"Act now against Rhodes or life-long regret" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner MSC 26/2.16/28 |
Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
Epistolary Type | Extract |
Letter Date | 18 October 1898 |
Address From | Johannesburg, Transvaal |
Address To | |
Who To | S.C. (‘Cron’) Cronwright-Schreiner |
Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 225 |
Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
Legend |
The Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner were produced by Cronwright-Schreiner in preparing The Life and The Letters of Olive Schreiner. They appear on slips of paper in his writing, taken from letters that were then destroyed; many of these extracts have also been edited by him. They are artefacts of his editorial practices and their relationship to original Schreiner letters cannot now be gauged. They should be read with considerable caution for the reasons given. Cronwright-Schreiner has written the date, where it was sent from and the place it was sent to onto this extract, and also, regarding Olive Schreiner’s comment, ‘That is a great cl claim but it is a just claim.’ Schreiner’s comment concerns Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. There are some differences between this transcription and the version that appears in The Letters....
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…When you look at my hand when I am dead, you will be able to think
2that that had hand never set one dot or one stroke on paper f for the
3sake of money, and that, of all I have given to the world (poor as it
4is), there is not one word that stands there, which, if it had been in
5my power to better it, would not have been bettered. If I feel I have
6not expressed the exact truth that is in me in any line or sentence or
7book, it shall be destroyed. I will not give it out…
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2that that had hand never set one dot or one stroke on paper f for the
3sake of money, and that, of all I have given to the world (poor as it
4is), there is not one word that stands there, which, if it had been in
5my power to better it, would not have been bettered. If I feel I have
6not expressed the exact truth that is in me in any line or sentence or
7book, it shall be destroyed. I will not give it out…
8
9
10