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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Mary Sauer MSC 26/2.11.109
ArchiveNational Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date3 April 1897
Address FromGrand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToMary Sauer nee Cloete
Other VersionsRive 1987: 308-9
PermissionsPlease 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.
1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Riviera
4 Italy
5 April 3rd 1897
6
7 Darling Mary
8
9 I was so glad to get your letter. It was a misfortune that we should
10have missed each other. I am here again at my old quarters in Alassio.
11We went to Rome & Naples & Amalfi but I was too ill to stay there. The
12doctor sent me up here & I'm getting better I think. But I'm not yet
13able to work & there are my two articles all ready written just
14waiting to be revised. I wanted to bring them out so much soon because
15I thought they might be of a little use just now. I'm so hopeless
16about South African affairs, not even because war now seems imminent,
17but because commercialism seems to have eaten all the heart out of our
18people Dutch & English alike.
19
20 Have not Graham Boner & Newton come out miserably? Write & tell me
21what you can of the way things out out there.
22
23 Yours ever & ever
24 Olive
25
26 Cron sends his love. He has been so wonderfully good to since I was
27ill here. He's a splendid old fellow. The longer one lives with him
28the more one admires & looks up to him. He's never afraid, never
29morally a coward. Do you know when I was in London some people came to
30see me, expressed the greatest sympathy with my views &c & I know felt
31it - but because they were afraid of the Rhodes party & what they
32might do to injure them, as good as begged me not to mention they had
33been. It seems to me that when men or women get to that point, at
34which they are afraid to be seen speaking with whom they would, & are
35afraid of of ask whom they would to their houses, it is best they
36should end existence itself in some expeditious way: life can't be
37worth living any more.
38
39 O.S
40
Notation
RivE's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.