Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box5/Fold2/1913/37
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday 12 September 1913
Address From	De Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	William Philip ('Will') Schreiner
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to William Philip ('Will') Schreiner, 12 September 1913, 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:  Thursday
2:  Sept 12th 1913
3: 
4:  Private
5: 
6:  My dear old Man
7: 
8:  It was good to see the dear old face for a moment Saturday will be a
9:  sad day for you seeing the last our boy for a time. It would be nice
10:  if you could come to Europe next year. Can’t you?
11: 
12:  As to my going, dear. It is just like you to have want to let me have
13:  the money dear. Now my plan is this. You will see from the enclosed
14:  letter that Cron has offered to pay my passage there & back so I have
15:  only to provide for living expenses & Drs & cures for the year. I
16:  shall so have to be away for a year & two months at least not getting
17:  back here till the March of the next year because I can’t try the
18:  Nauheim cure till the ^English^ summer as it doesn’t, nor do most
19:  other cures work in winter; & it would be madness for me to come back
20:  at the beginning of the African summer to undo at once any little good
21:  I may have got.
22: 
23:  I have sold the copy-right of my Dreams & Dreamlife & Real life, &
24:  have not enough to pay for all expenses that may arise; (I may sink
25:  into Etties last state & have a year or more of dying ^very unreadable^)
26:  so I would be glad of £200 pounds to set my mind at rest. My living
27:  expenses when I am used to live in England came to nearly £100 a year
28:  including dress &c – & I shan’t be able to do it for less now I am
29:  not so well, & can’t live as I always did in a little room doing my
30:  own cooking – I may have to go to cheap hotels & boarding houses –
31:  & the doctors & cures run into money so dreadfully that they will cost
32:  another £100. With £200 I ought to do well.
33: 
34:  Now I can’t borrow the money from you as a pretense when I know I
35:  might die & you lose it. You have to work much to hard darling, at an
36:  age & in a condition of health in which you ought to be able to retire
37:  & give yourself up to Politics or anything that pleased you free of
38:  care.
39: 
40:  What I propose is this I have an MS the Prelude of my big novel. I
41:  have been offered £300 for it & refused it because I always have had
42:  a hope I might be able to get better & finish my novel. But its quite
43:  complete in itself. If I die there will be a boom in me & my writings
44:  for a little time as there always is, & you will get more than £300
45:  for it. Will you let me send it to you, you drawing up a little
46:  business like document saying I have given it to you, to be published
47:  after my death. or when But that if before my death I am able to
48:  return the £200 & want it to print with my novel you will return it
49:  to me. If after my death it fetches more than £200 divide the money
50:  give the money for a little scholarship for girls at the South African
51:  College. I would, a prize for the best essay on English literature for
52:  example. Will you let me have the £200 on these terms. I shall not
53:  want all all the money at once you can give me £50 when I sail in
54:  December; & send the rest when you hear from me that I’ve got safely
55:  over the voyage.
56: 
57:  I know dear old Pethick Lawrence & other of my friends would let me
58:  have the money at once, but I would rather take it from you. You are
59:  quite mistaken dear in thinking I am such a hard, proud person I
60:  won’t take help from others. I don’t think I’ve ever refused
61:  help in my life when it was freely offered me. But with you dear one I
62:  feel you are too generous. Everyone comes to you for help, & you would
63:  give less to others because you had helped me – if it were so & you
64:  wouldn’t lose by it I wouldn’t mind at all just taking the money
65:  without any surety of its being return. The world seems rather sharply
66:  divided between two sorts of people – the people ready to sacrifice
67:  everything to their fellow men & not who ought to be defended against
68:  themselves – & the people who never will do anything for others
69:  though they can & ought.
70: 
71:  Oct 15th. 1913
72:  Dear I began this letter a month ago, but I have not sent it because
73:  I’ve been so ill it has seemed impossible to me I should ever need
74:  the money. I don’t feel myself any great hope of treatment doing me
75:  any good – my heart alone they might easily benefit, but my lungs
76:  are getting worse & worse, & that is hopeless. My friend Emily
77:  Hobhouse has been practically cured by that man Carloni in Florence, &
78:  she had a much enlarged heart & arterio-schlerosis of all the arteries
79:  especially the aorta as I have. But her lungs are perfectly sound. My
80:  lungs are completely broken down & hardened by the left-lung asthma.
81:  The doctors here say I am not breathing with my left lung at all, &
82:  only with part of my right. Through these lungs the heart has to force
83:  the blood & I don’t see how anything can really be done. If I had a
84:  place in Africa that suited me as Blauberg suited Ettie I would just
85:  stay on quietly here in Africa & wait for the end, but I have no where
86:  to go. I have never recovered from my last years stay at Muizenberg.
87:  My lungs have been much worse ever since. I feel I want to go to
88:  Europe especially if the end is coming because there are nursing homes
89:  & places where I can stay & trouble no one. I don’t see what is to
90:  become of me in this country.
91: 
92:  Forgive this long letter; but I want to explain. Pethick Lawrence says
93:  I must cable to him when I leave, & he or his wife will be waiting
94:  ready to take me on to Italy when I land in England. I shall only stay
95:  three or perhaps 4 days in England to see Mackenzie & other
96:  specialists. I fee fear I shall not see our children as they will be
97:  away on their holiday. I am going to sail on the Edinburgh Castle on
98:  the 6th of December.
99: 
100:  Good bye my dear old brother. If Carloni does me any good at Florence
101:  you must come & try him. Your lungs are still sound & he might cure
102:  you. Florence would be a much nicer place to go to than Nauheim. Quite
103:  the most lovely city in the world except Rome.
104: 
105:  Your good for nothing little sister
106:  Olive
107: 
108:  I wouldn’t pretend to borrow the money from you. If I couldn’t
109:  give you a surety I would rather just ask you to give it me.
110: 

Notation
The 'big novel' referred to is From Man to Man.