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| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner BC16/Box1/Fold3/1896/21 |
| Archive | University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | 18 July 1896 |
| Address From | The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Betty Molteno |
| Other Versions | Rive 1987: 287-8 |
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, 18 July 1896, 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. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898.
1:
Dear Friend Am not thinking of coming down for the show now. Cron
2: returned yesterday from Cradock where he had been for ten days.
3:
4:
No, I don’t distress my self about things. I seem to have no feeling
5: left. Hardly about anything. The way they are hounding the Mashonas
6: for what they call murder, - i.e. for killing people in time of war -
7: is to me far more terrible than anything that is happening in the
8: Colony. But I feel I am powerless. The English people are given up to
9: their lust for gold & ^Empire & there is nothing left to appeal to.^
10:
11:
It doesn’t even help me at all to think that in fifty years time all
12: this injustice will be terribly paid for in white man’s blood. Why
13: should poor innocent folk still unborn pay for the evil deeds of men
14: living now! "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they exceeding
15: small" – yes, but they grind so slowly that the men who put the
16: poisoned corn in at the top, are not the men who get the poisoned
17: flour out at the other end & die of eating it! The terrible thing
18: about evil, lust, cruelty, injustice, greed, is that they keep
19: begetting themselves just as good keeps begetting itself.
20:
21:
Good bye dear.
22:
Olive
23:
24:
25:
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.
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