Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/1
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 8 May 1872
Address From	Dordrecht, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Alice Hemming nee 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 Alice Hemming nee Schreiner, 8 May 1872, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner was resident in Dordrecht from April 1871 to August 1872. Content shows the year was 1872, with the typhoid epidemic in Dordrecht occurring from April to June or July that year. The end of the letter is missing.

1:  Wednesday night
2:  May 8th.
3: 
4:  My own sister!
5: 
6:  Its near morning, my poor charge has just fallen in to a quiet sleep &
7:  I am sitting in the next room waiting for the arrival of the Dr. who
8:  promised to call in about this time, to day was the 21st day of the
9:  fever, & as she has past it safely we hope all may now go well. She is
10:  still very ill but better than she was last night when we all thought
11:  her to be dying but I feel very hopeful tonight & look forward to
12:  seeing her well in a few weeks time.
13: 
14:  I’ve not been in or even on bed for the last 3 weeks, what sleep I
15:  have had I have taken in an armchair at her bed side so you may fancy
16:  how weak I feel, if I can only keep up till she is out of danger I
17:  don’t care how I break down then, Papa will have told you how many
18:  persons in Dordrecht have this fever & the best of it is our ?bright
19:  Drs ?Jules & ?Bird don’t know what to make of it or what to call it. A
20:  happy thought struck Jules the other day that Mr Gau’s well was
21:  poisoned & was the cause of all the evil, great nonsense I think but
22:  we’ve sent some of the water down to unreadable from to be analysed &
23:  shall hear the result by tomorrows post.
24: 
25:  Friday morn. Miss Gau is worse again. Mr Gau has just sent out into
26:  the country to try & get a Dutch girl to come in & stay with me as we
27:  can get no one in town for love or money.
28: 
29:  I am expecting the down country post to arrive every moment but after
30:  the letter that post brought me I seem to dread rather than look
31:  forward to its coming What I tell you now dear old girl is for your
32:  self & no one else don’t say a word to Papa about it what ever you do,
33:  but I got such a cold little note from Mamma last week in answer to my
34:  letter telling her that I was
35: 
36:  [page/s missing]
37: 
38: 
39: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/2
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	August 1872
Address From	Hertzog, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), August 1872, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner arrived in Hertzog from Dordrecht in early August 1872 and left it to join her brother Theo and sister Ettie at the Diamond Fields or New Rush, now Kimberley, in December 1872. The page starting ‘You say that you have never...’ does not directly follow on, and is perhaps from another letter.

1:  My own sister!
2: 
3:  I am sitting in my little room at Hertzog, at home at last. I arrived
4:  here yes the day before yesterday with Mr Gau. I left Dordrecht on
5:  Sunday (that is Sunday week) & stayed with Miss Gau at Willow ?Hark
6:  till Wednesday afternoon when I started for L. S. with Mr Gau. Wild
7:  rain & snow, it grew so bad that we were obliged to spend the night at
8:  ?Asenberg’s hotel & only got to Queens Town the next after noon. I
9:  stayed at Stubbs & had a delightful little cottage all to my self at
10:  the bottom of the garden I did not have my photo taken as the
11:  photographer had gone to the Bay We left Queens Town on Saturday & got
12:  here about three on Sunday afternoon Papa & Mama were not in & we had
13:  to wait some time before they could be called Mr Gau left at once as
14:  he wished to reach Beaufort the same night I was so glad to see dear
15:  Mamma & found her looking very well & also found the little cottage
16:  much more snug than I expected.
17: 
18:  Mamma seemed glad to see me but I would be infinitely more happy if I
19:  could have some thing to do. It’s no use wishing for that however I
20:  must make up my mind to stay quietly with Mamma for some months as Mr
21:  Gau to whom I am engaged could never bear the idea that his wife had
22:  had to work for her living. I’ve never told you of my engagement
23:  Darling as there are circumstances which make it most desirable that
24:  no one should know any thing of it just now, still I know I can trust
25:  my old sis not to say one word about it to any one except Theo. & if
26:  you are quite sure he will will not mention it, to dear old Will also;
27:  had it not been for this reason (my engagement) I would have been so
28:  glad to have gone to Mrs ?Mills but that is all past & gone now.
29: 
30:  I’ve been engaged not quite two months I can’t say as yet when we
31:  shall be married as we both feel in a very delicate position with
32:  regard to Miss Gau, who will think as soon as we speak of getting
33:  married take it as a hint that she must leave for Germany I dare say
34:  however we shall be married before the end of the summer as she will
35:  wish to get home in time for the European summer Mr Gau will have his
36:  photo take in the Bay & when he returns I will send you one.
37: 
38:  [break in the letter]
39: 
40:  You say that you have never received any letters from me for some time
41:  – how that is I can’t make out as I have written again & again to you.
42:  Has Alex ever got the letter I sent him?
43: 
44:  I have been so much interested at the account Papa has been giving me
45:  of your life at the Fields; you know his funny way of telling things,
46:  I quite seem to know Mr Howard &c &c. do tell me all about your selves
47:  when you write dear Ett.
48: 
49:  I must close now darling write soon & ask Theo & Will to write to your
50:  old sister Olive
51: 
52:  Mamma sends love – Happy happy returns of your birthday Darling
53: 
54: 
55: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/3
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	June 1874
Address From	Colesberg, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), June 1874, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner was resident in Colesberg from mid April 1874 to the beginning of March 1875.

1:  My dear old Sis
2: 
3:  It is Sunday morning & all the folks have gone to church except Katie
4:  & Georgie so I shall have a nice quiet time for writing.
5: 
6:  I was not a little disappointed at not receiving a line from you by
7:  last post, but knew you & the old Baas were both well as your hand
8:  writings were on the box of fruit; for which so many thanks. It made
9:  me more glad to think you had remembered how I like them than it would
10:  have been if I had got the finest presents in the world. They seem
11:  almost too pretty to eat.
12: 
13:  I am feeling so well & am at work from morning till night, but you
14:  know in your own house how light all work seems, & I feel just as if
15:  house children & all were my own. I don’t know which of the children
16:  I’m fondest of but I don’t like Katie quite as well as the boys
17:  though even she is a dear good child.
18: 
19:  Mrs Weekly expects to be ill in about five weeks time. I suppose you
20:  know Mrs ?Bayswood has a little one at last.
21: 
22:  The other day when I was down at the shop I met ?Lendorf who was on
23:  his way down to Grahams Town where he thinks of settling he will be
24:  back again in two months time when he has promised to call. By the way
25:  before I forget it, if you or the Miss Howards ?or Miss Davey should
26:  want any thing I could get it for you here as Mrs Weakley says there
27:  are shops here where you could buy things quite as cheaply as in
28:  Grahams Town. How is the old Baas finding? How is Howard getting on?
29:  Do you still think of the Gold Fields.
30: 
31:  Remember me to dear old John & tell him he must soon write or he’ll
32:  be forgetting me. Give my best love to the dear old Baas & remember me
33:  very kindly to Howard, & good bye till next week
34: 
35:  Your little sister
36:  Olive
37: 
38: 
39: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/4
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	12 July 1874
Address From	Colesberg, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Alice Hemming nee 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 Alice Hemming nee Schreiner, 12 July 1874, 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 name of the addressee is provided by content.

1:  Colesburg
2:  July 12th 1874
3: 
4:  My dear old Sis!
5: 
6:  Yesterday afternoon at half past four a very nice little boy put in
7:  his appearance. He & Mrs Weakley are both doing very well. I am so
8:  glad it is all over.
9: 
10:  The dear children are all very good ^&^ I have just sent them all out
11:  for a walk.
12: 
13:  I was glad to hear darling Sis that you were better. I felt so anxious
14:  about you all the week & was so relieved when I saw your hand writing.
15:  I have no time to write to John this post but please thank him for his
16:  letter & tell him I shall be looking out for a beautiful likeness by
17:  next post.
18: 
19:  Give my love to old Leo, also When. I was sitting by the fire last
20:  evening I was thinking so much of the old Cradock days & how we all
21:  used to sit round the fire, - a band of brothers & sisters.
22: 
23:  I was so sorry to hear from John that poor ?Santell was so ill. Is he
24:  staying with you now? What is he doing?
25: 
26:  I am not feeling at all well my chest or heart or whatever it is
27:  troubles me a great deal: but I am happy & always with true love
28: 
29:  Your old sister
30:  Olive
31: 
32: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/5
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: April 1874 ; Before End: December 1874
Address From	Colesberg, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), April 1874, 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. Schreiner was resident in Colesberg from mid April 1874 to the beginning of March 1875.

1:  Colesberg
2:  1874
3: 
4:  My dear old Sissie!
5: 
6:  I have no time to do more than write & thank you for the very
7:  beautiful photo as Georgie & Joseph are both ill & we don’t seem to
8:  know which thing to do first.
9: 
10:  Poor dear little George is really very bad but I am glad to say that
11:  Joseph seems quite bright this morning.
12: 
13:  I like the photos much yours is by far the best that has even been
14:  taken of you & as for dear old Theo he is as near my beau ideal of
15:  what a man should look as any one I have ever seen, now he has shaved.
16: 
17:  I will send the things that came for you in my box by the next post
18:  Cobb & ?fos. You must not pay the carriage. The slippers looked just
19:  as old & torn when I got them as they do now I think they are a pair
20:  that Mrs Kruger made for Alice but which she found too small. I had
21:  the parcel ready to send down by the last coach but had no one to send
22:  down town with it.
23: 
24:  I am as vexed as you can be at the article in the journal. Mr Weakley
25:  thinks it was not written with the intention of making fun of you but
26:  I think it was
27: 
28:  I was so grieved to think of your being so ill perhaps if you manage
29:  to save enough to pay for your taking your diamond home to Europe your
30:  selves, the sea voyage may do you good.
31: 
32:  Mrs Weakley sends love & thanks for the likeness &c.
33: 
34:  Good bye darling sister
35:  Your loving old
36:  Olive
37: 
38: 
39: 

Notation
The article in the journal mentioned, about Ettie Schreiner, cannot be established.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/6
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	29 July 1880
Address From	Lily Kloof, Halesowen, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Alice Hemming nee 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 Alice Hemming nee Schreiner, 29 July 1880, 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 name of the addressee is povided by content.

1:  Lily Kloof
2:  July 29 / 80
3: 
4:  My dear darling old Sister!
5: 
6:  This evening Robert’s letter reached me. I cannot believe that its
7:  news is really true, that my darling boy is really gone, & your little
8:  Willie. My little Leo, with his sweet brown eyes, & beautiful curls,
9:  that loved me so much! I cannot think that he is really gone, that not
10:  any where in the world would I find that darling face now. Oh, my old
11:  sister, I don’t know what you must feel. Every time I I think of it it
12:  comes on me with a fresh blow, & your poor old heart, with your empty
13:  lonely house!
14: 
15:  I think especially of the last night in Cape Town when he lay in his
16:  little bed & said "Oh my dear Auntie, put your face quite close to
17:  mine, on my cheek." I don’t know why that night keeps coming back to
18:  me now.
19: 
20:  I am so anxious because Robert said that he feared that you might be
21:  getting the hooping-cough also. Do write to me soon, & tell me how or
22:  you are, or ask Robert to write; & oh, when you can, do write & tell
23:  me something more. My poor, poor old sister I do not think I ever felt
24:  so sorry before for anyone. Please send me two little curls. I hope
25:  you had your own likeness taken in Cape Town. I feel so very anxious
26:  about you. Do let me hear from you soon, darling old sister.
27: 
28:  Poor old Robert tells me that baby Ethelwyn had cough too, but seemed
29:  getting better. I want so to hear whether Wynne has got it. I wish I
30:  could be with you this evening. They are all dancing here, & it seems
31:  so strange that anyone can wish to dance.
32: 
33:  Give my love to dear old Robert, & know that I think of you, my dear
34:  old Alice. I never knew that I loved you so much.
35: 
36:  I will write again soon
37:  Olive
38: 
39: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/7
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	9 April 1882
Address From	81 Guildford Street, Russell Square, Camden, London
Address To
Who To	Alice Hemming nee 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 Alice Hemming nee Schreiner, 9 April 1882, 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.

1:  81 Guildford St
2:  Russell Sq.
3:  London. WC
4: 
5:  April 9th 1882
6: 
7:  My dear Alice,
8: 
9:  I was glad once more to hear from you & should have been better
10:  pleased still had the news about your own health been better.
11: 
12:  About Wynnie’s boots. I went at once to the best medical shoemaker
13:  in the Strand, took your letter & told him what kind of thing I wanted.
14:  He said he could easily make them if he had a cast of the foot. I
15:  told him he could not have that because the person was in Africa & it
16:  would take too long. He said "Well without a cast or an exact measure
17:  I will not make them." I said no one would blame him if the shoes
18:  boots didn’t fit, but it was no use he wouldn’t do it, & they say
19:  I won’t find any one who will without the exact measure. You had
20:  better send me the measure taken very exactly by a shoe-maker & I will
21:  send the boots out with young Bertram when he returns to the Cape. It
22:  is a great disappointment to me not to have been able to get them done
23:  at once. I am going as a last hope to the hospital for complaints of
24:  the foot, to see if one as one of the doctors there can’t order it
25:  for me. I think you would rather have them fitting not quite so well,
26:  than to wait. I hope the dear little woman’s foot will soon grow
27:  strong. I send you part of Emma’s last letter that you may see what
28:  she says about the boots. Fred says that if a boot of the kind we want
29:  was made, it would hurt the foot & weaken it more than strengthen it
30:  if it didn’t fit very exactly.
31: 
32:  I have not seen the John Hemmings since their return from Paris. I
33:  fancy they leave soon. I do not know their new address, but shall try
34:  to learn it at their last lodgings.
35: 
36:  I don’t know if I have written since I was in London. I have been
37:  here a month now. Will has apartments in the same house. He is leaving
38:  next week for Cambridge or Eastbourne, he has not quite made up his
39:  mind which, & will likely remain there till he returns to the old
40:  Country. I haven’t much to tell of myself. I don’t know a soul in
41:  London so as you may guess I lead a very quiet life – study &
42:  scribble all day long. I am hoping in the holidays to have Wilfred
43:  here for a week & we shall have glorious times together. Often when I
44:  am with him I think of my old day dreams abut "our boy" & the friends
45:  I used to think he & I would be if we met after he was grown older.
46:  Wilfred is very dear to me, but my old Leo has a place no other child
47:  will ever take.
48: 
49:  Good-bye dear old sister. Let me hear from you soon about the boots. It
50:  is a great disappointment not to have been able to get them yet, but
51:  with an exact measure it will be all right
52: 
53:  ^A kiss for all the little ones from ^
54:  Your loving sister
55:  Olive
56: 
57: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/8
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	3 November 1883
Address From	Rose Cottage, Bexhill, East Sussex
Address To
Who To	Alice Hemming nee 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 Alice Hemming nee Schreiner, 3 November 1883, 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. This letter is damaged and the end of the letter is missing.

1:  Rose Cottage
2:  Bexhill-on-Sea
3:  Sussex
4:  Oct ^Nov^ 3 / 83
5: 
6:  My dear Alice
7: 
8:  Many thanks for your letter. I am very sorry to hear your health
9:  remains so bad. As soon as Robert & you can in anyway manage it I
10:  think your ought to try a change to [pagetorn] Eastern Prov [pagetorn]
11:  a few weeks [pagetorn] the railways [pagetorn] is not qu [pagetorn]
12:  difficult matter as it used to be at our old Cape.
13: 
14:  If Wynne cannot walk much don’t you think you ought to try & let her
15:  get more horse exercise regularly. If she is growing so fast she needs
16:  something to strengthen her. I am glad & yet sorry to hear the last
17:  bit [pagetorn] you give me. [pagetorn] you are hardly [pagetorn]
18:  enough to hear [pagetorn] to your [pagetorn], but [pagetorn] be a
19:  welcoming greeting sent to the little stranger from over the water
20:  when it arrives.
21: 
22:  About my book, dear, I did not send you a copy because my horrid old
23:  publisher made me pay the full price for each copy that I had, & I did
24:  not like to send to one without sending to all lest they should be
25:  pained, & I couldn’t send to all. To Mama & Will & a friend at the
26:  diamond Fields I had promised copies so I had to send them. Now the
27:  first edition at a guinea is sold out, & there is a cheap 6/- edition
28:  & I am going to get copies for you all.
29: 
30:  I am now camped for the winter at Bexhill. I live in a little solitary
31:  cottage near the sea. This is a country place six miles from the
32:  nearest town, & as I don’t know a soul here my life will be very quiet.
33:  There is only myself & the old servant in the house I have hired a
34:  little bedroom & sitting room & she cooks for me. I mean to do a great
35:  deal of work this winter if only my chest will let me.
36: 
37:  I had a delightful little visit to Desborough, Mrs Walters had read my
38:  book & liked it so much that she wrote & invited me to visit them. Her
39:  husband is a large mine owner. They are so good & kind to me. Then I
40:  had a pleasant little time in London, every one was so good to me. So
41:  I mustn’t grumble at the dreary winter, must I. It is dreary to me
42:  because my chest keeps me indoors. I get a great many kind
43: 
44:  [page/s missing]
45: 

Notation
The reference to ‘my book’ is to Ralph Iron (Olive Schreiner) (1883) The Story of an African Farm London: Chapman & Hall, two volumes. The cheap edition mentioned was published in one volume.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/9
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: June 1887 ; Before End: October 1887
Address From	London
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), June 1887, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner arrived in Britain from Europe in June 1887, and was resident in London at various points between then and mid October 1887, when she returned to Italy.

1:  My dear old Ettie
2: 
3:  I leave £1. 11/6 is for the rest of the rent & t there is the 5/- I
4:  got from you the other day I hope it has rested that dear tired heart
5:  to be with Miss Ellis & Mrs Milhall.
6: 
7:  I didn’t mean to be cross dear this morning, but I’m so tired.
8:  Would you like me to write to Stead the editor of the P.M.G. & ask him
9:  to see you. He’s one of my greatest friends in England, & you & he
10:  will I think sympathise very much on religious matters. I’ve waited
11:  here till 10.30 but I think you won’t come till the 12 train so
12:  I’m going back. My darling I want so much to make your stay here
13:  happy. I came back from Italy this year just because I thought you
14:  would perhaps be lonely here, & I couldn’t bear you to know the
15:  agony of loneliness I have felt in England. We can’t do much for
16:  each other in this world after all.
17: 
18:  Love from a long way off Olive
19: 
20: 
21: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/10
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: June 1887 ; Before End: October 1887
Address From	London
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), June 1887, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner arrived in Britain from Europe in June 1887, and was resident in London at various points between then and mid October 1887, when she returned to Italy.

1:  My darling old Sister
2: 
3:  I had a letter from Stead this morning saying he would certainly come
4:  & see you this morning if at all possible & if he couldn’t get away
5:  he would write to you & appoint a time
6: 
7:  Can’t you come over here about four, there will be a good many
8:  people coming sometimes there are twenty or more sometimes only one or
9:  two - & it might be interesting to you to see them though they might
10:  not be people you would like in the way I am sure you would like Stead.
11: 
12:  My own darling old Ettie, you know how I feel to you don’t you. I am
13:  always so much under pressure in my solitary like that I cannot relax
14:  much otherwise I should not have be strong enough.
15: 
16:  Your little Olive
17: 
18: 
19: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/12
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: Sunday June 1887 ; Before End: October 1887
Address From	London
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), June 1887, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner arrived in Britain from Europe in June 1887, and was resident in London at various points between then and mid October 1887, when she returned to Italy.

1:  Sunday afternoon
2: 
3:  My darling old Ettie.
4: 
5:  I am so glad to think you are going to see Mrs Brown. You must write &
6:  tell me just how you are situated. Has the Dadda asked any of you to
7:  Eastbourne. If not when you have rested a little at Burnley, you must
8:  come here. I am not allowed to have children here & my rooms are so
9:  tiny they would not be comfortable. My idea is to take a large bedroom
10:  & sitting close by, & for for you to be always in my dear quiet little
11:  rooms resting I do believe that a little time here will be rest. We
12:  will go together every evening after dark for a ride on the top of an
13:  omnibus; it is so restful. I go alone every night now.
14: 
15:  An American publisher sent me £30 for quite unexpectedly & I’ve
16:  used £20 in making my little rooms liveable in, & I’ve always been
17:  thinking it was for you to come. I hope the voyage has not tired you
18:  quite so much as the last. Don’t trouble to write but just a word
19:  about plans. You will love them all at Burnley & they you.
20: 
21:  Is the dear old Baas any better. Something is very wrong with him
22:  I’m sure. That ?contraction about his eyes I don’t like.
23: 
24:  Give my love to Winny & the boys & to our dear friends at Burnley. It
25:  will be so beautiful if you can get to care abut them something as I
26:  do. They have been the truest friends I have ever had.
27: 
28:  Good bye. Rest my darling, & feel how much I am loving you.
29:  Olive
30: 
31:  I enclose a letter from Bertie Everett’s mother. I am looking
32:  forward much to your seeing him when you go back.
33: 
34:  Please return Mrs Everetts letter.
35: 
36: 
37: 

Notation
The money received from an American publisher was for a pirated US edition of The Story of An African Farm.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/13
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: September 1887 ; Before End: October 1887
Address From	London
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), September 1887, 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. ‘London 1887’ has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner left Britain for Europe in mid October 1887.

1:  My dear old Ettie
2: 
3:  Please be sure & let me know whether you have been able to get the
4:  rooms at Vis-chhoek.
5: 
6:  I am able to leave England because I think I am going there to rest. I
7:  am very anxious to hear how you stood the voyage but it cannot be for
8:  some weeks yet. Theo & Katie, I think, leave next Tuesday for the
9:  continent. I’ve not any news to give Give my love to Guy & Elberty
10:  & dear old Nanny. I long to see your face
11: 
12:  Your little sister
13:  Olive
14: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/14
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	September 1889
Address From	London
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (?Ettie?) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (?Ettie?) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), September 1889, 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 and place have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner left Britain for South Africa in October 1888.

1:  My beautiful old sister,
2: 
3:  I have taken my passage in the Norham castle which sails on the 11th
4:  of October. Please take the rooms in Vis-chhoek at once if it be
5:  necessary so to secure them. I am unreadable
6: 
7:  I am thinking of you everyday on that long terrible voyage. I could
8:  not have borne it to say good bye to you if I had not seen Vis-chhoek
9:  before me.
10: 
11:  Good bye my wonderful beautiful old sister.
12: 
13:  Olive
14: 
15: 
16: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/15
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: October 1889 ; Before End: December 1889
Address From	Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), October 1889, 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 year and place have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Cape Town from mid October 1889 to mid March 1890, with some visits elsewhere.

1:  Darling, the likeness is beautiful my-old-little-girl-Ettie-sister of
2:  Witterberg it looks like.
3: 
4:  I am going to come out one day this week or next week & if you &
5:  Robert & the children would meet me at Somerset West, we might go to
6:  Vander Stells old garden & then I might come home the same night.
7:  I’ve had my likeness taken by Barnard. He took me for nothing but I
8:  will send you two.
9: 
10:  Olive
11: 
12:  ^Have you decided about Worcester.^
13: 
14:  ^I think you may like to see dear old Lillie’s letter. Return it.^
15: 
16: 
17: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/16
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	nd
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Robert Hemming
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 Robert Hemming, 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. These few words are on a small piece of paper and seem to have been written to accompany something else, like a book or photograph or some other object.

1:  Robert from his sister
2:  Olive Schreiner
3: 
4: 
5: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/17
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: Thursday October 1889 ; Before End: December 1889
Address From	Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), October 1889, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Cape Town from mid October 1889 to mid March 1890, with some visits elsewhere. One such visit was to Grahamstown to visit her mother, who had been taken ill, in late November to early December 1889.

1:  Cape Town
2:  Thursday
3: 
4:  Darling Et,
5: 
6:  I know you will be glad to know I am quite well here. Of course weak,
7:  but all right.
8: 
9:  Splendid news from Mother which Roberton will have sent you. It was
10:  not the convent folk who telegraphed to Fan at all, but John Hemming
11:  who found out by chance how ill Mother was. They seem to have been
12:  very kind to her.
13: 
14:  I hope you are having a good time of work in the Paarl; one is only
15:  happy when one is doing ones lifes work whatever that may be. Mrs
16:  ?Jubert & Miss Drummond are staying with Fan now. Fan is very kind &
17:  sweet as always. Dear old Robert has been so gentle & kind to me all
18:  this time. I fear I have been a great trouble to him.
19: 
20:  I will come out with him to Vis-choek Tuesday but my sudden
21:  instantaneous getting well here shows me that it is a matter of air; &
22:  I fear Wednesday will see me flying back. ?Fanny has gone Just got
23:  enclosed from Annie Hemming.
24: 
25:  Am so glad they have been so good to Mother. Am writing to them.
26: 
27:  Ah Ettie it is so beautiful to be able to breathe.
28: 
29:  All this time would have been so beautiful if I could have breathed &
30:  seen anything. I think in the Spring ^Autumn^ when some of my work is
31:  done you & I will will have a good time together & perhaps go to
32:  Kimberly & Johannesburg together.
33: 
34:  My darling old Ettie.
35:  Olive
36: 
37: 
38: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/18
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Monday November 1889
Address From	Ceres, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), November 1889, 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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Ceres
2:  Monday afternoon
3: 
4:  I send you a letter from Alice as there is a message from for you. I
5:  have not yet an answer from Dr Great head to my telegram of this
6:  morning. I have written to him.
7: 
8:  You know how I love you though I never speak. I am obliged entirely to
9:  suppress myself or I should break down.
10: 
11:  It will be a bitter disappointment to me if I have to spend the next
12:  six months here & you at Vishhoek, but one must take everything
13:  exactly as it comes.
14: 
15:  Good bye.
16:  Olive
17: 
18:  I am getting quite well.
19: 
20: 
21: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/19
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday November 1889
Address From	Ceres, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (?Ettie?) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (?Ettie?) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), November 1889, 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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Content suggests that Schreiner was in Ceres when it was written; she was resident in Ceres for around two weeks in November 1889.

1:  Sunday afternoon
2: 
3:  My old Ettie,
4: 
5:  I enclose mother’s last telegram to me: that settles the question.
6:  Please return it. Thank you for your letter. Yes, I always understand
7:  you perfectly. Better I think than any one else in the world does.
8: 
9:  I am better I have not been out of my room yet, but I feel sure I
10:  shall like this place, only not nearly so well as Vis-choek. I
11:  couldn’t settle down here without giving Vischoek one more try, but
12:  I must stay here a week or two before I undertake the journey. I am
13:  like a child with a fester that doesn’t throb as long as it holds it
14:  quite still. Perhaps if I came to Vishhoek after you have been living
15:  there some weeks the air of the house will be different. I have never
16:  liked a place anywhere so much. Wire whether Robert is to meet you at
17:  Ceres Rd or if you are coming here. I want you but I would feel so
18:  reproached if my being here led to fresh meeting & fresh work. There
19:  is a terrible look that comes over your face sometimes that makes me
20:  very anxious. Its quickness of going & coming makes me dislike it more
21:  than anything else. It came over your face once at Montague & once in
22:  the train. More or less of rest is now an absolute necessity to you.
23:  It will be such an awful thing when you give in, as you will do sooner
24:  or later. If we can spend some months at Vis-choek together I believe
25:  we shall get quite strong; & you require to give a certain time not
26:  only to writing but to reading, you mind needs rest as much as your
27:  body. Wire if you are coming on Tuesday morning, that we can see that
28:  a cart is at the station for you. I want to see you; I feel lost when
29:  you are away, a curious sense of miss; but I do not wish you to come
30:  here just for my sake. I am all right. I am afraid Robert has had a
31:  dull time here by himself. He has been very kind to me
32: 
33:  Give my love to the boys & to dear Wynnie & Effie. Tell them how sorry
34:  I was not to see them, & give my love to dear old Anna. I was in such
35:  unreadable ^a state^ I hardly seemed to see any thing.
36: 
37:  Olive
38: 
39: 
40: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/20
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday November 1889
Address From	Grahamstown, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), November 1889, 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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Grahamstown
2:  Wednesday
3: 
4:  My Ettie.
5: 
6:  How strangely unlike anything we had planned all is turning out. Here
7:  I am at Lillies. We got here at five on Monday having travelled with
8:  out stopping since Friday evening I don’t think I would have got
9:  here without Robert. His goodness to me has been wonderful. What
10:  distresses me is the expense of the journey for him. I found the
11:  little mother looking better than I had expected. What I do not like
12:  is the horrible dead white colour that comes over her face. She will
13:  not die now. At the same time, I feel it cannot be for long. It is the
14:  beginning of the end. I wish so much I could move her to larger
15:  brighter rooms. I am going to see if I can’t get her moved out for a
16:  few weeks & have her rooms well done up. I know Fred would like to
17:  have it done at his cost. I was not able to see mother yesterday, but
18:  Lilly Auntie & Emma went. Lilly has been more kind to me than any
19:  words can describe. She made me come here from the hotel & sat up with
20:  me the greater part of ^whole^ of the first night & the greater part of
21:  last. Nothing distresses me so much as the helpless burden I am to
22:  other people. The doctor injected morphine into my arm, & I am taking
23:  advantage of the few hours freedom from pain to write. I do not know
24:  yet what my plans are. I can’t give up my Vis-choek without another
25:  trial. As soon as mother is at all so that I can leave her, I shall
26:  start but you had better write here as it may not be till next week. I
27:  shall break the terrible journey by a two or three days stay in
28:  Cradock. I feel I have been such a bitter disappointed to you my old
29:  Ettie, but it is your being in Africa that makes it possible for me to
30:  stay here so far from all my friends in England. Whenever I think of
31:  you I don’t feel lonely.
32: 
33:  Address here when you write, & please write at once. Please dear look
34:  about my room & in the little box & my bath & see whether there is a
35:  little roll of my allegories most of them printed, some in M.S.
36:  fastened together by a little metal fastener. Will you please if you
37:  find them keep them very safe. I am feeling so anxious thinking they
38:  are lost. I thought they were in the little black box, but they
39:  aren’t.
40: 
41:  Please write me a line. Give my love to all the children, Wynne &
42:  Effie when you write
43:  Olive
44: 
45: 
46: 

Notation
The roll of allegories referred to was permanently lost when Schreiner went to Grahamstown to visit her mother; the loss is referred to frequently in family letters of the time.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/21
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	27 December 1889
Address From	Mount Vernon, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 27 December 1889, 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.

1:  Mount Vernon
2:  Cape Town
3: 
4:  Dec 27th 1889.
5: 
6:  Dear Ettie,
7: 
8:  I send you mother’s letter to me as there are messages to you. I had
9:  also a note from Lilly who says mother doing splendidly, quite herself
10:  again. I had letter from dear old [wordspace] . He wrote so tenderly of
11:  you. He says he feels he can never express to you how much tenderness
12:  he feels towards you.
13: 
14:  I spent my Xmas day here alone but was quite happy. I went out
15:  yesterday to spend the day with you Fanny at Kalk Bay. I couldn’t
16:  stay the night I was afraid of asthma. I feel such longing to see you.
17: 
18:  My old Winnie has gone away. Mrs Gee sends me my breakfast & dinner, I
19:  paying, & I get my tea myself.
20: 
21:  Good night my sister. Give my love especially to Wynnie & Effie, tell
22:  them I am coming some day on purpose to see them.
23: 
24:  Good night.
25: 
26:  Olive
27: 
28:  I am using my little stand. The work box will be very useful as I have
29:  nothing of the kind.
30: 
31: 

Notation
The 'mother's message' mentioned is no longer attached.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/22
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 May 1890
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 6 May 1890, 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.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  May 6 / 90
3: 
4:  My darling old Sister
5: 
6:  Do drop me a line to say you are in Worcester & how you are. My
7:  beautiful old sister, you don’t know who good to me is the thought
8:  of you always I hope you will feel better now you have got to
9:  Worcester Nothing ever happens here of which I can tell you, I live on
10:  here quietly alone.
11: 
12:  Good bye.
13:  Love to all the little ones & Winnie
14:  Olive
15:  Your own little sister
16: 
17: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/23
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	16 July 1891
Address From	57 Grove Street, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 16 July 1891, 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.

1:  57 Grove Street
2:  July 16 / 91
3: 
4:  My darling sister
5: 
6:  I was so glad to get your letter this morning. Your joy makes me very
7:  happy. I believe the two years rest will entirely restore you. Try &
8:  read; it rests one so. Get Ruskins Modern Painters. The small two vol
9:  new edition, which is practically re-written & much improved.
10: 
11:  I am so happy when all I think of your happiness dear. It seems one of
12:  the few quite beautiful things, I have to think of just now.
13: 
14:  Seymour Fort has gone for good to Mashona-land. He quarrelled with the
15:  Lochs about Sir Henry niece with whom her was in love. She is a very
16:  sweet girl, & very fond of him She has gone to England now. Sh I loved
17:  her very much.
18: 
19:  Will & all his are very well & flourishing. Dot grows beautiful, & so
20:  does Baby.
21: 
22:  Maggie is still with them. (Private) She seems very unhappy &
23:  depressed, & she seems a great tie on Fan too who is very sweet &
24:  unselfish to her. They haven’t asked her to stay there, but she stays
25:  on & on. I can see it adds great pressure to Will’s life. I can’t say
26:  any thing to her, but couldn’t you suggest to her how well it would be
27:  if she got a situation at some Dutch farm, did something to make
28:  herself independent. She can’t stay with Emma, she doesn’t get on with
29:  Earp. I think something you said would be more likely to rouse her. If
30:  she does marry, she ought to marry at once, or break it off.
31: 
32:  I have seen the dear old Baas & Katie once. I feel much nearer them
33:  than I used to be. You will They are so much broader.
34: 
35:  I am well physically have had no asthma since I came down. I am have
36:  been two months in these lodgings & shall perhaps stay two more. I
37:  can’t tell you much about myself dear. I feel torpid & not able to do
38:  much. I will send you a little story I have written the Buddhist
39:  Priests Wife, & an article & another little story. I have not spoken
40:  to Mr Rhodes for two months except once for an instant. He is I had to
41:  oppose him on the native flogging bill, but I think that is not really
42:  the reason. What ever it may be I feel able to take it quietly Nothing
43:  is ever really taken away from one that one really has a right to;
44:  however much it may seem so.
45: 
46:  Seymour Fort will be up in Mashona-land for some years. I am anxious
47:  for him.
48: 
49:  ^My darling you will understand this letter & not think it cold & hard.
50:  I have plenty of power to think of & love other people & help them if
51:  I can, none to express anything. I send you a beautiful letter I got
52:  from old Lilly this morning.
53: 
54:  Good bye dear. Love to the children. Do you ever go to Ventnor. I
55:  spent a long terrible winter there. That is why I thought you would
56:  not like it, I suppose.
57: 
58:  Your little sister
59:  Olive^
60: 

Notation
'The Buddhist Priest's Wife' is in Stories, Dreams and Allegories, while the article mentioned in likely to be the first of those originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. The 'little story' mentioned cannot be established. The book referred to is: John Ruskin (1885) Modern Painters London: G. Allen.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/24
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 April 1892
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 23 April 1892, 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.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  April 23 / 92
3: 
4:  My own old sister
5: 
6:  It’s so long since I had any news from you. How are you? Where are
7:  you? I do hope the air & beauty of my beloved old Italy will give you
8:  the help & strength it more than once gave to me. I hope you will go
9:  to Florence if you go to any of the large town. That is the city I
10:  love best. Give my love to my dear old brother Stakesby. I don’t
11:  know what I should feel about you if I didn’t know he was with you
12:  taking care of you. For me, my life goes on in the old groove. I went
13:  down to Cape Town three weeks ago with my dear friends Captain & Mrs
14:  Marriott & wanted to stay with her till her baby was born but my
15:  asthma got so bad I had to come back here. I may be going down again
16:  in a months time to see them. Fan’s little one is expected about the
17:  21st of May. I long so to have you back in this country, dear. I had
18:  hope to leave in next April for Europe, but don’t know if I can get
19:  my work done. It would be a joy to me greater than almost any thing if
20:  you had a little child.
21: 
22:  ^I hope it may yet be. Good bye my own old Ettie^
23: 
24:  Your
25:  Olive
26: 
27:  ^Love to Stakesby & the boys. Do the seem strong & well?^
28: 
29: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/25
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 April 1892
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 28 April 1892, 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.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  April 28 / 92
3: 
4:  My old Ettie
5: 
6:  It does seem so long since I heard news of you. But if you were ill I
7:  should hear. I do hope so Italy is really resting you. It takes a long
8:  time before one can begin to rest when one has been so very tired &
9:  worn out as you my darling. Before you go to Florence you must get
10:  ?Vasarie’s Lives of the Painters" It makes Florence such a different
11:  place to one & the work lives for one when one knows the men. The boys
12:  would be interested in some parts. I am I am hoping when I see thee
13:  again dear one to see thy youth renewed as an eagles. Give my love to
14:  thy dear husband. I wish I could see him & know him.
15: 
16:  All goes well with me, I have quite got over the asthma & am working
17:  again. Write & tell me what you think of my Italy.
18: 
19:  Your own little sis;
20:  Olive
21: 
22:  I’m very happy, you know those times when one is so happy &
23:  contented simply to live & do ones work, & when there is ?even no
24:  struggle as there is at certain times to lose sight of ones personal
25:  life & distress.
26: 
27:  This African sky & nature is such a comfort to me even Eng Italy is
28:  not quite the Karroo to me
29: 
30:  Olive
31: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Giogio Vasari (1878) Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects London: Bell.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/26
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1892
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1892, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was mainly resident in Matjesfontein from March 1890 to December 1892, with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Matjesfontein
2: 
3:  My darling sister
4: 
5:  I so prize even a word from you. I am glad you have found a place that
6:  suits you better, & am very grateful that the winter will soon be over
7:  with you. Give my love to Stakesby & tell him I don’t mind having my
8:  address given to any one, because I’ve got wiser, & if I don’t see
9:  any need for answering the letters people send me I don’t answer
10:  them.
11: 
12:  I wish I see you both. I am sure I should love your husband for his
13:  own sake as well as because of all he is to you There is no news to
14:  give you dear. I am back at Matjesfontein, writing a thing about men &
15:  women & sex that I think you will like, but very few people will
16:  understand.
17: 
18:  I shall I think be returning to Europe in the March of next year. Not
19:  before I can’t get my work done.
20: 
21:  Of the old Will I saw next to nothing even when I was in Town. He’s
22:  had bad influenza but is at work again. He is a L.C. now which will
23:  help him in his work. The little mother I seldom hear from. She
24:  doesn’t write so often as she grows older.
25: 
26:  We all having glorious weather but everybody has been ill. Apart from
27:  my work I seem to have no personal life left, nor any plans nearer
28:  than the going to England in the next year, if my work is done.
29: 
30:  Mr Newberry passed here the other day: I saw him for a few moments.
31:  What a fine fellow he is.
32: 
33:  Goodbye my dear old Ettie
34:  Your little sister
35:  Olive
36: 
37: 
38: 

Notation
The 'thing about men & women & sex' could be the manuscript of Schreiner's planned but never completed 'Introduction' to The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792, London: J. Johnson) or its 'heir' in the form of her 'sex book' which was later destroyed when her house in Johannesburg was badly damaged during the South African War.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/27
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 February 1893
Address From	Middelburg, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 4 February 1893, 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.

1:  Middelburg.
2:  Feb 4 / 93.
3: 
4:  Dear old Ellie,
5: 
6:  My own darling. How I long to see you. I hope it is beautiful for you
7:  to be out here again. I hope it’s all beautiful about you & that a
8:  new time of strength & health is coming.
9: 
10:  I had such great hopes of the physical effect of marriage for you my
11:  dear one. When we went to Healdtown I remembered so that day,
12:  Willie’s birthday, when we climbed the hill behind station & sat on
13:  the flat rock on the very top, & picked some red flowers, & you & I
14:  talked of all sorts of things. We were so young then. I slept in Mr
15:  ?Fish’s room, & when I lay in bed there came back the nights before
16:  Ellie was born when you & ^I^ used to sit up in the window.
17: 
18:  I think I shall like to go back to England & see all my friends, but I
19:  don’t mind much one way or another. All seems almost alike to me.
20:  One strives so all ones life that the feeling of "self" with it’s
21:  desires & needs may die out, & when the time comes when it seems dead,
22:  one looks back upon the old struggle as something almost beautiful;
23:  but one wouldn’t have it back.
24: 
25:  I have a little room here ^in a cottage^ to myself, & its quieter than a
26:  farm.
27: 
28:  Good bye, my old sister
29:  Your little old
30:  Olive
31: 
32:  Don’t write yourself dear, let someone else write.
33: 
34: 
35: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/28
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	27 February 1894
Address From	Krantz Plaats, Halesowen, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 233-4

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 Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall, 27 February 1894, 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. This is a handwritten copy of Schreiner's letter which was made by Cronwright-Schreiner.

1:  Krantz Plaatz
2:  Feb. 27. 1894
3: 
4:  My own little Mother. I’ve not had time before to tell you about our
5:  quiet little wedding. On Friday morning dear old Theo came to
6:  Middelburg, but Cron only came the same night about 11 o’clock. On
7:  Saturday morning many letters & wires came for us at breakfast. We had
8:  over fifty telegrams during the day & a cable from the old Dadda came
9:  yesterday.
10: 
11:  After breakfast I & dear old Theo walked up to the Magistrates private
12:  house together, Cron, & his friend Mr Webber, & old Mr Nixon the
13:  Inspector of Schools & Mr Jacob an old Jewish money ender who lives in
14:  Middelburg & Miss Gowie who had asked me if she might come, having
15:  gone on before another way. These were all who were in the room except
16:  the Magistrate & his wife. Cron & I sat at a little square table in
17:  the centre of the room & signed the forms & repeated something after
18:  the Magistrate & then we were married & Theo & Cron & I got into a
19:  Cape cart we had ordered & went for a little drive. When we got back
20:  to the village about 11.30 I went to see young Mr Gowie who is very
21:  ill & Theo & Cron & Mr Webber went about together & sent off wires & I
22:  went back to the hotel by myself, & finished my packing all the
23:  morning. At one o’clock I went down to lunch & directly after the
24:  waggonette with four horses was ready, & I came down stairs. Half
25:  Middelburg had gathered at the Hotel door to see us off, & Dr & Mrs
26:  Saunders among the rest. They threw showers of rice at us, & fastened
27:  at the back of the wagon an immense shoe, & threw another into the
28:  wagon after us. Theo & Mrs Webber went with us to the station & saw us
29:  off at 3.30 in the train for the farm. I wore the blue black dress &
30:  black hat I wear every day & Cron wore his ordinary clothes. I was so
31:  glad dear old Theo was there it was such a comfort to me.
32: 
33:  We got to Halesowen Siding Station about 8 oclock. The stars were
34:  shining. Cron’s cart & a native boy were waiting for us, & we packed
35:  as many of the things we could into the cart & came on here. The drive
36:  took almost half an hour & when we drew up before the dark long
37:  farmhouse, Cron’s two dogs Daphne & Maggie ran out to meet us,
38:  barking & rejoicing. In the "fore huis" we found the table laid, & a
39:  nice fowl on the table that Cron’s ?Mother had sent up for us.
40: 
41:  The house is all as it was in Cron’s bachelor days, except that he
42:  has had the floors plastered to keep the dust away from my chest. In
43:  our dining room – there is now a plastered floor, two little wooden
44:  cupboards that belonged to Cron’s father, a little table with some
45:  oil cloth on at which we have our meals, four wooden chairs & an iron
46:  couch, & in the corner on a little stand an old fashioned clock that
47:  used to be Cron’s mother’s.
48: 
49:  But all the room & the whole house is so beautifully clean & neat as
50:  every thing is with which Cron has any thing to do. In the bedroom is
51:  a large double bedstead I contributed to the housekeeping & Cron’s
52:  old desk he has used since a boy; & his little book shelf in the
53:  corner & a chest of drawers, & a little washing stand, that is all.
54: 
55:  We are going to have the dining room & some of the other rooms papered
56:  & got into good order, & without any expense we shall make our little
57:  house quite nice in time. We are going to put up shelves & make
58:  curtains & do all sorts of things. In was very hot on Sunday & we
59:  rested through the heat of the day, but in the afternoon Cron & I went
60:  down to the river & bathed at the mimosa trees growing there. It is
61:  such a pity the original owners put the house here, because there are
62:  such beautiful spots on the farm. When we came back from our walk it
63:  was getting dark & we went to the kraals to count the goats in. I went
64:  with Cron & counted two flocks quite right!
65: 
66:  Yesterday morning Cron & I started after breakfast & went to an out
67:  kraal right away in the Hoek, a beautiful valley on the farm, among
68:  the mountains, where his out kraals are. There is hardly any kind of
69:  road & we had to go through some wonderful krantzes sluits. At the top
70:  of the valley there is a dam in which some of the cows & bulls were
71:  drinking, & the old Kaffir herd there hailed the herd on the mountain
72:  by shouting, with his hand before his mouth. The herd on the mt heard
73:  & came down with his flock of angora goats for Cron to count them. I
74:  sat under a mimosa tree while Cron counted them into the kraal. There
75:  is the herd’s hut close to the kraal, & his wife had a beautiful
76:  little cat the mother of which was a tame cat but the father a large
77:  wild cat on the mountain; she gave it me, I promising her a dress. It
78:  was very pretty to see the cats lying with their paws across a little
79:  kid that had lost its mother. I never saw a cat & a goat caress each
80:  other before.
81: 
82:  When we got back here it was two oclock & very hot. We had dinner &
83:  laid down for our afternoon sleep & in the evening Cron & I went to
84:  the kraals to count the goats in again. I was very sleepy & went to
85:  bed early but Cron sat pretty late at his desk answering letters.
86: 
87:  This morning he got up very early to count the goats out. I was going
88:  to rise with him to the Camp where they are today plucking the
89:  ostriches but Cron thought I had better stay & pack my things right.
90:  So Cron went off at 9 oclock alone & I’ve been unpacking my boxes &
91:  have now come to Cron’s desk to write.
92: 
93:  Before he went out he showed me how to use the loaded revolver that he
94:  always keeps hanging at the foot of the bed in a case. He will often
95:  be away, & I here alone with no one for miles & miles but the native
96:  servants but I shall never feel nervous. I never can fancy that any
97:  one could attack me. The house is very nice & quiet now; there is not
98:  a sound but the old clock ticking in the dining room, & Rose our
99:  Hottentot maid & only house servant moving about in the kitchen. Cron
100:  would like me to have another but I think it is better to have only
101:  one. He manages his servants ideally – One of his men has been with
102:  him seven years, none less than three! The talk about the
103:  impossibility of getting servants on a farm is all nonsense. Cron has
104:  always more than he needs, & he is a stern & firm master; but always
105:  just & generous. I think his strong sense of justice is one of the
106:  most marked traits in his character: & that which makes one feel
107:  reliance in him.
108: 
109:  My little wild cat has just come in & I have given it some water. It
110:  must be very hot for Cron out in the sun plucking the birds; he will
111:  be in at half past one & we shall have dinner & then a long rest & lie
112:  down. At four we make some tea ourselves as the girl has gone home &
113:  we get up & get to our business the servant comes back at six & gets
114:  our supper ready. Its a very quiet & to many would seem a very prosaic
115:  way of spending a honeymoon but its what we both like.
116: 
117:  Good bye my own little mother
118:  Your Olive
119: 
120:  My mother, I meant to write a number of letters, to Dadda & my other
121:  friends in England, telling them my news; but I shan’t have time
122:  this week. Will you send it on in the enclosed cover to Dadda & ask
123:  him to send it to Mrs Brown 68 Bank Parade, Burnley, Lancashire; & she
124:  must send it to Alice Corthorn & Alice must send it to Havelock Ellis.
125: 
126: 

Notation
Alongside the second paragraph in this copied letter, Cronwright-Schreiner has added in pencil 'She drove to the Hotel from the ceremony to the ^Hotel^ but wouldn't let me accompany her; I had to walk up (with Theo I think)! SCCS.' It also has had written at its bottom '(by permission,) copied Mar: 30.'. Rive?s (1987) version of the letter is taken from Cronwright-Schreiner (1924).

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/29
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Card
Letter Date	1 March 1894
Address From	Krantz Plaats, Halesowen, Eastern Cape
Address To	Taungs, Bechuanaland, now Botswana
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 1 March 1894, 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 card, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. This date of this card is provided by the postmark on an attached envelope. Printed on it is a 'progressive' poem, as follows: 'Progressive one in this thy happiest day /' The Genius thou hast wooed with thee to stay / Is of the nation who will look to see / It still outpoured to thrill the Colony /'.

1:  Darling Effie
2: 
3:  This was a poem that someone made for Uncle Cron on his wedding day. I
4:  was so glad of your letter darling. Do write to me sometimes & tell me
5:  how all goes. My love to the boys & Hester & ?Nanny & Father & Mother.
6: 
7:  Your little Auntie
8:  Olive
9: 
10:  Address Mrs Olive Schreiner, Krantz Plaats, P.O. Halesowen Cape Colony
11: 
12:  I am very well & like the farm, wild & lonely as it is Uncle Cron
13:  sends much love to you all.
14: 
15: 
16: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/30
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Postcard
Letter Date	5 September 1919
Address From	9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To	Harpford Avenue, Wynberg, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 5 September 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 postcard, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date of this postcard is provided by the postmark and the address it was sent to is on its front. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.

1:  Darling Effie
2: 
3:  Thanks do much for your letter. I should indeed love to see you all
4:  again. I saw Willie Kooper, Maggies boy, yesterday. He’s an
5:  interesting boy. Aunt Fan Dot & Ursula will go out to Africa the week
6:  after next. I like Olivers wife very much. My dear love to you all
7: 
8:  Aunt Olive
9: 
10: 
11: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/31
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	18 March 1897
Address From	Amalfi, Italy
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 18 March 1897, 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.

1:  Amalfi
2:  March 18 / 97
3: 
4:  My darling old sis
5: 
6:  I’ve had asthma ever since I got to England, & its worse since we
7:  came on the continent. unreadable We went to Rome & I got worse there,
8:  & we had to leave after a few days & ?P when we had intended to stay a
9:  couple of months; then we went in to Naples & I got worse there, & we
10:  came here yesterday & am no better so we are going back to Alassio my
11:  old resort in the Riviera where I have never had asthma before if I
12:  don’t get better there we shall have to return to Kimberley at once;
13:  but I do hope it will not be necessary. I want Cron so to see a little
14:  more of my friend in London, & to see a little more of Europe because
15:  we shall likely never return again.
16: 
17:  Good bye my sweet darling give my love to the children. I often wonder
18:  if Wyn is in love with any one. She looked so beautiful & bright, so
19:  full of life. When you write address
20: 
21:  c/o Alice Corthorn
22:  19 Russell Rd
23:  Kensington
24:  London.
25: 
26:  She sends our letters on to us. I am sending two little broaches for
27:  Wyn & Effie (quite common just curiosities) I bought for them in Rome.
28: 
29:  PPS
30: 
31:  Give my love to dear of Theo, & Katie & Willie Stuart. There are so
32:  many little Italian boys here that remind us both of Willie Stuart.
33: 
34: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/32
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	16 January 1898
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 16 January 1898, 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.

1:  The Homestead
2:  Jan 16 / 98
3: 
4:  My darling
5: 
6:  It was such a joy to see you though just for a minute, but you looked
7:  so utterly tired & worn out. Perhaps the change may do you both good,
8:  but I cannot help feeling very anxious perhaps unreasonably so. It is
9:  just the fever season, & so many, so many, of of my friends have gone
10:  up there already to die. The last was a ^physically^ splendid young
11:  fellow from England, he stayed some time with us here, & left in such
12:  high spirits & delight, something told me as I watched him walk away
13:  from the back door he was going to his death & six weeks after he was
14:  lying in his grave at Bulawayo from fever & dysentery. Do take care to
15:  boil all water you take. Especially for people who don’t take tea &
16:  coffee this is all-important. If the Newberrys are suffering from
17:  malarial fever the fever, as they call it up there the sooner you get
18:  them down to the Colony the better. Its their one chance of getting f
19:  well.
20: 
21:  You might bring them to the hospital here & then stay with us for a
22:  little time!! Do try & break the journey here as you come down.
23: 
24:  unreadable I fear you had an awful time in the train last night if the
25:  carriage leaked at all for here it poured all night.
26: 
27:  I was going to drive in early this morning to wire but Cron said that
28:  Stakesby said the last thing that her he was going to wire from one of
29:  the stations.
30: 
31:  I thought none of the stations took passengers wires on Sunday, but
32:  Cron says they do & its no use my going in. I do hope you will get a
33:  comfortable room & have a real good sleep tonight.
34: 
35:  The Lucases big house is to let, or for sale at only £550! I do wish
36:  you could buy it & come & live up here; I’m sure it would be better
37:  for your health & Stakesby’s
38: 
39:  Good bye my own darling, I don’t know why I feel so sad about you.
40:  Perhaps it was seeing you go off in that heavy rain, perhaps the many
41:  sad partings I have had with people who went up there. Take care of
42:  both of yourselves, & please ask Stakesby to send me just a post card
43:  every few days.
44: 
45:  Cron sends much love to you both.
46: 
47:  Your little sis
48:  Olive
49: 
50: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/33
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1898
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1898, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898.

1:  My own old Ettie
2: 
3:  You are always in my thoughts. I was so glad to get Etta Leuw’s
4:  reply address to my wire. I feel so anxious lest the long watching &
5:  terrible anxiety of that time might have prostrated you. One can’t
6:  bear as one gets older the agony or physical strain one could easily
7:  stand when young: the body gives in!
8: 
9:  I do long so to see you my dear one, if I could only see you for ten
10:  minutes.
11: 
12:  Cron’s mother has been staying with us a fortnight, & I have
13:  unreadable no servant, but the Hottentot boy who looks after the horse
14:  who helps me wash the pots &c.
15: 
16:  Good bye my own darling.
17: 
18:  Your old
19:  Olive
20: 
21:  Dear old Stakesby, it was always such pain to me that somany people
22:  fancied he was giving way to his illness, & I could always see that he
23:  was trying to bear up in a condition when most people would just have
24:  given in. I think I never saw a man bear up more nobly under what one
25:  might call a slow death! Isn’t it strange how some people can’t
26:  see what a human creature is going through unless they lie down &
27:  unreadable can’t eat. When people once get to that stage then the
28:  worst is over for them, & I almost comparatively, cease to be sorry
29:  for them.
30: 
31:  Good bye my own darling
32:  Your old sissie
33:  Olive
34: 
35: 
36: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/34
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 June 1898
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 6 June 1898, 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. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898.

1:  My darling Ettie
2: 
3:  Your letter & mine have crossed. Ah, yes, my dear one, I know that
4:  awful worry when one is gone, the thought of all we might have done
5:  for them. It is always so. And the truth is that often we have done
6:  all that lay in our power. But it never looks like that when they are
7:  gone.
8: 
9:  I do hope you will try to take care of yourself my darling. If you get
10:  over the next few years in quiet & strength, there may be a glorious
11:  old age of work before you. I wish I could see you, my dear one. I
12:  don’t want you to come here, because there would be too many sad
13:  associations, but if Cron & I go to live, as is just possible in
14:  Bloemfontein or Johannesburg, come & stay with us a little. Oh I love
15:  you so my darling Ettie. I’m sure you want complete change of scene
16:  & life for a little while.
17: 
18:  Good bye my dear one.
19:  Olive
20: 
21:  Cron is still up at Johannesburg. He will likely return next Saturday
22:  having been gone three weeks.
23: 
24:  June 6th 1898
25: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/35
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	26 June 1898
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 26 June 1898, 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. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898.

1:  June 26th 1898
2: 
3:  Darling
4: 
5:  I am, in a way, glad you are going to Robertson for a little while. I
6:  know so well that longing to be near the grave of one you love, &
7:  people are quite mistaken in believing in intensifies ones ones pain,
8:  its often the only real comfort ones heart has. But I do wish when you
9:  have been at Robertson a little while you could get away to some
10:  complete change. It’s many years since you were at Balfour. I wish
11:  too I could go there & see the old father’s grave. I am pregnant
12:  again, but am still only in the second month, so don’t mention it to
13:  any one, the little mother should be so pained if she heard it from
14:  others first. I shall not be taken ill till the end of January or
15:  beginning of February.
16: 
17:  I am feeling very well, but for the sickness in the morning. Money
18:  troubles weigh on me the most, the thought that if I die I shall not
19:  leave my baby one farthing, & Cron has his mother & sister to provide
20:  for who are of course his first consideration. That is the only
21:  thought that takes away my joy, but I may get well & strong after its
22:  birth, & be able to work on a few years longer. If I can once get
23:  £400 put by for it in case of my death I shall be quite happy.
24: 
25:  Yes, dear I had a most curious tenderness for Stakesby. Its more than
26:  once as I lay awake at night that I wrote long letters to him telling
27:  him how much I sympathized with him & knew how bravely he was bearing
28:  up, but when the morning came I was always too tired. That was before
29:  you went up to Bulawayo. I knew the sign of death on him him that
30:  rainy day when you drove me up to the Highlands a
31: 
32:  Good bye my own darling.
33:  Your Olive
34: 
35:  I am so well as far as asthma &c goes but the continual sickness on
36:  the stomach that one suffers from at such times makes it impossible
37:  for me to write much.
38: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/36
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	27 July 1898
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 27 July 1898, 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.

1:  The Homestead
2:  July 27 / 98
3: 
4:  Darling Effie
5: 
6:  I’m so glad mother is so satisfied. I knew she would be.
7: 
8:  I was talking to Hudson yesterday & he says he’s quite sure you would
9:  be able to make a living in Johannesburg by your typewriting. He would
10:  advise you to practice hard for a couple of months first, however. Bt
11:  I can’t f help feeling anxious about you in Johannesburg, because I
12:  don’t think you would be very keen in seeing the difference between
13:  the people who are desirable & those who may not be so, if they are
14:  only friendly & kind. You know what I mean.
15: 
16:  Give my love to my darling old sister when you write. Does Winnie say
17:  she seems better.
18: 
19:  Your small Aunt, Olive
20: 
21:  I will come in to see you as soon as I can, perhaps tomorrow.
22: 
23:  Love to Mrs Lodge.
24: 
25: 
26: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/37
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Postcard
Letter Date	2 March 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To	The Highlands, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 2 March 1899, 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 postcard, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date of this postcard is provided by the postmark and the address it was sent to is on its front. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  My darling old Sister
2: 
3:  I am often with you in thought but write to no one any more. Give my
4:  love to dear old Theo if you see him. unreadable There’s no news to
5:  give you, dear, all goes on as it was. I am anxious to hear how Guy is
6:  doing with his studies
7: 
8:  Your little sister Olive
9: 
10:  Oh Ettie I sometimes long to see you so.
11: 
12: 
13: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/38
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	16 November 1898
Address From	Dounan’s House, Hospital Hill, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 16 November 1898, 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.

1:  Dounan’s House
2:  Hospital Hill
3:  Nov – 16 / 98
4: 
5:  Darling old Ettie
6: 
7:  I hope very much some day you will come up here. I somehow think you
8:  would find the high air relieves you. Everything else but the air is
9:  very terrible to me here, but its very interesting & many people like
10:  it. Is dear old Wynnie coming up at Xmas to Mrs Reilly’s? It will be
11:  so delightful to see her.
12: 
13:  Good bye dear one. I am starting out on ^Friday^ ^to^ Kimberley to pack
14:  the things. When once we have moved into our cottage & are settled
15:  then I will rest. Oh Ettie rest, rest, how beautiful it is! My ideal
16:  of heaven is a place like a big bed where you lie for month & month &
17: 
18:  ^never move & look out of a window as you lie.^
19: 
20:  Your little sis
21:  Olive

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/39
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 November 1899
Address From	Lyndall, Newlands, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 22 November 1899, 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.

1:  Lyndall
2:  Newlands
3:  Cape Town
4:  Nov 22 / 99
5: 
6:  Darling old Ettie
7: 
8:  Do drop me a line to tell me how Mother’s heath is & when we are to
9:  expect you back.
10: 
11:  Eliza & I are going up tomorrow afternoon to the Highlands to see your
12:  babies. I have been in I’ve been in bed three days with my heart,
13:  the asthma & angina which together makes one very weak. Yes, my
14:  belovèd one it seems hard that just when one has begun to learn &
15:  feels as if one might be of a little use to others one’s strength is
16:  gone. That half an hours reading or writing, a little walk, all knock
17:  one up. I shall always keep that letter you wrote me at the farm dear.
18:  It isn’t often one feels one can really express anything one feels
19:  one is too tired. One’s heart is really broken though one goes on
20:  living so calmly.
21: 
22:  Good bye, dear.
23:  Your
24:  Olive
25: 
26: 
27: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/40
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: Sunday 1901 ; Before End: 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1901, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere. The Balfour plan was first mooted in 1901 but occurred after the death of Rebecca Schreiner in September 1903. Content suggests she had not died when this letter was written.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sunday morning
3: 
4:  My darling
5: 
6:  I hardly know whether I am sorry about your accident because I believe
7:  that some such thing is the only way in which you will ever get a
8:  little rest.
9: 
10:  Yes it would be very beautiful if my chest were so that I could come &
11:  live in or near Cape Town so that I could sometimes come & see you.
12: 
13:  The loneliness of my life here something ?uncannie, I used to feel as
14:  if my reason would give way under it. But since I got that book things
15:  seem easier to me. I have just been reading another book he has
16:  written since called "The Hearts of Men." It is like a key to "the
17:  Soul of a People" to me. All the ideas & thoughts in "the Soul of a
18:  People" are mine, seem written from my own heart, only much more
19:  beautifully & sweetly than I would have written them, but there was
20:  something about the way it touched me that I couldn’t understand.
21:  Now I have read "the Hearts of Men" I quite understand why it must be
22:  so. In "the Hearts of Men" there is much about his own childhood &
23:  youth, & the which his thoughts & religious experiences followed each
24:  other & grew is so exactly like my own that it sometimes seems
25:  impossible two souls should have had experiences so exactly alike.
26: 
27:  He must have had something the same feeling to my writing because of
28:  that long beautiful letter he wrote me in 1890 just when I came out to
29:  the Cape. It was so beautiful that I put it away in the little box
30:  where I put father’s and Ellie’s hair & there it was burnt when
31:  the British burnt my things in Johannesburg. but I never answered it.
32:  Such a sharp pain comes to me when I think that if I had answered it
33:  we might have become friends. But it doesn’t matter now. People have
34:  invented heaven so that there might be a place where all the mistakes
35:  we have made in this life shall be put right.
36: 
37:  I am so sorry to hear Ettie Lewis is so ill. I have been thinking so
38:  much of her ^before I got your letter^. It’s very tragic.
39: 
40:  I hope your knee is better my darling, but not so much better that you
41:  don’t rest!
42: 
43:  Good bye darling.
44:  Olive
45: 
46:  If I should be able to say save money enough to go to Balfour in the
47:  winter is here any chance of your being able to go with me? I want so
48:  to go & see father’s grave once more. Cron will be away at
49:  Parliament all the winter, & that is the time of year when I can
50:  travel best in the Eastern province. Think it over."
51: 

Notation
The books referred to are: Harold Fielding-Hall (1901) The Hearts of Men London: Hurst & Blackett. Harold Fielding (1898) The Soul of a People London: R. Bentley & Son.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/41
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 29 July 1901
Address From	Haartebeest Hoek, De Aar, Northern Cape
Address To	The Convent, Grahamstown, Eastern Cape
Who To	Wynnie Hemming
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 Wynnie Hemming, 29 July 1901, 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 of this letter is derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, which also provides the address it was sent to.

1:  My dear Wynnie
2: 
3:  Thank you so much for your letter which I got this morning. I am so
4:  glad to hear the little mother goes on well.
5: 
6:  I feel better since I came here. I have such a nice little room with
7:  such a pretty wall paper. It seems to do me good lying here. I don’t
8:  know when we shall leave certainly not before next Monday, & perhaps
9:  is the dear kind folks will let us pay for some weeks.
10: 
11:  Thank my dear old sister for her note & tell her I will write tomorrow.
12:  If I get stronger I shan’t need any one, so the young lady Aunt Ettie
13:  wrote of mustn’t put off getting another
14: 
15:  ^place because of me. All seems so uncertain now. I hope Aunt Ettie is
16:  resting a little & you are all feeling better for the change.
17: 
18:  Your little aunt
19:  Olive
20: 
21:  Haartebeest Hoek
22:  nr de Aar
23:  Wednesday evening^
24: 
25: 
26: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/42
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1901, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Content indicates that Schreiner was in Hanover when it was written.

1:  Thursday night
2: 
3:  My darling Ettie
4: 
5:  I am haunted by the feeling mother is going to die, & oh I must see
6:  her just once for a few hours before she goes. Ettie, if I wire I am
7:  coming & you can find out when I will be at Alice-dale, please send
8:  some one there to meet me. I will pay all expenses. I may not be able
9:  to change from one train to the other. It is terrible to be so
10:  helpless.
11: 
12:  I wired this morning to know how mother was (Reply Paid) & the
13:  Commandant here kindly wired too thinking his letter might get through
14:  quicker. If only I have once got to Grahamstown & seen mother I don’t
15:  seem to send mind what happens to me. I had another fit of fainting &
16:  angina this afternoon & if that comes on in the train I am quite
17:  helpless I shall pay all expenses if some one will come as far as
18:  Alice-dale to meet me. I will wire when I leave this. I shall not
19: 
20:  ^won’t be able to leave tomorrow
21: 
22:  Olive^
23: 
24: 
25: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/43
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday May 1903
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), May 1903, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. 'Grahamstown 1901' has been written on the letter in an unknown hand, Schreiner's visit (and those of Theo Schreiner, Katie Stuart, Ettie Stakesby-Lewis and Will Schreiner) to her very ill mother in Grahamstown was in August 1901; in September that year Will Schreiner took his mother to Cape Town, where she lived with Ettie Schreiner until her death in September 1903.

1:  Thursday afternoon
2: 
3:  My darling
4: 
5:  Your note has just come. Mother did not sleep at all last night & of
6:  course I did not leave her or lie down, not because of any new
7:  definite pain, but because of her unreadable terrible general unrest
8:  mental & physical That state she was in when you left has continued to
9:  increase & produces even greater difficulty with hospital nurses &
10:  complete stranger than the old convent folk or private nurses but the
11:  nurses are very good & sweet & do all they can to help her.
12: 
13:  Dear one no words can tell how I long for you, & yet what a relief it
14:  is to me that for a few days the strain, the unutterable strain under
15:  which you have been living has been lifted from you. You can’t bear
16:  much more.
17: 
18:  Good bye my sweet heart.
19:  Your little Ollie.
20: 
21:  Love to the children I long to know how Elberty is. Mother’s
22:  condition is not worse; yet the more I understand it the more heart
23:  breaking it is.
24: 
25:  ^Shall I tell her if she asks that you are coming on Monday or Tuesday^
26: 
27: 
28: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/44
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday 31 August 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 31 August 1901, 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:  Hanover
2:  Friday
3: 
4:  Darling Effie
5: 
6:  I know mother is much to busy to write so drop me a line to tell me
7:  how Granny is. Did you all get the letters I posted the day I left
8:  Grahamstown, a little station on the way. I find l left my new nail
9:  cissors in Grahamstown but have got two new pairs of large ones. One
10:  must be yours or Aunt Hets, unless the man put me in a pair of large
11:  cissors in mistake for nail cissors at Parkes. Answer about this.
12: 
13:  I am clearing out my little room today to be all bright & fresh when
14:  uncle Cron comes on Monday. I felt so anxious about Grannie last night
15:  in the night. Please tell me just how she is. Does she take more
16:  interest in out side matters.
17: 
18:  Good bye dear, my love to you all including Arthur.
19:  Your little Auntie Ol.
20: 
21:  Thank Aunt Het for pay the money for me I’ll send it tomorrow.
22: 
23: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/45
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 1 September 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1 September 1901, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sunday night
3:  Sep 1st 1901
4: 
5:  My darling old sister
6: 
7:  I have had no news from Grahamstown since the note I got from you last
8:  Thursday morning morning. You must not write; unreadable I know the
9:  terrible strain writing is even to those one loves best in your
10:  over-worked state, but ask Effie or Elberty to send just two lines
11:  daily if they can (one or other, to let me know how mother is.
12: 
13:  I have also not heard from Cron for some time, not since the letter I
14:  got on Thurs-day, but I fancy no letters have come through from Cape
15:  Town since. I am expecting my darling tomorrow morning by the post
16:  cart. I am making him a grand dinner with your lemon cheese-cake, &
17:  chutney & all the nice things I brought from Grahamstown, & I’ve
18:  made our little room look as pretty & nice as I can.
19: 
20:  Ask Effie to tell me: -
21: 
22:  1. If mother is more restful
23:  2. If she takes more interest in out-side things.
24:  3. If she seems stronger
25:  4. If her cough is better.
26: 
27:  I & Neta have been quite alone in this house for some days as the lady
28:  from whom I hire the room has gone to their farm, with her little
29:  nephew. But I have been so happy getting everything ready for my
30:  darling. Little Neta sends her love to you all: she had a bath this
31:  morning & is now as white as snow, & is sleeping on my bed.
32: 
33:  I enclose a PO order for 10/- Please take from it the money you paid
34:  for me, & with the rest buy me when you come or when Arthur comes if
35:  he comes first 2/- worth of brown bakers bread, & two bottles of Mrs
36:  Rudd’s jam, one bottle of Cape gooseberry & one of orange marmalade
37:  the cost 1/3 each
38: 
39:  2/6 jam
40:  2/- bread
41:  4/- Repay yourself
42:  ------------------------
43:  8/6 & one 1/6
44: 
45:  for the carriage will make the 10/- You will have more than your full
46:  amount of luggage & have to pay extra for it. If you could send me a
47:  line two days yet before you leave I would ask the post cart driver to
48:  call at the station for it. If you were unreadable asleep passing in
49:  the night the guard would give it to the station master. Please
50:  address it personally to the care of the station master. I hope you
51:  will get a strong native man to help you in packing mother’s things
52:  so that you have no lifting to do. You must not quite wear yourself
53:  out my darling. If you would take care of self now you might have many
54:  years of usefulness & health, perhaps such health as you have never
55:  known. Give my love to my old Will.
56: 
57:  Your little sis
58:  Olive
59: 
60:  I wouldn’t have missed that seeing you in Grahamstown, dear one, for
61:  anything. One looses many things as one grows older but one has a
62:  power of endurance one never had when one was young, ^& that makes up
63:  for many things, eh?^
64: 
65: 
66: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/46
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Saturday 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 1901, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Saturday
2: 
3:  Dear Effie
4: 
5:  I send with this the PO order I forgot to put in last time. Please
6:  write a line at once dear & tell me whether Aunt Het has come & what
7:  the plans are.
8: 
9:  Love to you dear, & to Uncle Will. I hope he enjoyed his little change
10:  to the house.
11: 
12:  Your little Auntie
13: 
14: 
15: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/47
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 September 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 6 September 1901, 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. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Sep 6 / 01
2: 
3:  Dear Effie
4: 
5:  I was so glad of your note.
6: 
7:  Just send me a line when able to let me know how mother goes on, & how
8:  you are feeling when alone there.
9: 
10:  I shall think of you on Monday when you will be left alone.
11: 
12:  Your little Auntie
13: 
14:  Shall I send the scissors to you or to mother at Cape Town?
15: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/48
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday October 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), October 1901, 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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover
2:  Friday night
3: 
4:  Darling Effie,
5: 
6:  I suppose mother leaves Cape Town tomorrow for Grahamstown & that the
7:  week after next if mother carries out her plan she will be passing
8:  here with Grannie.
9: 
10:  Please write & tell me exactly the plans that I may try to arrange to
11:  meet you at Hanover Rd. the weather here is absolutely perfect & I am
12:  expecting great things for Grannie from the change to this high dry
13:  air, at this time of the year perfect I enclose a PO order for ten
14:  shillings: please dear when come bring me 10 boxes of Philippe de
15:  ?Canands sardines 1/- a box. You remember I got some in the little
16:  green grocers shop where the nice woman was in Bathurst St, where we
17:  got the chillies & butter & other things. I think that is the only
18:  place in Grahamstown where they are to be got. Also please with regard
19:  to the other 10/ I sent. After paying Mrs Rudd the 4/3 there will be
20:  5/9 over please buy me for it four bottles of Mrs Rudds homemade jam
21:  ^at 1/3 a bottle^ (especially to of her orange marmalade) & for the 9d
22:  of a pound of her rusks. As & don’t get the brown bread I asked for
23:  as travelling so long it will be dry before you get here. A coolie has
24:  opened a shop so we are now able to get oranges here, but decent
25:  groceries are not to be had here. Please dear drop me a line & tell me
26:  just how the little mother is. I had such a sad dream about her the
27:  other night.
28: 
29:  Love to my dear old Will. I hope you don’t find the staying alone in
30:  Grahamstown too hard, darling.
31: 
32:  Your little Auntie
33:  Olive
34: 
35:  The james & things Aunt Het bought me were smashed fine in the post
36:  cart!!
37: 
38: 
39: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/49
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	25 December 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 25 December 1901, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content about Rebecca Schreiner's possible death. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Xmas Morning.
2: 
3:  My darling old sister,
4: 
5:  I hope you are feeling really better. It is so delightful to me that
6:  the dear little mother is sweetly resting in your care. "What we
7:  desire in youth, that we have in old age," Goethe said. I am sure it
8:  is true with regard to spiritual matters, because slowly the ideal
9:  which we strive after must shape itself within us but, I think it
10:  often happens with other things. At least it is my dream that it will
11:  so happen.
12: 
13:  "Grow old along with me
14:  The best is yet to be;
15:  The last of life,
16:  For which the whole was made.
17:  Our times are in his hand,
18:  Who so a whole I planned.
19:  - Youth knows but half – trust God, see all, nor be afraid."
20: 
21:  I have always looked forward to old age so because of the serene
22:  wisdom I thought one would have attained to, but I don’t think that
23:  I had realize the weakness that would come as one grew older. Of
24:  course you & I ought not to be as much weaker than we were at our age,
25:  but as Will once wrote me, all we Schreiners seem predestined to break
26:  down long before our time. This is of course owing to our hearts not
27:  being strong.
28: 
29:  I have been studying my own case a good deal, & while absence of worry
30:  & excitement & worry is the main thing, as the doctors all agree where
31:  the heart is enlarged; yet I am sure to eat very little & practically
32:  no meat, & if possible to drink hot boiled milk, ^in small quantities
33:  at a time but often^ something which is very light & yet nourishing,
34:  does much to relieve the heart. I am sending you ?about which is
35:  attracting a good deal of attention in England. On uric-acid, the
36:  result of meat diet & its action on the system in later life, which
37:  might be interesting to you. I think he goes a little too far, but
38:  there is much truth in it. It seems a pity that few people can see a
39:  truth very clearly without exaggerating it.
40: 
41:  I hope you got the little MS of mine safely. I wrote it fifteen years
42:  ago in Italy. I like it almost better than anything I ever wrote
43:  because it came to me in such a curious way. I wrote the novel to
44:  which it is the prelude years before, when I was Africa. I was sitting
45:  one day writing an article on the Bushman, & suddenly in an instant,
46:  all the scenes in that little prelude seemed to open themselves before
47:  me, one after the other in a flash, like when you open one of those
48:  folded series of views & draw them all open quickly. I saw the little
49:  girl at the back-door, & on her flat stone, & in the garden under the
50:  tree making storie & repeating poems right to the end, & curious, it
51:  was only when I sat down to write it out that I saw how it bore on the
52:  story that was coming & which I had written unreadable so long before.
53:  All my stories come to me that way I never consciously try to make one,
54:  but none except Peter Halket ever came so completely & at once, they
55:  are sometimes only in bits for months before they are ready. With
56:  Peter Halket I was at the Kowie & had slept heavily all night from one
57:  o’clock, an unusual thing with me. About six o’clock I woke, &
58:  jumped out of bed Cron asked me what was the matter, & I said a whole
59:  new story had come to me just as I woke, & I told him all just as it
60:  stands but short. I had nothing further from my thoughts that the
61:  writing of such a book the night before & I was busy on my stray
62:  thoughts. I just as I opened my eyes saw Peter Halket on the kopje &
63:  heard the voices talking.
64: 
65:  I think that’s the mistake people make who think you can make
66:  stories & poems. You can’t make them if they don’t make themselves.
67:  You can put yourself into the conditions in which you know your mind
68:  will work spontaneously, i.e. free of worries & manual work, but you
69:  can’t say to your brain produce this or that. Of course you sh can
70:  will whether you will write it or not, but & the exact words you will
71:  put it into; but you can’t alter the pictures, if a man has blue
72:  eyes you can’t describe him with brown, is he says this or that you
73:  can’t make him say anything else.
74: 
75:  //I have been thinking about Guy & can’t help being sure that if his
76:  tastes lay in a literary direction the civil service will be best for
77:  him; just because the work is so mechanical & uninteresting, it does
78:  not tax the energies you use for your own work, teaching if
79:  conscientiously done takes too much out of you, of nervous energy &
80:  will.
81: 
82:  I wrote the whole of an African Farm when I was teaching 6 hours a-day,
83:  but it’s a horrible strain. The civil-service work is very light.
84: 
85:  Now I must end my darling. I know you will always wire to me if the
86:  little mother should be very ill, but I feel quite at ease about her
87:  now.
88: 
89:  Have you ever thought how very nice it would be, if the dear little
90:  mother would consent to be buried at Balfour when she goes. I would
91:  not mention it to her unless she spoke of being buried some where else,
92:  then you might suggest it, say you will be buried there too. Father
93:  would have liked it so.
94: 
95:  Good bye darling.
96:  Your little sis Olive
97: 
98:  I sent mother that little prelude to read 10 years ago when I first
99:  came out from England. If she’s forgotten it & would care to read it
100:  again you might give it her, but I don’t want others to read it.
101: 
102: 

Notation
The 'little manuscript' and 'little prelude' refer to the Prelude to From Man to Man. 'Grow old along with me' is from Robert Browning's 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' in his (1864) Dramatis Personae London: Chapman & Hall.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/50
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 July 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To	PO Box 2, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 6 July 1902, 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:  Hanover
2:  July 6th 1902
3: 
4:  Darling Ettie
5: 
6:  I hope by this time you are safe in Johannesburg. I’m sure the change
7:  will do you good.
8: 
9:  I’ve been in bed for a couple of days with my chest, & am very
10:  thankful I didn’t get the pass in time & & try to come up with you
11:  because I would only have been ill & spoiled all. I hope I shall be
12:  able to go by the end of the month. If you could give me the address I
13:  could go up & see abut the jacket of the dress as soon as I get there.
14: 
15:  I shall only be in Johannesburg for a few days, just long enough to
16:  see about my things. I hope Elberty is not going to stay up there. I
17:  think it would be a mistake, dear. But perhaps you have no such plan.
18:  I have seen such beautiful promising lives go to wreck there, that I
19:  feel about it as a man would about a rock on which he had seen a ship
20:  go down. You don’t understand the place a bit by visiting it; you must
21:  stay in it & watch its effect on characters you know.
22: 
23:  I shall value the dressing gown so much when it comes, dear; but you
24:  oughtn’t to have sent it me. I’m so glad you’ve got another.
25: 
26:  Good bye, darling. I suppose you passed Hanover Rd the night before
27:  last
28: 
29:  Olive
30: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/51
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 September 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 15 September 1902, 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.

1:  Private for yourself alone
2:  Hanover
3:  Sep 15th 1902
4: 
5:  My darling old Ettie
6: 
7:  Oh I have thought of you & hungered for you during the weeks of ?Eny
8:  weakness & darkness. I think I have never longed so for any one. I
9:  think I would have sent for you & sent you money to come, but I had a
10:  feeling it wasn’t the end, & I couldn’t take you not only from
11:  your heavy duties, but from duties which would be harder to you when
12:  returned because they they would have accumulated. I am now able to
13:  move abut again, but am quite deaf in one ear & partly so in the other.
14: 
15:  I am leaving this house as son as I am strong enough to move the
16:  things because it is very damp.
17: 
18:  Cron left for Cape Town ^the day before^ yesterday, & will be there for
19:  a few days to visit his mother & attend his brother’s wedding.
20:  Don’t mention to mother that he is in Town as she might expect him
21:  to call, & I don’t think he will.
22: 
23:  Dear, that letter you wrote me which I got the night before I left
24:  Johannesburg was very precious to me. Perhaps it happens more often
25:  than we dream that the love we have hungered for all our lives & which
26:  has never been given us will stretch out longing hands to us after we
27:  are dead. We shall not know it but the thought can help one to live.
28: 
29:  Good bye, my darling. I hope you are feeling stronger. Perhaps it is
30:  as well you were not with me when I was so ill. In such times of
31:  weakness
32: 
33:  ^one feels such an irresistible desire to open ones heart to one who
34:  would understand, & perhaps it is better that one should carry much
35:  silent to ones grave.
36: 
37:  Good bye my dear one
38:  Olive^
39: 
40: 
41: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/52
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	30 September 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall
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 Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall, 30 September 1902, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sep 30 / 02
3: 
4:  My own darling little Mother
5: 
6:  We are in our nice little house. C It is evening, about 9 o’clock.
7:  Cron is sitting in the little dining room writing out a will, & I am
8:  in my bedroom at the little table in the corner, & the family are
9:  asleep, ‘Arriet has been very wicked today. First early this morning
10:  she turned the bottle of milk over in the passage & was lapping at it
11:  continuously & walking about in the streaming milk on the floor. I
12:  rescued the other bottle & took it & boiled it; hot, & put the jug in
13:  the pantry window. Not long after there was a noise, & I went to the
14:  pantry, & there she had turned the jug over & was standing in the milk
15:  licking her paws clean from the cream. She always creeps up onto
16:  Cron’s knee at meal times, & puts her nose into his plate & licks
17:  little bits of food out, as she fancies them. I say her mouth is dirty,
18:  but Cron sticks to it it is clean!
19: 
20:  I like this this little tiny house so much. I suppose because it’s
21:  so open & airy. The wind blows through it all day.
22: 
23:  I will write & let you know in good time when I am coming. It would be
24:  nice if I could be there for your birth-day the 25th is it not? I
25:  wouldn’t spend all that day with you at the Highlands as you will
26:  have so many other visitors but if I arrived that day I’d just hire
27:  a cab at the station & the run up & have one look at my darling little
28:  mothers face on her birthday, & then come up the next day to stay long.
29: 
30:  Good night my own sweet little mother
31:  Your Olive
32: 
33:  I think of you so continually my little mother; of late you seem
34:  always in my mind, especially in the night when I lie awake.
35: 
36: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/53
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 December 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 31 December 1902, 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 name of the addressee of this letter is indicated by content. The end of the letter is missing.

1:  Hanover
2:  Dec 31st 1902
3: 
4:  Darling,
5: 
6:  I am sending you the money for the wire to Mrs Austin. Thank you so
7:  much.
8: 
9:  Please ask John to let me know me know as soon as his plans are sure
10:  as to the time he leaves for Kimberley. Dear, I wonder if it is wicked;
11:  but it seems so beautiful to me to think that perhaps this time next
12:  year I mayn’t be here. It come to me like such an exquisitely lovely
13:  thought. And yet I may have many years to go on still. One is
14:  satisfied if it is so; life is beautiful too. But death is more so.
15: 
16:  I’ve been thinking a lot about Alice lately. You know its funny but I
17:  think now I understand her life as no one understood it; I put little
18:  things together & I understand it. Such a curious thing happened: you
19:  know not long before she died. (I cannot now say how long, but it must
20:  only have been a few very few months, because I was living in the same
21:  boarding house in London where I got that letter as w I was when I
22:  heard of her death, & I only lived there three months altogether), it
23:  I got a letter from her it was the last she ever wrote me.
24: 
25:  I fancy it was just before you got to Fraserburg. I had write her a
26:  rather sympathetic letter about the death of all her children. I
27:  seldom wrote to her I don’t think I’d written to her for two years,
28:  but something made me write; & she wrote me back such a curious letter,
29:  it was so unlike her, you who know she always wrote such little
30:  matter of fact letters about the children &c.
31: 
32:  It was such a strange passionate out cry: "Oh Olive Olive, it is n’t
33:  the death of my little children that matters. My heart is broken but
34:  it’s not that that has done it. People sympathize with you & are sorry;
35:  but its not the things they think if that have killed you." It was
36:  those words or all but those words, & then a few weeks afterwards I
37:  heard she was dead. I hope that letter of hers
38: 
39:  [page/s missing]
40: 
41: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/54
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: Saturday July 1902 ; Before End: December 1902
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), July 1902, 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. ‘Late 1902’ has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover
2:  Saturday
3: 
4:  My own darling
5: 
6:  I wonder how your teeth are. If only you were living somewhere near me,
7:  so that I could see you if it were only once a month life would be so
8:  different to me.
9: 
10:  I wonder how things are shaping them selves about Elberty. If the man
11:  he was with speaks well of his work, I should certainly write to
12:  Newberry abut him as he will have the help no where else he will have
13:  there. I am very anxious to hear he is really settled in there.
14: 
15:  Good bye my darling
16:  Your Olive
17: 
18:  Love to the little mother. Tell Effie I have her wedding card. I feel
19:  so tenderly anxious over those two young souls. But I think they have
20:  much larger chances of happiness than most have who start on that long
21:  voyage together.
22: 
23:  ^Don’t you think the dentist is a very nice man?^
24: 
25: 
26: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/55
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: 1901 ; Before End: 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 1901, 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 year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand, perhaps by Ettie Stakesby Lewis. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere. The Balfour plan was first mooted in 1901 but occurred after the death of Rebecca Schreiner in September 1903. Content suggests she had not died when this letter was written.

1:  My own darling
2: 
3:  I have just got your letter. Is the name of the people Smyth? Oh my
4:  darling I know what that tiredness is. There are long what it is when
5:  we desire only death. Oh that beautiful rest, dear one. It is so
6:  beautiful that death which in the time of ones strength & youth one
7:  instinctively drew back from because it was so cold, should come at
8:  last as the mighty comforter.
9: 
10:  When all courage fails me & my knees give I think of that quiet
11:  mountain top at Krantz Plaats where I shall rest at last with my
12:  little baby beside me.
13: 
14:  I long so to see you. I wonder whether it would not be possible for
15:  you to come & rest here for a few weeks.
16: 
17:  Oh darling I am so lonely, so lonely, Ettie; it would be such joy to
18:  me to see you. There are only two things in earth I have still any
19:  wish for to see unreadable again & Father’s grave at Balfour.
20: 
21:  ^Good bye my darling.
22:  Your little Emmie
23: 
24:  Give my love to dear old Theo. No one can understand that I can’t
25:  write letters any more. I can just struggle through my daily toil.^
26: 
27: 
28: 

Notation

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/56
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1 January 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Arthur Brown
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 Arthur Brown, 1 January 1903, 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. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  New Years Day
2:  1903
3: 
4:  Dear Arthur
5: 
6:  This is just one word to speak that loving welcome to you as a member
7:  of the family, which I would speak with my lips if I could have been
8:  with you next Monday. I have been very much drawn to you from the
9:  little I have seen of you, & I send you from my heart a loving
10:  greeting. May your life together be a very brave & good thing to you
11:  both.
12: 
13:  Your very loving Aunt
14:  Olive Schreiner
15: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/57
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	10 March 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 10 March 1903, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  March 10 / 03
3: 
4:  My darling old Sister
5: 
6:  I am feeling a little anxious about your knee. Is it quite well.
7:  Don’t try it till it is really strong. It would be so terribly
8:  depressing to have anything which permanently hindered one’s walking.
9: 
10:  It’s curious I remember quite well in England when you came from
11:  Australia that incident of your writing to the person & their saying
12:  for certain reasons it impossible for them to give you their name &
13:  see you. I am feeling a bit better; & happier than I have felt since
14:  the dear peaceful old Matjesfontein days. They say people never know
15:  when they are happy, but I always knew at Matjesfontein that I was
16:  happy, & wished nothing would ever change. After all, it isn’t what
17:  we have, but what we are able to do without, that’s the great thing.
18: 
19:  I don’t know why I feel anxious about you & as if I wanted to know
20:  you were all right.
21: 
22:  Good night dear one.
23:  Olive
24: 
25:  ^Cron is still up in Johannesburg but returns on Thursday^
26: 
27: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/58
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	17 May 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall
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 Rebecca Schreiner nee Lyndall, 17 May 1903, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  May 17th 1903
3: 
4:  My darling Mothie
5: 
6:  I have returned pretty tired from Grahamstown. I was there six days. I
7:  saw dear Notre Mere. She cannot now walk about, has to to be taken
8:  about in a chair, but her face is quite unchanged; her he eyes are as
9:  clear & bright as ever.
10: 
11:  I have just had a letter for Mrs David de Wet (Minnie Barnett) she
12:  sends much love to you, & says she hopes so much she will some day
13:  have the chance of coming to see you at Cape Town she says all the
14:  brothers & sisters are now dead except herself & Cobie; who is living
15:  at Kruger’s-dorp. She (Cobie) has had to bring up & educate her
16:  large family by keeping a boarding house.
17: 
18:  I also saw in Grahamstown your old friend Mr Cross. He came to see me,
19:  & sent most affectionate greetings to you He was the only person who
20:  came to see me while I was there.
21: 
22:  Cron is still very ill. The rheumatism is in his hip now, & for two
23:  days he has been unable to move unless I moved him. He was much better
24:  but has got worse again. I am giving him a warm bath tonight & hope he
25:  will be better tomorrow
26: 
27:  How is my own darling little mothie? I am feeling so anxious about you
28:  dear little mother with the cold of the winter which may increase all
29:  your pains but sometimes the winters in Cape Town are very much milder
30:  & drier & I hope this is going to be a dry winter for you. The family
31:  are well & sweet. I am going to Beaufort West for the winter. I shall
32:  stay in the town at first & try to find a farm near by later. I
33:  don’t want to go to any where where I can’t get wires at any time.
34: 
35:  My own darling little mother I am thinking of you so much
36: 
37:  Your Olive
38: 
39: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/59
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 June 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta ('Ettie') Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 23 June 1903, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  Je 23 / 03
3: 
4:  My darling
5: 
6:  Thankyou for your beautiful letter.
7: 
8:  As to mothers trap; they may not be in Cape Town because people do not
9:  use them there but they are to be had by hundreds ^NB Why not send to
10:  some of the carriage builders in London for their catalogues? telling
11:  them what you want? There is a cheap & very good one in Covent Garden
12:  from whom I got my trap. I have a friend in London Mrs Arthur Wilson
13:  who understands all about carts & horse & all that sort of thing. They
14:  are very wealthy people, but she would quite understand if we wanted a
15:  cheap thing & yet strong how to choose it. if any time you would like
16:  me to write to her about the trap I will Oh I wish I could afford to
17:  buy one for mother. It would be better if you could get something in
18:  Cape Town^ in every carriage shop in London in all styles from £20 up
19:  to £150 or £200!! They are always used in the country in England When
20:  I was there I nearly bought myself a little governess carriage as they
21:  call them all basket work but with very strong wheels &c for £14! Only
22:  I don’t like the sitting sided side ways as you always do in governess
23:  carriages. (They are called governess carriages because people always
24:  have them for the governess & children in England). Lady Lochs girls
25:  had a charming little one with a very comfortable seat all of the
26:  basket work strong & light, & in which you sat facing the horses She
27:  gave £12 for it! Such things are much stronger for bad roads than
28:  great heavy things. B because having no rigid body they don’t strain
29:  so. With a quiet old horse in a trap like that mother & you could go
30:  about anywhere
31: 
32:  As to the trip in July: it will be simply splendid. I can’t stay long
33:  in Kat River on account of the asthma, but we couldn’t stay very long
34:  any how on account of the expense of the cart & horses. It will be too
35:  lovely if we three can manage it. You It will be something to look
36:  forward to all the time. We must take a Kodak with us & take views of
37:  all the spots at Healdtown & Balfour. Pleas
38: 
39:  About the typing. I have only a very little bit ready would take a
40:  good typist about one day or less, & I copy out so slowly that it may
41:  be months before I have any more (I may never ever finish the book at
42:  all!) Otherwise if it were all done it would be a splendid plan to get
43:  Hettie to do. I have a splendid typewriter of my own & could do it
44:  myself but it hurts my chest so.
45: 
46:  Give much love to the little mother. I am much better than I was. It
47:  may be partly owing to the great drought & the perfectly dry air up
48:  here now.
49: 
50:  Your Olive
51: 

Notation
The book that Schreiner 'may never ever finish' is likely to be From Man to Man, but could also be the planned 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. The essays to have composed this were originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', and were also intended for publication in book form. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa.

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/60
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Lettercard
Letter Date	3 August 1903
Address From	Uitkyk, Northern Cape
Address To	The Highlands, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who To	Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903)
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 Effie Hemming m. Brown (1903), 3 August 1903, 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 lettercard, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date of this letter-card is provided by the postmark and the address it was sent to is on its front.

1:  Uitkyk
2: 
3:  My darling Effie
4: 
5:  I’m so sorry I didn’t see you to say good bye. You are often in my
6:  thoughts. If your little one comes to us safely it will be a great
7:  treasure to us all. Now Uncle Will’s children are growing up I seem to
8:  long so for little children in the family. Take plenty of exercise
9:  only be careful to to walk up hill if you can help it. Love to Arthur.
10:  It’s so beautiful you are
11: 
12:  ^so happy dear
13: 
14:  Your little aunt Olive^
15: 
16: 
17: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/61
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 August 1903
Address From	Uitkyk, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 6 August 1903, 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.

1:  P.O. Uitkyk
2:  Aug 6 / 03
3: 
4:  My darling old Ettie
5: 
6:  Tomorrow will be your birthday. I shall think of you. I felt the first
7:  day I came to see mother when you & Effie were in the back room as if
8:  something was troubling you very much. Your life is so full of cares &
9:  sorrows which you must bear quite alone.
10: 
11:  The little mother looks just wonderful to me dear, so free from all
12:  that swelling about the face & eyes. I cannot help feeling that she is
13:  very much freer from suffering that she used to be, though as you say,
14:  in a way, weaker.
15: 
16:  I’m so glad dear Will spoke to me about your care for mother in the
17:  way he did. It’s so beautiful to me to know that we all realize, not
18:  alone what you are doing for the little mother but for all of us in
19:  taking care of her. Please send me John’s address, I’ve forgotten
20:  it. Good bye my darling. You seem to me to grow
21: 
22:  ^more & more beautiful as you grow older.^
23: 
24:  Your little sis Olive

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/62
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Telegram
Letter Date	11 September 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To	The Highlands, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 11 September 1903, 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 telegram, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date and place this telegram was sent from are provided by the official stamps.

1:  From Olive
2:  To Lewis
3:  Highlands
4:  Gardens
5:  Cape Town
6: 
7:  Except wire of last Friday have heard nothing from you and Will
8:  letters must have miscarried
9: 
10: 
11: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/63
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday 11 September 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 11 September 1903, 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 of this letter has been written on in an unknown hand.

1:  Hanover
2:  Friday
3: 
4:  My darling Ettie
5: 
6:  I sent you a wire this morning telling you I had had no news from you
7:  or Will or any one in Cape Town since the wire I got from you & Will
8:  ^sent^ on Friday afternoon a week ago today & which I received on
9:  Saturday morning. I would have left at once had in reached me on
10:  Friday night I unreadable ^would^ then have left by the Friday nights
11:  train & have reached Cape Town on Sunday morning As it was I could
12:  only start on Saturday night reaching Cape Town on Monday too late. I
13:  know darling, that you could not wait otherwise you would have waited
14:  till I came.
15: 
16:  I told them to send all letters to me at Bloemfontein, & as
17:  Bloemfontein is only 9 hours from this the letters that came here on
18:  Monday morning would have been sent on to me & I would have got them
19:  on Tuesday in Bloemfontein. The Tuesday post came & no letter or wire.
20:  The Wednesday post the Thursdays post! The late Thursdays post brought
21:  me a letter card which showed everyday you had written as it contains
22:  no news, only mentioned that it was too dark at Maitland & were going
23:  the next morning, I suppose to have a photograph taken. I got back
24:  here this morning early, & asked at the office whether letters had
25:  come. They said, yes, on Monday & Tuesday & had been sent on at once
26:  to Bloemfontein. I have of course written & wired at once but I doubt
27:  whether I shall ever get them. I got no letters while there a note
28:  Cron wrote me from Pretoria was also not delivered though it contained
29:  only a word saying ye when he was coming to Bloemfontein. Perhaps if
30:  you know any high official there, or the postmaster general & you
31:  wrote asking that they might be returned to me they might be. I have
32:  looked at all the papers I could get, but have seen nothing telling me
33:  whether she died suddenly, or had been ill, nor even mentioned the
34:  funeral; & to feel sure you had written made it harder to wait from
35:  post to post.
36: 
37:  Good bye my darling. ^Did you get my letter^
38:  Olive
39: 
40:  ^I think if you wrote to the Administrator in Bloemfontein & asked him
41:  to see you your letters were returned he he would give orders to the
42:  postmaster or censor. Send this to Will, as he may have written to me.^
43: 
44: 
45: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/64
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Monday 14 September 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 14 September 1903, 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.

1:  Hanover
2:  Sep 14th 1903
3:  Monday night
4: 
5:  My darling
6: 
7:  I got today your note of Saturday today dear. I can’t make out from
8:  it dear if either you or Will found time to drop me a line on Friday
9:  ^the^ 4th Saturday the 5th or Sunday the 6th. In any case I have not got
10:  the lines & am not likely ever to get them as all letter coming for me
11:  from the colony were not allowed to reach me in the Free State. The
12:  post master here says he redirected several to me that arrived here on
13:  Monday & must have been posted on Friday the 4th or Saturday the 5th
14:  in Cape Town.
15: 
16:  If none of you found time to drop me a line I shall quite understand
17:  it, my darling. For me I feel stupefied & can’t write to any one.
18:  Don’t try to write me a long letter darling just answer the
19:  following questions
20: 
21:  1) Was Mother’s death quite sudden, or had she been worse for some
22:  days?
23: 
24:  2) Was any one with her & who, at the last moment?
25: 
26:  3) Was it a cold or influenza or simply the heart failing?
27: 
28:  4) Did she know at all she was dying?
29: 
30:  5) Did she suffer much?
31: 
32:  6) Was she buried on ^Sunday^ Saturday, as you stated she would be in
33:  the wire from you & Will?
34: 
35:  7) Were only the family at the funeral, & was it Catholic or
36:  Protestant?
37: 
38:  Just answer these few questions shortly dear. It is eleven days since
39:  she died, & yet except that wire of two lines ^which I got on Saturday
40:  morning^ & your notes about unreadable the photograph I know nothing. I
41:  know how hard it is to write dear, but perhaps if you can’t Arthur
42:  Brown would just a few lines in answer to my 7 questions. The
43:  photographs will be very very precious to me.
44: 
45:  Good bye, my darling.
46:  Your little sister
47:  Olive
48: 
49:  If any of you wrote me a line on Friday ^4th^ or Saturday the 5th or
50:  Sunday the 6th please write to the Authorities at Bloemfontein I have
51:  written & the post master here has written but they have taken no
52:  notice of my letters. Possibly the censor has destroyed them, but they
53:  might mention having done so Both photographs will be very very
54:  precious to me.
55: 
56:  Olive
57: 
58:  I should have come down to Cape Town on Saturday, though I knew I
59:  should be to late, but I couldn’t afford it; of course I should have
60:  come whatever it had cost me if I could have seen her face. I can’t
61:  help thinking it must have come very suddenly at the end because if
62:  you had been expecting it you would have let me know I know.
63: 
64:  I wonder what time in the afternoon mother died: so many times, even
65:  as long ago as at ?Willebury & as lately as at Seymour she has said
66:  about four in the afternoon or five, "Oh this is the time I know I
67:  shall die. I always have such a strange sad feeling at this time."
68: 
69: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/65
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday September 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), September 1903, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Rebecca Schreiner died in September 1903. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Thursday night
2: 
3:  My darling Ettie,
4: 
5:  Thank you for your letter. I haven’t written before because my heart
6:  seems to get so bad if I try to write to any one. I can get through my
7:  house work better.
8: 
9:  I hope you got my wire & letter card all right. If you will let me
10:  know when Wynnie is passing I shall try to be there to meet her & get
11:  the photographs myself. But I shall have to know some time before as
12:  one can’t raise a cart & horses for hire in a minute here. I am so
13:  grateful you had the photos taken. It is strange that on the 2nd of
14:  September I was thinking that I would send down the money to ask you
15:  to have a photographer up take one especially for me.
16: 
17:  I shall try to come down dear, next month October, or early in
18:  November. I should like to see the old room just once as it all was.
19:  Could you keep it so long. I think your plan about the things is very
20:  good, we can see about that when I come. Any of the old things I took
21:  would come back to the grand children Effie & Wyn & Dot or Ursula
22:  because I have no one else to leave them to. There is one thing if I
23:  would like to have if Will will let me ^have it.^ A photograph of Will,
24:  a very good one taken either in Kimberley or Town; it hung in
25:  mother’s little room. I have no photo of Will’s taken during the
26:  last 12 years & I should like to have it so much. I can’t write
27:  about the other old things to night. You might ask Will about the
28:  photograph before he gives it away to some one else, if you see him. I
29:  wish you could have some real rest & change, dear one. I suppose you
30:  will not care really to leave the Highlands before all is over & right
31:  with our little Effie. When that is over you should go away for a real
32:  complete change.
33: 
34:  I am better, I have very little pain, I might almost say none, less
35:  than I have had for years. But I feel so weak, it feels like tiredness,
36:  but no eating & no sleeping makes it any less. I would like to try &
37:  come down next month. My poor old husband ^is having a great deal of
38:  trouble here^. The man who managed his business here has mismanaged it
39:  terribly & I don’t want to leave him just now while he’s so
40:  worried & seems to cling to me (this about the business is private of
41:  course)
42: 
43:  How is Guy’s health dear one & how is Elberty? I think it would be
44:  nice if you went up for a few weeks to John’s farm. Dear old John, I
45:  don’t like him being away up there so far from us all. I am always
46:  afraid of his getting ill & dying almost alone not liking to send for
47:  any of us - & we are all he has.
48: 
49:  I’m so glad I came to Cape Town when I did. I was out walking alone
50:  that Friday evening, & I’d no intention of going to Cape Town, in
51:  fact there were many reasons why I didn’t want to go, & I’d only
52:  been out of bed for two days, & such a feeling came over me that I
53:  must go, & go the next Sunday. Miss Molteno & Miss Greene were so
54:  surprised when I came home to hear of my sudden resolve, & now I feel
55:  it was so right, I am so glad I went. You know Ettie why I knew she
56:  couldn’t live long, the swelling had gone out of the face & it was
57:  so small & bright again & the eye so clear. She looked like she used
58:  to years & years ago. I’m so glad Cron went.
59: 
60:  Good bye dear one
61:  Olive
62: 

Letter Reference	View Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/66
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 October 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891)
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 Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891), 4 October 1903, 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. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Rebecca Schreiner died in September 1903. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.

1:  Hanover
2:  Oct 4 / 03
3: 
4:  It is one month today since the little mother rested.
5: 
6:  How are you, my dear one, & are you well? I’ve had the likenesses two
7:  days & I haven’t been able to write about them. The one is so
8:  unutterably beautiful, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my
9:  life. I keep leaving off my work in the kitchen & about the house &
10:  going into the bedroom to look at it. It fills me with such joy. Not
11:  calm peace, but a thrill of joy that I have hardly ever known for some
12:  years now. Beautiful death. When one reaches our age one leaves off
13:  crying about death, one cries for life – for all the unutterable
14:  suffering our beloveds have gone through, not abut the peace.
15: 
16:  The other pictures are very fine & very beautiful. It is wonderful
17:  that in all her life she should never have had any real likeness taken
18:  till just at the end, & then these some of which are simple striking.
19:  I think in a way the one I love best is the little ?nos one no 3 in
20:  the first ^set^ unreadable with the white cape. It is so sweet. But the
21:  power, the genius, comes out in the big pictures, the wonderful
22:  strength & life: & also in them there is the shadow of coming death! I
23:  did not at first notice what you had written on ^the paper^, them, & I
24:  thought they were the first, & I thought how strange it was that in
25:  the big ones there was the coming shadow so much more plainly. No 1 of
26:  the ?big the ones is the most wonderful of the whole set; but no 2.
27:  where she was looking at you with the half smile is the one I want to
28:  keep always hanging before me. The beautiful glorious picture & the
29:  one of the grave at a distance I am going to have framed & hang just
30:  at the foot of my bed. The other one taken afterwards, I dare not ?let
31:  look at, I value it very much, if but there are the traces of pain in
32:  the face, something that cuts me to the quick: in years to come I
33:  shall look at it if I am here, but now I can’t. Don’t you think no 3
34:  of the first set very sweet? The little group where you four are
35:  together is very precious. The shadow of what was coming was on the
36:  little mothers face then, for all the eyes are so bright & large. But
37:  oh, it’s a ^beautiful shadow.^ - "how I praise the that are dead more
38:  than the living."
39: 
40:  I want to write much more about the pictures but I can’t tonight. Oh
41:  darling, if you could know how sweet that lovely picture is to me. I
42:  slept with the little pillow last night. I always have something under
43:  my left shoulder to keep the pressure off the side. I think she would
44:  have liked to
45: 
46:  ^know I used it.
47: 
48:  Good bye my own sweet darling
49:  Olive^
50: 
51:  ^Don’t ask Will about the photo. I fancy it’s the very one that comes
52:  in the photograph & he might like to keep it himself. I only thought
53:  he might be giving it away to someone else.^
54: