"Am going to meet Rhodes, more solitary in this country than you can conceive" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Smuts A1/194/9/62 |
| Archive | National Archives Repository, Pretoria |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | 1911 |
| Address From | na |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Isie Smuts nee Krige |
| Other Versions | |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
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1
Darling Isie
2
3 I can’t come: it’s a bitter disappointment to me. I’ve got all I
4want to say ready in my head, but it’s no use. I shouldn’t be able
5to go & speak & I don’t feel well enough to write it out. I don’t
6know when I have felt anything such a disappointment but one must take
7things as they come in life. But oh Isie, it is hard to want to do so
8much & be able to do so little.
9
10 Good bye dear.
11
12 Thanks for your loving wish to have me with.
13
14 Love to you & the children & neef Jan - if he doesn’t think someone
15who loves niggers & Indians & all sorts of people is worth having love
16from! One has to love the people who you think are weak & may need you.
17
18 Your Auntie
19 Olive
20
21 Sunday.
22 Cron is leaving tomorrow night for Pretoria. I dare say the change up
23would do me good, I always get better as soon as I travel, but I
24can’t spend the money just for a few day’s pleasure, & I can’t
25use the free pass when I know I won’t be able to speak.
26
27
28
29
2
3 I can’t come: it’s a bitter disappointment to me. I’ve got all I
4want to say ready in my head, but it’s no use. I shouldn’t be able
5to go & speak & I don’t feel well enough to write it out. I don’t
6know when I have felt anything such a disappointment but one must take
7things as they come in life. But oh Isie, it is hard to want to do so
8much & be able to do so little.
9
10 Good bye dear.
11
12 Thanks for your loving wish to have me with.
13
14 Love to you & the children & neef Jan - if he doesn’t think someone
15who loves niggers & Indians & all sorts of people is worth having love
16from! One has to love the people who you think are weak & may need you.
17
18 Your Auntie
19 Olive
20
21 Sunday.
22 Cron is leaving tomorrow night for Pretoria. I dare say the change up
23would do me good, I always get better as soon as I travel, but I
24can’t spend the money just for a few day’s pleasure, & I can’t
25use the free pass when I know I won’t be able to speak.
26
27
28
29
Notation
What Schreiner had not 'written out' was a paper for a congress in Johannesburg or Pretoria; from content it was pwerhaps a women's congress with Isie Smuts involved in an organizational capacity.
What Schreiner had not 'written out' was a paper for a congress in Johannesburg or Pretoria; from content it was pwerhaps a women's congress with Isie Smuts involved in an organizational capacity.