"Great is silence, time for silence, time for speech" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceLetters/353
Archive
Epistolary Type
Letter Date26 May 1889
Address FromMedina Villas, Brighton, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToHavelock Ellis
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 164
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
When Cronwright-Schreiner prepared The Letters of Olive Schreiner, with few exceptions he then destroyed her originals. However, some people gave him copies and kept the originals or demanded the return of these; and when actual Schreiner letters can be compared with his versions, his have omissions, distortions and bowdlerisations. Where Schreiner originals have survived, these will be found in the relevant collections across the OSLO website. There is however a residue of some 587 items in The Letters for which no originals are extant. They are included here for sake of completeness. However, their relationship to Schreiners actual letters cannot now be gauged, and so they should be read with caution for the reasons given.
1To Havelock Ellis.
2Medina Villas, West Brighton, 26th May.
3
4I don't think genius is at all less common among women than men,
5rather more so. What they lack is the strong controlling impersonal
6reason
behind the genius. Mrs. Browning had just as much of the genius
7element as Browning, rather more. She was all genius. But she lacks
8his powerful reason and his massive strength, which has nothing to do
9with genius, therefore she is as compared with Browning as valuable as
10a little finger compared to a whole body. How many women writers there
11are at the present day with a touch of genius but so pitifully small!
12The genius is all right in Ouida, Miss Mulock, etc., but the intellect
13is wanting.
14