"Been to Women's International Federation meeting, woman in street says 'traitor meeting'" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Mary Sauer MSC 26/2.11.95
ArchiveNational Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1 July 1895
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToMary Sauer nee Cloete
Other VersionsRive 1987: 253-4
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 The Homestead
2 Kimberley
3 July 1st 1895.
4
5 Dear sweet old Mary
6
7 We got back at midday today, & I am glad to be here again, though the
8change has made a new person of me in health; & every one has been so
9sweet & good to me. I think every person who is not very happy ought
10to have three months quite alone, before they go about among their
11friends, like the three months of mourning the Greeks used to have.
12Because you cannot talk of what you are feeling; & it is so impossible
13to forget & throw yourself into the life of your surroundings as you
14ought to, & can after a certain time.
15
16 I felt as if some of my friends could understand what great efforts I
17was making to talk & be lively. I am turning out all the house today,
18& tomorrow am going to set to my work, which seems the only thing I
19care for now. I haven't written to Mrs Salt nor any of my English
20friends except a card to Carpenter & Mrs Philpot about anything. I get
21Cron to write. He's much better for his change & has gone into
22Kimberley to arrange about a political meeting they are going to hold
23soon.
24
25 It is lovely weather now here quite warm in the sun. They say fever is
26very prevalent in Kimberley, but we have had none out here. It's so
27lovely to get out under the thorn trees in the velt.
28
29 Good bye dear. It's so nice to see how your children are developing &
30improving. Dorothy seems to me a hundred times sweeter that she used
31to be. Cron would I know send greetings to you & Mr Sauer if he were in.
32
33 Thine ever,
34 Olive
35
36 I know I didn't seem nice when I was in Cape Town but you don't know
37how I tried & didn't succeed.
38
39
40
Notation
The political meeting Schreiner mentions was connected with her writing The Political Situation ? see her letter to Mary Sauer of Monday August 1895 (MSC 26/2.11.96). Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.