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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold1/Jan-June1899/15
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date19 April 1899
Address From2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who ToBetty Molteno
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
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. The name of the addressee is indicated by salutation and content.
1 2 Primrose Terrace
2 Berea Estate
3 April 19th
4
5 Dear Friend
6
7 We are filled with delight at the news received this morning of your
8brother Charles’s return. Cron says I am to tell you there is n’t
9one man in the house he would have been so sorry to see unseated; & he
10says I am to ask you to ask you whether you can give any news with
11regard to the Port Elizabeth elections &c. Is Searle going to oppose
12Rhodes thought in other ways a progressive? Is he against war with
13Transvaal? What sort of man is Searle? Do you think the feeling in
14favour of Rhodes in Port Elizabeth is as strong as it was?
15
16 Cron met this morning a Dutch Barrister who came of over from Pretoria
17yesterday. He says the feeling there in Government circles is a little
18easier the last few days; their anxiety is always for the Eastern
19Boarder (Natal side) & the Commandants have orders always to be on the
20look out & ready.
21
22 Oh my dear friend, war is a terrible thing: the nearer one comes to it
23the more hideous it seems. We may wake any morning & find the whole of
24South Africa a blaze. I feel so powerless to do anything. I just sit
25here & revise my articles on the woman question, but the day may come
26when I shall feel I must do something. My only hope is that the result
27of these elections may have a salutary effect on Chamberlain.
28
29 Good bye dear. My big love to Miss Green.
30 Olive
31
32
33
Notation
The 'articles on the woman question' were published in the US as two essays on 'Woman'; these were conceived as part of a major theoretical work Schreiner intended to published, but the manuscript of this was destroyed when her Johannesburg house was badly damaged and burned by marauding troops during the South African war; the two articles eventually became Woman and Labour.