Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box7/Fold4/Mar-Dec1920/33
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	5 November 1920
Address From	Oak Hall, Wynburg, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To	9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Who To	Betty Molteno
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Betty Molteno, 5 November 1920, 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. Schreiner was resident at Oak Hall, Wynburg, from late October 1920 to her death on 11 December 1920.

1:  Oct Nov 5th 1920
2: 
3:  My darling darling Betty
4: 
5:  Oh how I wish you were here: all this trouble with the poor natives
6:  makes me long for you so You wouldn’t have the difficulty I have in
7:  finding a room because you need not be quite on the tram line, but I
8:  must be as I can’t walk.
9: 
10:  Oh Betty why did I come out? I have made many mistakes in my life -
11:  but this is the greatest of all there is so much one ought to do now,
12:  & I can’t do it. I would like to go out about among the natives &
13:  really try to enter into touch with them I wish your dear brother
14:  Percy was coming out He would be such a power for good here. I wonder
15:  what Margaret feels on the native question. I was told by some one
16:  yesterday that quantities of guns & ammunition are always being landed
17:  here now. This union of the Unionist with Smuts & the South African
18:  Party bodes no good for South Africa. How I long to see dear Mrs
19:  Murray & May & Freddie. I have not met one human being who feels at
20:  all on the native question as I do. I could not join the Nationalist
21:  because of their narrow racialism. They are just at narrow or narrower
22:  than the English If I could have got a nice airy room here, I think I
23:  should have got well & perhaps been able to write but I suffocate in
24:  my tiny room with the sun blazing in to it. Sometimes when I wake in
25:  the morning I am almost miserable. I am still trying every where to
26:  get a better. Good bye my darling. I’ve not seen Ursie since I came
27:  here, or Fan except once for a few minutes. But its not the loneliness
28:  I mind. Its that I’m no use to any one. I’m just spending Crons
29:  money & doing no good.
30: 
31:  Olive
32: 
33:  ^The little yellow coat you gave me is such a comfort to me. It is the
34:  only cool thing I have I wear it all the time ^
35: 
36:  Olive
37: 
38: 
39: