"Air raid, a wonderful & impressive thing" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner MSC 26/2.16/491 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Extract |
| Letter Date | 7 June 1909 |
| Address From | Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Address To | De Aar, Northern Cape |
| Who To | S.C. (‘Cron’) Cronwright-Schreiner |
| Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 285 |
| 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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…You know I feel to anything that is oppressed or hurt just exactly
2as I felt to my little baby. I was lying on the bed & thinking of her,
3how I held her after she was dead, & then for the first time I
4realised how absolutely identical any feeling for her was with that I
5feel for anything oppressed. It is a feeling deeper-seated in one’s
6nature than all argument or self-interest. I suppose that those people
7who haven’t got it can understand it. I’m lonely here, but dear
8---- ^Anna^ is coming tomorrow. She & I are going to see a bioscope &
9she is going to sleep with me here in your bed. Isn’t that nice?
10Close personal affection takes the place to me of all spirits &
11amusements & dancing & all the things most people want. I’d rather
12live in a little ganger’s cottage on eight pounds a month all my
13life with someone who loved & wanted me than in a palace with ten
14thousand a year & books & music & travel thrown in...
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2as I felt to my little baby. I was lying on the bed & thinking of her,
3how I held her after she was dead, & then for the first time I
4realised how absolutely identical any feeling for her was with that I
5feel for anything oppressed. It is a feeling deeper-seated in one’s
6nature than all argument or self-interest. I suppose that those people
7who haven’t got it can understand it. I’m lonely here, but dear
8---- ^Anna^ is coming tomorrow. She & I are going to see a bioscope &
9she is going to sleep with me here in your bed. Isn’t that nice?
10Close personal affection takes the place to me of all spirits &
11amusements & dancing & all the things most people want. I’d rather
12live in a little ganger’s cottage on eight pounds a month all my
13life with someone who loved & wanted me than in a palace with ten
14thousand a year & books & music & travel thrown in...
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