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Letter ReferenceHRC/OliveSchreinerLetters/OS-JohnHodgson/89
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: Wednesday April 1917 ; Before End: June 1920
Address From9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To
Who ToJohn Hodgson
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.
19 Porchester Place
2Wednesday
3
4Dear John
5
6Yes, it was indeed an experience you had!
7
8Do you know such a funny thing happened. When I said good bye to you,
9after I was in the bus, I had such a feeling about you as I’ve never
10had before. You seem such a jolly, bright strong person to me, that
11you never call out my more sympathetic side. But after I got into the
12bus I had the feeling I hadn’t thanked you enough for the pleasant
13time I’d had in the theatre, a sort of gentle motherly feeling that I
14never have to you. If anything had happened to you I should have said
15it was prophetic, a sort of consciousness some evil was coming to you!
16Im not superstitious but I’m sure I should always have felt it was a
17kind of prophesising of what was to come.
18
19I got to my brother’s all right, & just as we’d finished supper & gone
20to sit round the fire the bombs came. It was no use my trying to go
21while the raid was on, as no buses were running, & after it was over I
22couldn’t get one, so I had to sleep on the sofa in the drawingroom. I
23hope you have felt no permanent bad effects from the shock. With the
24strongest nerves, a thing like that might upset one for a time. It was
25as bad as it could have been without being the worst. I’m so glad you
26were not cut by the glass.
27
28Give my love to Joan & tell her how much I congratulate her on your
29es-cape. I suppose we shall have many more raids during the coming week.
30
31Your loving small Aunt,
32Olive
33
34The girls acting was splendid in the play. The play itself isn’t even
35true to life. No woman ever yet was attracted to a man to whom she
36hadn’t given herself by his striking her & acting in that brutal
37manner. After she was his wife & felt she could not es-cape from him,
38many a weak woman are ^would be^ intimidated & crushed by a man’s
39physical cruelty – never before In real life she would either have
40killed him or herself, & any how would never have gone to him.
41