"Heart dying up last 5 or 6 years, 'Soul of a People' like rain falling on dry parched soil" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Jessie Rose Innes MSC 26/2.6.10 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | After Start: Thursday October 1920 ; Before End: November 1920 |
| Address From | Oak Hall, Wynburg, Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Jessie Rose Innes nee Dods Pringle |
| Other Versions | |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Project is grateful to the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. A typed transcript only of this letter is available; the original cannot be traced. The date has been written on the letter in an unknown hand.
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1
Oak Hall
2 Tramway Terminus
3 Wynburg
4 Thursday
5
6 Dear Jessie, I'm so glad to think you've come back again. I hope
7you've had a good time up in Pretoria. I am staying here now, as this
8is the only place in the whole of Cape Town & suburbs I have been able
9to find.
10
11 When do (you) expect Dorothy? I am looking forward so much to seeing
12her. Have you & Sir James read a book called "The Rising Tide of
13Colour", by Stoddard? I disagree with him entirely as to the absolute
14inferiority of African races. But there is much truth in his views in
15the first part of the book as to the race suicide of this war as
16regards white races.
17
18 Things seem to me very bad out here. I am much distressed about the
19native question. I feel I made the mistake of my life in coming out
20here. But now I am here I can't go back. All is so changed, all or
21almost all one's old friends gone. One clings the closer to the few
22that are left.
23
24 You will be sorry to hear that Anna Purcell's sister Joey Smuts has to
25undergo a terrible operation today. Oh in a world with so much
26physical anguish in it why need we torture & hate each other.
27
28 Life is so short, there's only time for loving & helping in it.
29
30 Good bye dear
31 Olive
32
33 I lunched with the Charles Moltenos yesterday to meet the Goodenoughs:
34they are charming people. She's a cousin of Bertrand Russell's. I was
35delighted to find that dear old Charley Molteno takes a very
36enlightened view of the native question.
37
38
39
2 Tramway Terminus
3 Wynburg
4 Thursday
5
6 Dear Jessie, I'm so glad to think you've come back again. I hope
7you've had a good time up in Pretoria. I am staying here now, as this
8is the only place in the whole of Cape Town & suburbs I have been able
9to find.
10
11 When do (you) expect Dorothy? I am looking forward so much to seeing
12her. Have you & Sir James read a book called "The Rising Tide of
13Colour", by Stoddard? I disagree with him entirely as to the absolute
14inferiority of African races. But there is much truth in his views in
15the first part of the book as to the race suicide of this war as
16regards white races.
17
18 Things seem to me very bad out here. I am much distressed about the
19native question. I feel I made the mistake of my life in coming out
20here. But now I am here I can't go back. All is so changed, all or
21almost all one's old friends gone. One clings the closer to the few
22that are left.
23
24 You will be sorry to hear that Anna Purcell's sister Joey Smuts has to
25undergo a terrible operation today. Oh in a world with so much
26physical anguish in it why need we torture & hate each other.
27
28 Life is so short, there's only time for loving & helping in it.
29
30 Good bye dear
31 Olive
32
33 I lunched with the Charles Moltenos yesterday to meet the Goodenoughs:
34they are charming people. She's a cousin of Bertrand Russell's. I was
35delighted to find that dear old Charley Molteno takes a very
36enlightened view of the native question.
37
38
39
Notation
The book referred to is: Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (1920) The Rising Tide of Colour Against White World-Supremacy New York: Blue Ribbon Books.
The book referred to is: Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (1920) The Rising Tide of Colour Against White World-Supremacy New York: Blue Ribbon Books.