Upper Kloof
19Street near the Purcells or in that part? The Gie’s or some of them
20might know!
21
22 I suppose Hannie is more than full? I can’t go to those jingo
23boarding houses. Its more than one can stand. Miss Molteno & Miss
24Greene
are looking for a little house in Upper Kloof St or that part,
25& if they can get one I I could & perhaps Cron too could stay with
26them. The White House is I believe quite full. Did I tell you they
27wont take my last article on the Boers that I spent such months in
28writing. Cron says they are boycotting all on our side in the
29magazines. But it won’t always be so. Things are just as dark as
30they can be, for all of us, but the light will break.
31
32 I’m so glad I stayed to see you & Dot.
33
34 Try & hear of a boarding house for me if you can, so that if Cron
35wants me to come down I have somewhere to go. If I could get a tiny
36little house with a couple of rooms, or a couple of furnished rooms
37that would do.
38
39 Now I must get to my work. I’ve got to write the preface for my book
40still.
41
42 If you are writing to Bessie tell her I’ve never heard from her.
43It’s possible she may have written. I don’t get many of my letters.
44 There is no letter from Cron for me again this week; though I am sure
45he wrote as his ?Mother got a letter from him, & I know he would have
46written to me too. If Cron would
47
48 Good bye, dear. It is a good thing to know that things are now so dark
49about us that they cannot get darker, they must get lighter.
50
51 Ask, dear old Fred, to let me have the type written matter as soon as
52he can.
53
54 Yours ever
55 Olive
56
57
58
Notation
The 'last article on the Boers' was intended for inclusion in 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa', which was to have been composed by the essays originally published pseudonymously as by 'A Returned South African'. Although prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the South African War prevented this. They and some other essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa.