"Dube, Gandhi" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner MSC 26/2.16/389 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Extract |
| Letter Date | After Start: 13 May 1907 ; Before End: 14 May 1907 |
| Address From | Hanover, Northern Cape |
| Address To | De Aar, Northern Cape |
| Who To | S.C. (‘Cron’) Cronwright-Schreiner |
| Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 267-8 |
| 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. There are some differences between this transcription and the version that appears in The Letters….
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1
…I hear from Miss Viljoen that a lion killed a man at Oppermans
2Kraal yesterday; a Kaffir herd. His head & legs have been found. I’m
3going to hear the truth from Wilson tomorrow. The man who was walking
4with the man who was eaten says the lion had a bit of chain round its
5neck, so he has evidently escaped from somewhere. He says the lion
6kept roaring after him as long as he was in sight. It’s a curious
7story. Oppermans Kraal adjoins the ?Commonage, I believe. Fortunately
8the lion didn’t turn his walk this way yesterday afternoon & find
9you & me among the kopjes… I went over to Mr Burger’s to hear if
10the lion story was true. It turns out that two men said they saw a
11lion; there’s no one dead… But there is some truly Hanoverian news.
12 Coming out of church last night… and… had a stand up fight,
13banging & striking each other in the face!!! Some people ran away when
14they saw them fighting, some stayed to see the end. They say there is
15to be a Court case tomorrow. Don’t say a word about this at De Aar
16till it gets there by other means. What terrible things these young
17Boer girls are. The lowes lowest servant girls in England would hardly
18fall to such depths. The only persons who can really cope with them
19are people of their own class. The quarrel was about some man, really,
20I believe, but they fought about clothes at the end!! One would object
21in England to take women with the faces & manners, say, of the Miss…
22yet here, because of their money, you have them calling on you! It is
23this little smattering of education that ruins them, but they must
24pass through this stage phase to reach a higher. I suppose it really
25is because one never has to do with the same class of persons in
26England that they seem so terrible. I expect the costers’ daughters
27fight just that way about their ‘young‘ men: But one never seas
28sees them or knows them…
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2Kraal yesterday; a Kaffir herd. His head & legs have been found. I’m
3going to hear the truth from Wilson tomorrow. The man who was walking
4with the man who was eaten says the lion had a bit of chain round its
5neck, so he has evidently escaped from somewhere. He says the lion
6kept roaring after him as long as he was in sight. It’s a curious
7story. Oppermans Kraal adjoins the ?Commonage, I believe. Fortunately
8the lion didn’t turn his walk this way yesterday afternoon & find
9you & me among the kopjes… I went over to Mr Burger’s to hear if
10the lion story was true. It turns out that two men said they saw a
11lion; there’s no one dead… But there is some truly Hanoverian news.
12 Coming out of church last night… and… had a stand up fight,
13banging & striking each other in the face!!! Some people ran away when
14they saw them fighting, some stayed to see the end. They say there is
15to be a Court case tomorrow. Don’t say a word about this at De Aar
16till it gets there by other means. What terrible things these young
17Boer girls are. The lowes lowest servant girls in England would hardly
18fall to such depths. The only persons who can really cope with them
19are people of their own class. The quarrel was about some man, really,
20I believe, but they fought about clothes at the end!! One would object
21in England to take women with the faces & manners, say, of the Miss…
22yet here, because of their money, you have them calling on you! It is
23this little smattering of education that ruins them, but they must
24pass through this stage phase to reach a higher. I suppose it really
25is because one never has to do with the same class of persons in
26England that they seem so terrible. I expect the costers’ daughters
27fight just that way about their ‘young‘ men: But one never seas
28sees them or knows them…
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