Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold6/1907/13
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	14 May 1907
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Alice Greene
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 Alice Greene, 14 May 1907, 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:  Hanover
2:  CC
3:  May 14 / 07
4: 
5:  Darling Alice
6: 
7:  I long so to hear from you; & more, to see you. I would write much
8:  longer letters to you & Miss Molteno, but I never feel sure of their
9:  reaching you. Things are going on here just in the old way. The latest
10:  Hanover news is that two leading Hanover young Boer girls, one the
11:  daughter of the richest man here had a stand up fight, they slapped
12:  each other in the face & one was knocked down as they were coming home
13:  from church. It appears the one woman made remarks in the church quite
14:  loud enough to be heard by the other woman & many others in the church
15:  about a feather boa the other young lady had on. The case was to come
16:  before the magistrate tomorrow, but the Dutch Parson is trying to get
17:  the parents to bring it before the church instead. They are not
18:  children; both of them are over twenty. To these pitiful smallnesses
19:  the Boer nation seems to have fallen now It seems as though after the
20:  strain of the war & the pain of being hated, a great terrible mental &
21:  moral reaction & deterioration has set in. It will pass when another
22:  generation rises. But all this has taught me as nothing else could the
23:  evil of war. It is like a cancer that does nothing, but harm. All the
24:  bigotry about their language & their religion with which they used to
25:  be falsely charged before the war is true of them now. Unless you &
26:  Miss Molteno can come back forgetting that the war ever existed –
27:  then you had better never come – only that I long to see your two
28:  beautiful faces so.
29: 
30:  I am getting on a little with my book, I work every minute I’m well
31:  enough.
32: 
33:  I’m still living alone at Hanover & seldom see or speak to any human
34:  being. Cron came over & spent last Sunday with me, & it was so nice to
35:  cook his dinner. I’d not seen him for more than two weeks. He has
36:  taken to playing golf, & I’m so glad it gives him something pleasant
37:  to do when he comes out of office at de Aar, & is doing his health
38:  such good. I wonder if you will be at Cambridge & if you would see my
39:  little niece Dot who is at Newnham. Give my tender love to my sweet
40:  darling old friend if you are with her, & tell her I’m going to
41:  write her a long letter on the woman question. She does write so
42:  strangely about it, perhaps I don’t understand, (but I always do
43:  understand her about almost every thing, & agree with her too!) I
44:  wonder if you have the same view?
45: 
46:  Good bye darling one; I would tell you more about myself, only I
47:  haven’t anything to tell.
48:  Olive
49: 

Notation
The 'little book' Schreiner was 'getting on a little with' was From Man to Man.