Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box11/Fold2/Undated/76
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 1918
Address From	9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To
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, 1918, 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.

1:  9 Porchester Place
2:  Edgware Rd
3:  Tuesday
4: 
5:  My Betty
6: 
7:  I am very anxious about both you & Alice. You said perhaps you would
8:  both come in on Friday evening. I wasn’t a bit anxious when you
9:  didn’t come but on Saturday Hubert told me there had been a
10:  telephone from you to say that Alice had not come!! & that if you were
11:  not here on Saturday evening you would not be here till Monday evening.
12:  He ought of course to have called me down. He didn’t seem very
13:  clear as to the telephone. But I felt sure if Alice had not come to
14:  Town at all that she was ill, & that your telephone meant that you
15:  might be going up to Harsten or Berkhampstead to see her till Monday
16:  night I hoped surely if so there would be a card from you on Monday,
17:  but when Monday night came & there was none I & you did not come I
18:  would have started off to Tavistock Sq at once; but I was not well
19:  enough. I could not even stay at Wills on Sunday I was only there for
20:  an hour & came back.
21: 
22:  I telephoned to Palace Court this afternoon to know if Margaret could
23:  give me any news of you, but the servant explained that Margaret was
24:  gone to Parklands. So I’ve sent a note to Alice to know if she is
25:  all right. I can’t come to Tavistock tomorrow morning as I have to
26:  have a massage but if I’m at all able I'll come in the afternoon to
27:  see if I can find you
28: 
29:  My darling Betty, I would enclose the £8 you left, but I’m afraid
30:  of their being lost at Tavistock Square, as in a big house like that
31:  one never knows who takes letters in where there are so many people.
32: 
33:  You really must to not pay any more here nor keep on your room as you
34:  feel now you can make no use of it you must take the money to get a
35:  nice cosy bedroom & sitting room with attendance, where you can be
36:  really warm & comfortable & I’ll come & have tea with you as often
37:  as I’m able
38: 
39:  You see Betty when you proposed to pay the £3.10 a month towards this
40:  room when we first came here I thought you would really make use of it.
41:  That even if you were out all day attending the meetings & things you
42:  like, that when you came home in the evening you would have a nice
43:  rest by the fire, & you seemed to like your little upstairs room &
44:  being here. Now you do not feel you like it, & you must spend all the
45:  money you have (which is little enough my generous darling) on making
46:  yourself comfortable. Terrible & dark times are coming upon us we
47:  cannot say what will transpire here or in South Africa in even the
48:  next six, even the next four months.
49: 
50:  I shall stay on here till the time comes, which may be in a few
51:  months) when the feeling against Germans is not so strong – not at
52:  all for the comfort of these rooms, but because I should simply be
53:  turned out elsewhere as I have been before. so often. I must stay here
54:  unless Mrs Smith gives me notice.
55: 
56:  You don’t know how much I love you, & how in many ways you seem to
57:  me one of the most lovely & generous natures I have ever met, I rank
58:  you with Con Lytton & my Adela, in a beautiful out goingness of spirit.
59: 
60:  I may be quite wrong, but I don’t believe with you, that this war is
61:  going to produce a glorious new world of freedom & human justice. I
62:  believe it has sent sent Humanity back 300 year in the march towards
63:  light for the next 50 years, I believe, there will be be bloodshed & a
64:  merciless effort on the part of the powerful to crush the weak, & a l
65:  desolation such as earth has not seen since that awful time in the
66:  break up of the diseased Roman Empire. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa,
67:  in America we have not seen the beginning of the terrible things that
68:  are to be. To me it to me, it seems a time when with firm set jaw a
69:  quiet determination one has to face what is to be. I believe Humanity
70:  will recover the ground it has lost, & after three or four thousand
71:  years a world in which justice & freedom rule will exist. I may be
72:  mistaken but I believe this firmly. Believing it I cannot pretend to
73:  believe anything else. I opposed this war because of the evil I
74:  foresaw it would produce for generations to come.
75: 
76:  One must face the future of humanity as bravely & calmly as one must
77:  strive to face ones own shortly coming death, & not to fear There will
78:  always be rare brave souls like Socrates, & Liebknecht & Jesus & Kier
79:  Hardy & ?Jouries who will be killed or die of broken hearts, but
80:  others will rise to take their place, but it will take thousands of
81:  years for the bulk of humanity to develop.
82: 
83:  Good bye my darling Betty. I don’t want you to hold my views, hold
84:  your own each soul ^must make its own path.
85: 
86:  Olive^
87: 
88:  ^9 Porchester Place ^
89:  Edgware Rd
90: 
91: 
92: