"Johannesburg, lust for gold, moral decay" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Letters/475 |
Archive | |
Epistolary Type | |
Letter Date | 1908 |
Address From | De Aar, Nothern Cape |
Address To | |
Who To | Emily Hobhouse |
Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 283-4 |
Permissions | Please 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.
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1To Miss E. Hobhouse.
2(Undated.? De Aar, 1908.)
3
4... When my husband comes down for the long session I shall try to
5find some cheap quiet little place in the Eastern Province where I can
6settle down and try to get on with my writing, near Healdtown, the
7great mission station where I loved as a child. Perhaps, if I find
8nice quarters, you could be interested to come for a week or two, and
9see a bit more of our natives.
10
11I am so sick of Party Politics! My friend Havelock Ellis was right
12when he said that after the war South Africa wouldn't for fifty years
13be a place for a civilised man to live in. If it wasn't that I can't
14leave my darling husband, I would take the next steamer for Europe and
15not return till they brought my body back to bury it among the
16mountains where I was so happy as a girl. I do so fully understand how
17Miss Molteno and Miss Greene can't return to this country. I never ask
18them to, much as I long for them.
19
2(Undated.? De Aar, 1908.)
3
4... When my husband comes down for the long session I shall try to
5find some cheap quiet little place in the Eastern Province where I can
6settle down and try to get on with my writing, near Healdtown, the
7great mission station where I loved as a child. Perhaps, if I find
8nice quarters, you could be interested to come for a week or two, and
9see a bit more of our natives.
10
11I am so sick of Party Politics! My friend Havelock Ellis was right
12when he said that after the war South Africa wouldn't for fifty years
13be a place for a civilised man to live in. If it wasn't that I can't
14leave my darling husband, I would take the next steamer for Europe and
15not return till they brought my body back to bury it among the
16mountains where I was so happy as a girl. I do so fully understand how
17Miss Molteno and Miss Greene can't return to this country. I never ask
18them to, much as I long for them.
19