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Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/1
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date29 September 1886
Address FromThe Convent, Harrow, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1897: 105
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner lived in the Convent in Harrow from late May to the end of September 1896.
1 Dear E.C.
2
3 I’ve been ill for some time & your book has been more help & comfort
4to me than ever before. I thought you’d like to know. There are
5times when one doesn’t realize what a help one has been to others, &
6feels sad, & then if ever you feel like that I’d like you to know
7what a help you’ve been to me.
8
9 I’m moving into town in a few days to see if I can’t get better
10there & I’ll let you have my address when I’m settled so that if
11you come I may perhaps see you.
12
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15
16
17
Notation
'Your book' refers to: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/2
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date13 January 1887
Address FromHotel Roth, Clarens, Geneva, Switzerland
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 118-9
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hotel Roth
2 Clarens
3 Lake of Geneva
4 Jan 13th 1887
5
6 Dear Edward Carpenter
7
8 I’ve heard that K. Pearson is all right so don’t trouble to
9enquire.
10
11 It is all wonderfully white & peaceful here. One seems to feel that
12not only the tiny problems of one’s own small life, but the great
13world problems will be well solved at last when one looks at it all.
14They have real, "live" stars here that twinkle like at the Cape,
15almost, but this sky isn’t like ours.
16
17 My work seems pressing on me so, it almost crushes me. If I could get
18away among the mountains, & be quite alone I feel as if I could
19grapple with it. I mean to do that in the Spring. The question of sex
20is so very complex, & you cannot treat it adequately at all unless you
21show its complexity. Complex as our labour question would be to
22^problem is^ & difficult to embody in any form of art, I feel it would
23be far more simple than this. I sometimes in my moments of weakness
24feel inclined to leave it ^the sex question^ & turn to the other problem
25which is always drawing me; but if one once turned aside from the work
26one felt to be one’s own and took another before the time came, one
27would be lost. It would be as if a great iron weight had rolled off me
28if I had once said what I have to say. unreadable
29
30 Yes, Ellis has a strange reserved spirit. The tragedy of his life is
31that the outer man gives no expression to the won-derful beautiful
32soul in him, which now & then flashes out on you when you come near
33him. In some ways he has the noblest nature of any human being I know.
34
35 I am ashamed of the letters I wrote you the other day, but I’ve been
36very weak & ill, with no power of self-repression left. You won’t
37mind?
38
39 Olive
40
41
42
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/3
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date11 April 1887
Address FromGrand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 124-5
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Italy
4 April 11 / 87
5
6 Dear Edward Carpenter
7
8 Your card was forwarded me here. Thankyou for your the paper. All
9socialist news is of intense interest, & I hear none.
10
11 //I want to know about the book, & also I want to repeat my suggestion
12that you should reprint in the form of a leaflet that page in Towards
13Dem. called Have Faith, for the use of those in physical suffering
14especially.
15
16 I cannot tell you how valuable that first section of Have Faith is. So
17exceedingly common place as it seems in one sense, it puts better than
18is put anywhere else to my knowledge that profound & all comforting
19truth of the compensation that underlies life. Please do this.
20
21 You must have had a good time at Sheffield with Mrs Wilson & ?Krop.
22There are times when I feel a longing for human intercourse & sympathy,
23 but it is best I should be alone.
24
25 When I have earned 40 pounds I am going to buy a tiny cottage
26somewhere in Switzerland with a garden & live there. I know by
27experience what that life means, how much of freedom & joy. It’s
28usually true how in such a life one almost has to give up animal food
29because one can’t kill the things!!
30
31 I am able to work again. It is very splendid. I was ill at Mendrisio,
32I thought I should not get well again, but I am all right now. Are you
33well? I would like in your letters a little more about yourself:
34
35 Have you read Karl Pearson’s pamphlet "Sex & Socialism", just
36published? What do you think of it. It expresses most exactly my views
37on the subject except with regard to the state supporting the
38childbearing woman &c.
39
40 Perhaps it’s better you shouldn’t see him just now. We have each
41to fight out our lives alone, we can never intentionally help other
42people, the help comes by accident when it comes.
43 I have not heard anything of him since I left England.
44
45 I don’t think I have anything for the song book. When I make verse
46it is something too irregular to be sung.
47
48 The sun is very glorious here, something so infinitely "smoothing" is
49in this sea & sky, it is as if something was stroking you, but it
50doesn’t touch or help me as Switzerland does. Oh to wake up & see
51the sun rising with a sheen of pink over all the snow fields! It is
52something worth having lived for.
53
54 Why am I having all this rest & pleasure, when you are all in the dark
55fighting
56
57 There is something I thought of last night in bed that I wanted to say
58to you; now I can’t remember it, so this must go without it.
59
60 Yours with love
61 Olive Schreiner
62
63 You are right about the simplification of life, it is not a branch
64question, it is a root question.
65
66 ^We have little shocks of earthquake here every day. I am living in an
67empty Hotel from which every one has fled who could. It is very quiet
68& good for work. I can walk alone on the terrace all day with the sea
69& sunlight.^
70
71
72
Notation
The books referred to are: Karl Pearson (1887) Socialism and Sex London: W. Reeves, later included in his The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of essays and lectures London: T. Fisher Unwin; Edward Carpenter (1888) Chants of Labour London: Swan Sonnenschein. For Carpenter's 'simplification of life' ideas, see Edward Carpenter (1905) The Simplification of Life: From the Writings of Edward Carpenter (ed. Harry Roberts) London: A. Treherne & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/4
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateTuesday 12 April 1887
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 126
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Alassio
2 Italy
3 Tuesday night
4
5 My dear old Friend
6
7 I don’t know why I suddenly want to write to you unless it is that
8there’s a man here, who looks exactly like you, such a nice French
9man with his wife, & I saw him walking up the passage just now. I
10never talk to them but I feel a little thrill of pleasure whenever I
11see him. When you & Oates go to Capri I wish you’d come round this
12way & sleep here a night. I’m nice now, I’m not like I used to be.
13And I’d take you & show you both my ruined church, & you never saw
14any thing so nice. I am sure send you ought. You’ll do much more
15work when you get back for having a little rest. Let me have the song
16book please. I’ll send you my book when it’s done - which will be
17never.
18
19 The little sheep here are so nice & they walk about after their
20shepherds. It seems to me that everything here is so beautiful. The
21sea & sky are such a lovely blue now.
22
23 Edward, do you know I’m beginning to see our Socialist movement much
24more clearly & as a whole since I’m here, & can look at it from a
25distance, & I see many things with regard to it that were not clear to
26me before we might in fact many things have got clear to me of late on
27many subject. And at the same time I have a feeling stronger that ever
28before of the mystery & insolubility of things. What little tiny
29children we are & what does it mean
30
31 Good night; now, I must write. I am just having a little rest in
32talking to you. If ever you know Karl Pearson will you try to love him
33very much? You will bring him just what he needs, & perhaps he would
34strengthen you a little as he has strengthened me so much. I wish I
35was a man that I might be friends with all of you, but you know my sex
36must always divide. I only feel like a man, but to you all I seem a
37woman! Has George’s wife got her baby? There is a pretty little
38Italian peasant baby here that I am so fond of. The men here seem so
39happy & do nothing & sit in the sun. The women look tired & over
40worked, but yet happier than ours. I am living pretty cheaply here
41because the hotel keeper took me for less because I came when there
42was no one, but I somehow feel reproached because I am enjoying so
43much. You know the kind of feeling. I ought to get through more work
44than I do with everything so comfortable.
45
46 Olive
47
48 ^Send back my dreams. I don’t want to loose that MS. The two printed
49ones are feeble & were written long ago. OS^
50
51
52
Notation
The book that will 'never be done' is From Man to Man, and the allegories referred to appeared in Dreams. Which particular allegories Schreiner is referring to cannot be established as she was writing a number of them at this time. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/5
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date23 April 1887
Address FromGrand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 127
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Italy
4
5 Why didn’t you come to Agni while I was still here It’s quite
6close. I am leaving this on third ^of May^ get to Arona on Lake Maggiore
7the same evening & stay there for a couple of days going about the
8Lake in a steamer before I go on to Switzerland It’s wonderfully
9restful going about on these lake steamers, the most restful kind of
10motion there is. If you found it in your way to be there just then we
11could go about together. It’s right on your way to Agni; the direct
12like line if you come the St. Gotthard way to Italy. If you come later
13I’ll be somewhere near the lake of Lucerne, I think at ?Aeusty! If
14you felt inclined you might have a look at me in passing eh? There is
15nothing helps one like travelling when one is in pain. It’s well to
16say "work", but there’s a certain amount of pain which must be
17stilled before one can work, that’s just it.
18
19 I wish you could come to Italy soon, it’s no fancy only because one
20is in England & the without the sun; that makes one feel it would help
21one so. You don’t know how it helps me in the morning ^when I wake^ &
22first I feel that load with which one wakes, & then the thought "there
23will be sunshine!" You’ll soon feel stronger here.
24
25 What I wanted to say & forgot was an idea which likely you’ve also
26had which shows the "scientific"!!!! ground which underlies, (if we
27choose to unearth it) our pleas in favour of sy simplicity of living.
28I illustrate it by the analogy of a palm tree, I’ll work it out &
29show you some day. The last days I’ve not been working. I’ve got
30into a wild restless state again, & must "move on."
31
32 I’m glad about the book. My book’s going to be lovely, only no
33publisher will take it, & the libraries won’t circulate it.
34
35 Olive Schreiner
36
37 If you think it would be restful I’ll like to much to see you. You &
38Mrs Walters are the only two people ^I’d like to see.^
39
40 ^Thank you for telling me a little about yourself. Send me a card to
41know how you are. Please soon.^
42
43
44
Notation
Which book of Carpenter's this letter refers to cannot be established. Schreiner's 'my book' comment concerns From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/6
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date19 May 1887
Address FromClarens, Switzerland
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 127-8
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Clarens
2 May 19 / 87
3
4 Dear Edward Carpenter
5
6 Your letter (but not card) was forwarded to me here today. It has made
7me happy. I like to know it is coming right in your life. It is
8sometimes good & even necessary to be separated for a time from those
9we love; if it is a separation only in body not in mind, we come back
10& are nearer to them than ever.
11
12 //I came on here last week from Gersau. I thought I should be better
13here, but I am going on Sunday to Paris. If I am still there I should
14like very much to see you; it would be something to look forward to.
15But when I have been some time in a place I get such horror of it, and
16then I have to go on somewhere else. I’ll send you my address on a
17card when I get there. I’ve never been in Paris & know no one there
18but I think it’ll do my head good to see the houses & the people. I
19have been quite alone since I left England, have hardly spoken to
20anyone. I haven’t done any work. I don’t feel as if I should ever
21do any work any more. Must keep on moving on moving on.
22
23 Yours,
24 O.S.
25
26 ^I send you two little allegories of mine. Send them me back because
27I’ve been too tired to copy them.^
28
29
30
Notation
The 'two little allegories' sent to Carpenter with this letter cannot be established as Schreiner was writing a number of them at this time. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/7
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateTuesday 2 June 1887
Address From134 Rue d?Assas, 6th Arrondissement, Paris, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 128
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 134 Rue d’Assas
2 Paris
3 Tuesday
4
5 Shall be here till Monday or Tuesday I think when I go on to England.
6Shall take rooms somewhere at East End of London but don’t suppose I
7shall stay more than a few weeks.
8
9 Such a terrible melancholy comes over me when I’ve been a few days
10in a place that I have to move on. It’s like having brain fever.
11
12 Do come & see me when you pass through; I may be going to the Cape in
13a few weeks & then shan’t see you again. Physically I’m much
14better.
15
16 Is the book ready yet I’m waiting for it.
17
18 Send me a card, to know when you are coming to Paris.
19
20 O.S.
21
22 I’m trying to write an allegory today.
23
24
25
Notation
Which particular allegory Schreiner was trying to write at this time cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/8
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateWednesday 8 June 1887
Address From50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 128-9
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner arrived in Gore Road on 8 June 1887 where she was resident until late August, then after short visits elsewhere she returned there for September that year.
1 London E.C.
2 Wednesday
3
4 ^Doesn’t require an answer.^
5
6 I will send the money to Mill thorp tomorrow.
7
8 You don’t know what a help you have been to me. Just now I am not
9good for you. You are suffering much more than you know. I doubt
10whether you are realy better except physically than when you went away.
11 You must not write even to me about the subject on which you talked
12to me unless it is restful to you: but my mind will always be
13wandering after you. Perhaps such a bitter time of suffering lies
14before you: perhaps, great gladness, the realization almost of an
15ideal. But whoever suffers it will be your nature that suffers either
16through sympathy unreadable or through itself.
17
18 You don’t know how much you have helped me today & yesterday.
19
20 I have found some rooms near the Victoria Park, & am going to furnish
21them tomorrow. Address
22 50 Gore Road
23 Victoria Park E.
24
25 I would have come to meet you tomorrow at the publishers but you need
26quiet & rest if that be possible now. Your face looked like a little
27tired child’s when you were asleep in the train.
28
29 Yours
30 Olive Schreiner
31
32
33
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/9
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date12 August 1887
Address From50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 129
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 50 Gore Rd
2
3 Dear E.C.
4
5 I’m somewhat tired this evening. I wish sometimes that we were both
6Christians that we might pray for eachother. I would pray for you. At
7last you will find that you will drift away & away from the things you
8now love. You will be free, & they will be happy in eachother, & ^you^
9will see what this all meant. You will see the good you have got.
10
11 //I am going up to Yorkshire on Sunday, first to a solitary little
12cottage on the York Lancashire side of the moors I want to rest so. I
13am well & working but shall work better there. After two weeks I want
14to go to Kirkly moorside. Can you tell me anything about it, & if
15there is any little quiet village in that part of Yorkshire would suit
16that you know of Don’t trouble to write though if out of mood.
17
18 What would you ask me to pray for for you if praying was any use? I
19would ask you to pray that myself might die. I don’t mean my body
20but all that longs or wishes for anything. It dies so slowly, but it
21does die.
22
23 I have given Englands Ideal & Towards Dem to the Editor of an evening
24paper & asked him to review them. If favourably, well, if not
25favourable still well if it makes West End people read them.
26
27 Good bye.
28 Olive S.
29
Notation
The books referred to are: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/10
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date29 August 1887
Address Fromna
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 [page/s missing] I would take your face close up to mine & make it
2warm.
3
4 I am well going to make my book splendid if I live. You will I work
5hard bye & bye & do better works than ever. I thought you weren’t
6going to Whitby till next week. Perhaps I’ll come along with Chubb &
7Dirks if you can put me up for a night at Millthorp.
8
9 I’m so perfectly muddle headed I don’t know what I’m going to do. I
10must think it out. Oh my darling you mustn’t have pain, you must get
11nice, & hard, & strong.
12
13 Olive Schreiner
14
15
16
Notation
The start of the letter may be missing. 'My book' is likely to refer to From Man to Man.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/11
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateTuesday 5 September 1887
Address FromWhitby, North Yorkshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 129
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Whitby
2 Tuesday
3
4 When you have read the enclosed, (any time when you’ve nothing else
5to do) please return it to me & tell me whether you think it worth
6publishing. It doesn’t say what I see, how the soul stood up &
7wrapped its cloak about it, & looked up.
8
9 I have a curious idea that you would write a story so well. Won’t
10you try? It is only in work that has no connection with the self that
11we can find rest to our spirits. Life, personal life, is a great
12battlefield. Those who enter it must fight. Those who enter it & will
13not fight get riddled with bullets. The only thing for them is keep
14out of it, & have no personal life. This as much whether the object be
15love & sympathy as whether it be wealth & power. One will never find a
16man to love that some other woman does not desire. Write a little
17story. I should love it so tenderly is ^you did.
18
19 Your friend
20 O.S.^
21
22 ^The lights that it had unreadable^
23
24 This ?nectie’ll grow to be old in time! If
25
26 Had a lovely bath this morning, quite different from the others; great
27big breakers were coming in, & rolled you over.
28
29 Somebody’s baby had no one to put them to sleep last night. It’ll
30never forget that it was put to sleep; no one ever tried to put it to
31sleep before,
32
33 I’m going to write to your sister & ask her if she won’t come to
34see me some afternoon as soon as I get back to Town.
35
36 [missing page/s] ^...other ways.^
37
38 Good bye Ed Carpenter
39 Olive Schreiner
40
41 ^...got 19 letters from Todmorden by this morning’s post! I love
42these rooms better than any I’ve been in in England. I should stay
43here till I left E if I wasn’t paying for my rooms in Town. It’s a
44quite perfect day.^
45
Notation
There seems to be a page or pages missing, after '...back to Town.' and before ^...other ways^. 'The enclosed' is no longer attached and it is not known which piece of writing it refers to. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/12
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSaturday 10 September 1887
Address From50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 50 Gore Rd
2 Victoria Park
3 Saturday
4
5 Dear Edward Carpenter
6
7 I send your St. Augustine. It has been sweet to me to think you rested
8even for one night. The face with its short beard lying right up
9against his shoulder. When he goes & you are alone again & that
10terrible sinking comes write & tell me please ^unreadable^. When he goes
11away from you he always has to go back to someone else & then the
12terrible ^sinking^ as if all the blood was going out of your body. Is it
13really getting better? There is such a stick under stick under my
14heart when I think of it all.
15
16 Are you working? Is that red book in the pocket getting fuller?
17Remember you must live for that. There lies before you a fuller richer
18period of work than any you have yet known. Sometimes I think it would
19be best for you to go away to America & see Whitman & folks there for
20a bit. Then I feel that if it is possible it is best for you to stay
21just where you are, & harden. It will come right at last, at last. I
22wish I knew all. You must be gentle to her, because its hard for her
23too; & she hasn’t the larger things to fall back on that you have.
24
25 //I didn’t know that you & he ever came quite close to each other
26still; I thought your life was all quite empty. I understand now,
27better. I am thinking of you in the morning, & at evening & at night.
28You are not many moments out of my thoughts. unreadable
29
30 Please remember me to George. No one knows I have returned to Town so
31I’m having a good quiet time for work & my cough is better than
32it’s been for many months.
33
34 //Did you see what old Whitman said when they showed ^told^ him ^about^
35Swinburne’s article? "I thought Mr Swinburne liked my poetry"; -
36nothing else! I don’t think it would be good for you to come to
37London. Either stay just were you are or go right away to America.
38unreadable Work will help you; nothing but work.
39
40 Good bye, your comrade
41 Olive
42
43 I wasn’t angry when ^you^ went away! Sometimes a great flood of
44feeling was in me & I must either laugh or get away, or I have to give
45way to it. It’s myself I’m angry with you know eh?
46
47 ^My little unreadable had bought me a pepper pot & a mustard pot for
48two pence. This letter doesn’t want an answer please. I’m not
49going to let any one know I’m in town, & I’m going to work so
50splendidly here in my little room. Good bye brother. Don’t write,
51except just a card when you want to unreadable^
52
53 1
54 Far away, where the tempests play,
55 Over the dreary seas,
56 Sail or still, with a strong ^steady^ will,
57 On-ward before the breeze.
58
59 2
60 On, onwards yet,
61 Till our hearts forget
62 The loves that we leave behind:
63 Till the memories ?clear
64 that thrill in our ear
65 Flow past like the whistling wind.
66
67 3
68 Let them come, sweet
69 thoughts of home,
70 And voices we loved of old;
71 What care we that sail a sea,
72 And bound for a Land of Gold?
73
74 4
75 Treasures there are that are lovelier far,
76 Than the flash of a maiden’s eye;
77 Jewels bright as the purple light,
78 That crimsons the evening sky;
79 Crowns that gleam
80 like a fairy dream,
81 Th Treasure of price untold!
82 And we, are bound for
83 that charmed ground;
84 We, sail for a land
85 of Gold!
86
87 I fear it’s too irregular to be put to any music. I don’t know who
88it’s by & I’m not sure whether I’ve not intro ^duced some
89variations!!^ I found it in a book when I was a little child unreadable.
90
91
92
Notation
The particular article by Swinburne cannot be established either. The poem quoted is a version of W.E. Littlewood's 'To the Land of Gold' in Loomis J. Campbell (ed.) (1880) Young Folks’ Book of Poetry Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/13
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date25 December 1887
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 131-2
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter has been dated 1887 from content and place in the archival sequence. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.
1 Xmas morning
2
3 I’ve just got your letter & photo. The sun is shining on the terrace
4out side my door. It is very cold but bright.
5
6 Yes, you must get away from Sheffield. I have seen that for a long
7time, but only the person themselves can tell when the time has come.
8You have never tried to live utterly utterly alone, that is why you
9think it hard. There’s a time that comes when it begins ^(the living
10quite alone)^ of agony. One has to live through that & come out on the
11other side, & then one knows the blessings & uses of absolute solitude.
12 Perhaps I should never have known it, I am sure I never should, if
13when I was very young I had not been made to go through it, no way of
14escape. Now, when the agony of loneliness comes on me I know it will
15pass when one’s powers of feeling are worn out, & peace comes
16afterwards.
17
18 I wish you could be quite utterly alone for some four months, & come
19out on the other side. Of course it doesn’t do to keep on too long
20because one gets at last a feeling of deadness, as if one had gone to
21sleep. Death will be like that. Yet one can work. You must get away
22somewhere where there is sunshine & warmth. Are you going with Barnes
23to Capri? Why don’t you go & stay there for three or four months
24quite by yourself & wither & agonize, & live through it & find your
25own feet? In the summer I shall be living in some little out of world
26village in Austrian Tyrol or South Germany & perhaps we might spend a
27few weeks together. Think this over. But one cannot advise another.
28Only this I know – you ought not to be in England. Sometimes the
29thought comes to me, what if you and Adams were to go to our new
30wonderful gold fields at the Cape? Splendid, new young life! Ah, it is
31so glorious. It is something that old world people cannot conceive of.
32Thousands of human creatures congregated together without poverty,
33without weakness; all alive, striving, hoping. I think it would help
34you. I cannot at the moment think of a quotation. Make one! The sun is
35shining here. Oh, you must get
35
36 ^out of England & come into the sunshine,
37 Edward.
38
39 Olive^
40
41
42
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/14
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateTuesday 28 December 1887
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 132
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Alassio
2 Tuesday night
3 9 o’clock
4
5 My dear Chips
6
7 Will you please tell me what you think of doing I’ve been thinking
8of you all day. My s
9
10 It’s bitterly cold here & the wind is whirling. I send my love to
11you. I wish so I knew more about you. Isn’t life a funny thing; &
12this gnawing hunger at our hearts. Perhaps it is through this hunger
13that the race grows, it drives us on & on, to seek a somewhat better
14than we ever can reach. But so we keep growing. I wish you were here
15some bright day in the sunshine & you & I go for a walk in the olive
16woods, & sit under the trees. I’m just writing this to you because I
17feel drawn to you.
18
19 Olive
20 Later. Sometimes you know I cannot believe that these chairs & tables
21& the walls & all the things about me are not alive. I love them so,
22inanimate things, & it seems to me they must love me. They do I think.
23I find such comfort from material substances sometimes when I am in
24very great agony. Lying quite flat on the ground with ones arms on it.
25The dear old earth, how can anyone hate it
26
27 Just now I was walking up & down & I felt such an affectionate feeling
28to the walls & all the things in my room. I’ve stopped to write this
29to you, & now I’ll go on walking & thinking. I’m making a scene
30between a husband & wife.
31
32 Olive
33
34 I’m going to bed soon. I can hear the sea outside all the night. I
35wish I could comfort you quite. Are you ^feeling as if you could do
36writing work or practical work among other people
37 Olive^
38
39
40
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/15
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 8 January 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 133
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Sante Croci
2 Alassio
3 Sunday morning
4
5 I’ve come up here. It’s a little ruined chapel on a point sticking
6out into the sea. Oh Edward, I wish you could see this blue blue sea &
7the faraway mountains with the snow upon them! It is perfectly
8solitary up here. There are olive trees about & an old Roman Road
9leads up to it. There isn’t a sound but sometimes a large fly flying
10about, & the sea so far down below one can barely hear it.
11
12 Yesterday some of the women at the hotel laughed at my clothes & said
13at lunch that some people were too poor to afford proper dresses &c &c.
14 I cried after I came out & I’m afraid they heard me, so I
15couldn’t face them again today, so I got the waiter to give me
16something to eat & came up here. It’s so lovely. I like it best of
17all places in the world, except a farm where I lived in Africa. I
18don’t know why this spot helps me so. I come here with all my
19troubles small & large, & they go away. I’m not going back to the
20town till late in the night & I’ve brought my papers to write. Oh
21was there ever anything so glorious as this blue Mediterranean!
22
23 //I got your letter this morning just before I came out. I’m so glad
24it’s so well with you. You must go to Capri. How nice if I could
25think when I looked across the blue water that you were down there.
26
27 I am getting on with my novel, but very slowly. My nervous system is
28shattered, so that when I put pressure on it, even under my own hand,
29it gives. It will be a good book if ever it is done – if ever.
30
31 //You know the air is clear today almost like in Africa. There is a
32little town on the hills about 20 miles away and I can see it quite
33distinctly. There is such joy to me in looking far. Oh, isn’t it
34nice to be out in the open & it doesn’t matter what you wear or
35anything. There’s such a pretty little longlegged fly walking all
36over my paper.
37
38 //I shall be glad when the song book is ready. Have you got many of
39Lowells in? I wish so much I had thought of reminding you of some of his
40
41 Give my love to George Adams. There is always something so beautiful
42to me in the thought of a new little life coming into the world.
43Isn’t it funny I never can see anything ludicrous or unlovely in it
44all. The first time I saw a birth it was a halfcast prostitute at the
45Cape, who had lain down in her labour behind a hedge. None of the Boer
46women or black women would go near her, & I helped ^& an old black man!^
47It was so wonderful & beautiful to see that little new life coming out
48under a blue sky just like this, & a little older child of ^the
49woman’s,^ of two years old, sat watching. I often wonder what has
50become of that little baby I brought into the world!
51
52 Goodbye, my dear old comrade.
53 Olive Schreiner
54
55 You’ll be sure to give my love to G Adams & his wife. Tell me how it
56goes with you all. I sent the Allegory this morning before I came out.
57It’s the one in MS. ^Send them back.^
58
59
60
Notation
The novel Schreiner is 'getting on with' is From Man to Man. The allegory she sent to Carpenter cannot be established. The 'song book' referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1888) Chants of Labour London: Swan Sonnenschein. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/16
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date12 March 1888
Address Fromna
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Yes, no love would be worth anything that needed cultivating. The true
2love is that which you fight against; struggle against, year after
3year, & which is always there. Which absence makes stronger. As you
4see mountain most clearly when you are a long way off from it.
5
6 Don’t read this if you don’t mean to go & see Alice some day. But
7read it if you do as it will give you a little idea of the kind of
8person she is.
9
10 I have been a walk along the road to the point in the wind & rain.
11Splendid. If we had a house here it would be nice to have little Louie
12Adams here & let her sit in the sun. We are having all this & other
13people aren’t. But they wouldn’t have it anymore if we didn’t!
14
15 Olive
16
17 Goodnight, my big brother
18 Your little
19 Donkey.
20
21 It’s been pouring rain here all day. I want you so much to know &
22love great women of the kind that would help you. ^She is a brave
23strong little soul.^
24
25
26

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/17
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1 April 1888
Address FromHotel Oxford et Cambridge, Rue d?Alger, Place-Vend?me, Paris, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 153-4
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Hotel Oxford et Cambridge
2 Rue d’Alger
3 Paris
4
5 No, dear old man, it’s not men that trouble me its middle class
6women that are so hard to understand & reconcile with a ^good^ God: I
7believe it can be done though!!! & will be by me mentally at last.
8I’ve found a nice poor little unreadable artist, a girl with nothing
9to live on, & we are going to see eachother every day. She’s very
10like my small Alice very much. I’m going to have Alice come to me
11for her Easter Holidays & take her up the Rhine & I’m going to look
12for a little village to settle down in for Spring & summer. Will you
13tell me what you think of my Prelude now, if it doesn’t come in the
14way of your work to read it, & send it on to Mrs Brown, 66 Bank Parade,
15 Burnly
as soon as you’ve done You’re a great fool if you don’t
16see that it’s nice. I’ll love to see George Adam’s little one.
17
18 P I’m so anxious for more Towards Democracy. The little bit in W.P.P.
19 was quite up to mark.
20
21 I’ve got a little Socialist dream but you’ll all say again it’s
22not up to mark because it’s all about God. How can I help writing
23about God when there’s nothing else in heaven or earth that I love &
24cling to If anyone can give me another name for him ^it^ I’ll use it.
25I went to the morgue the other day & saw three of our brothers sitting
26there on the marble slabs. I should have gone mad if I hadn’t
27realized that they were only little drops of it divided & spilt for a
28while to be taken up again, & pass into it. I wanted so to go behind &
29wash them & dress them & lay them out & kiss them & put flowers by
30them. I shall never go again because I can’t do anything. Do you
31know the people were standing there & laughing.
32
33 //One ^of the three a^ young man had a pure white shirt cuff with a gold
34stud in it which he fastened in the morning. The other was a man a
35working man of 45 or 50 with beautiful delicate features: (he had been
36hungry & cold so often you could see that in the face) but there was
37such a beautiful smile on them, the face lighted up as I’ve never
38seen a dead face – "This is rest at last!" I couldn’t look at the
39third one. Edward, isn’t it strange that we run each other down like
40that that we can’t make life worth living to each other? I wonder if
41people will believe in two thousand years time in that morgue & the
42three men sitting there & the people laughing. Don’t trouble to
43write except a card to say you’ve got Prelude.
44
45 Yours,
46 Olive
47
48
49
Notation
Schreiner's 'little socialist dream' is 'The sunlight lay across my bed'. The 'Prelude' mentioned appears in From Man to Man. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; and the 'little bit' of it appearing in the Women’s Penny Paper, edited by Henrietta Muller, is: Edward Carpenter "The Mother to Her Daughter" vol 1 no 21, 16 March 1889, pp.6-7. Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/18
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateWednesday 5 April 1888
Address FromHotel Westminster, Bordighera, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 138-9
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The letter is on printed headed notepaper.
1 Hotel Westminster
2 Bordighera
3 Italie
4 Wednesday night
5 11: 30
6
7 Do you see where I am? When I got to B Ventimiglia I found there f was
8no train on to Alassio till 3.40 in the morning. I wandered about for
9a little time, then an old gentleman, a clergy man who I think must be
10George MacDonald, who was with a daughter & two young men, met me. He
11evidently thought I was one of those "unhappy women from Monte Carlo".
12There is no hotel I know of in Ventimiglia, but I knew the name of the
13Westminster here. He said I could come with them in their carriage
14here, but the horror they all seemed to feel to me, & his awful fear
15lest one of the young men should walk here with me, was funny. Oh, Ach,
16 my poor sisters, when will this pass away!
17
18 It’s when I think of these women Edward that I feel I am a woman, &
19I’m glad I am a woman so that I may fight & there may be none of us
20any more at last. That is really the work of my life. You will see
21some day when my book is done! You know that is what I have lived for;
22there the strange, terrible fascination those women’s faces have for
23me, eating into my heart in horror & pity, no one seems to feel to
24them as I do.
25
26 //I saw those three red lights go away behind your train! Edward, I
27love you so, dear, you have entered right into my heart. It’s so
28quiet here now. You are just unreadable I’m going on by the first
29train in the morning. The old clergy man wouldn’t shake hands with
30me though he let me drive with them in their carriage. I didn’t mind
31it at all It was rather a nice experience.
32
33 //You must write me one word and tell me about your plans.
34
35 Please remember me to the ?Casigs. Mrs C is a very nice kindly woman &
36I feel very kindly to him. I can’t bear to think you are going away.
37You don’t know how I’ve been feeling you near me all the while
38you’ve been on the Riviera.
39
40 Goodnight, my brother.
41 Your Donkey
42
43 It was very nice to-day. I enjoyed it so much, it’s done me good.
44The music was nice. You don’t know how much music is to me. I
45don’t suppose it would cost much more if you went past Alassio.
46
47
48
Notation
'When my book is done' refers to From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/19
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date6 April 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Alassio
2
3 Lady Manchester & Mrs ?Senston asked me to go out with them & I’ve
4come back feeling so sad. You know the feeling when you’ve been with
5people who are asleep & ^whom^ nothing will ever wake.
6
7 //I send you Miss Müllers letter because it throws a little light on
8the question we talked about when you were here unreadable. I felt
9unreadable near you all day yesterday, though we didn’t talk
10unreadable Do you know just being near people sometimes rests me so.
11Does the love thing go on well? Is it finished?
12
13 Olive
14
15 ^This might be interesting to you Olive^
16
17
18
Notation
Schreiner’s final insertion is written on a letter to her from Henrietta Müller at 58 Cadogan Place, London, as follows:

I am writing to Mrs. Philpot about "Compromise." I enclose K.P’s letter. You can destroy it.

I have ?decided that the Club is a piteous failure. The men lay down the law, the women ?resent in silence and submit in silence – There is no ?debate at all –

Do not be afraid of me, I never talk of my friends to my friends. be at rest. For a very long time it will be unreadable the less men have to do with women the better for women, The men can’t keep putting swaddling clothes onto women whenever they come near them, and it is safest & best to let them alone.

Men are like gardeners who have nailed & pruned & clipt women into fantastic shapes like this [a little stylised sketch of a tree]

They can’t help it, & therefore the only chance for a woman to find out what her own shape is, is for her to grow alone, according to her own sweet will, under the open ske of Heaven. There she may flourish like a green bay tree, & bring forth fruit.

I send you my dream it is very like your "Dreams" Dearest Olive – you do not know how often, how lovingly I think of you.

Etta

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/20
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date12 April 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 139
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Alassio
2
3 This is a word to greet you in London, if indeed you have left the
4Riviera. I feel as if you had – so I suppose you have.
5
6 You ought to have stayed to see the Fords. I am sure, just now, you
7need more of woman’s society than man’s, & such a woman as
8Isabella would have been very good as your companion.
9
10 I have nothing to tell me of you myself. The Swills asked me to go out
11with them this afternoon but I’ve had enough of Lords & Ladies for
12the present & am going to write.
13
14 //Do you ever have days that are so peace-ful, as if a great hand were
15opened over you & all were so calm under it? I feel like that today.
16
17 We If you ever see my friend & helper Karl Pearson, you will tell me.
18But it’s not likely you ever will. I often wonder whether there
19might be any bridge built by which you might cross over to each other;
20he blaspheming against the emotions & the instinctive reason; you
21against the intellect & the conscious reason; you are both wrong, but
22I wonder whether it would be possible for you to understand eachother
23& teach each other! I guess not.
24
25 He is living now at West View, Christchurch, Hampstead.
26
27 If you feel it no burden will you write sometimes & tell me about your
28feelings & life? I hope you will stay some time in London, & not go up
29to Sheffield. But perhaps that is just where you feel you ought to be.
30As I felt last year that I had to go back to England for six months
31– I couldn’t say why.
32
33 Now it is all dead. I have no need ever to return there. It is like
34having your last look at the face of a corps.
35
36 I shall leave this about the first of May & get on as quickly as I can
37to Tyrol.
38
39 You must give yourself entirely up to your work, Edward. When you are
40helping one man or woman you help that one only; when you work you
41help many in the present & also in the far future. Since you told me I
42have so often thought of poor old ?Pasy bursting into tears because we
43all have to live alone.
44
45 Goodbye, my brother.
46 Olive
47 ^
48If you should wish to see Alice Corthorn her address is 69 Chancery Lane,
49 but I think it would be a waste of time, simply shedding blood for
50nothing, you would never likely get to know her really well, & she
51would not be helpful to you in the way a woman like Isabella might be.
52
53 Olive^
54
55
56
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/21
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateMonday 16 April 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 139
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Alassio
2 Monday
3
4 I got your letter from Paris. It’s very unkind of you always to
5remember that I drove in a cab with luggage round Paris! You mustn’t
6hate us women so much (though I do it myself!)
7
8 I won’t be a woman in a couple of years. I began to be one when I was
9only ten so I dare say I will leave off being one in about two or
10perhaps three more, & then you’ll think I am a man, all of you, won’t
11you? Karl Pearson & every one, & will be comrades with me!
12
13 I feel somehow sorry about the Fords. Did you do it out of perversity
14
15 Edward, you must write much. Make your life consist in that. You & I
16must have no personality. We must die while yet we live.
17
18 I don’t know if Ellis will come at all. His mother & two sisters have
19it ^fever^. The first mother is dangerously ill, "sinking" he writes me.
20I am in painful doubt as to whether Ellis ought to come at all.
21Whether it will be happiest for him. When two people are friends & the
22one loves the other with a love that other
23
24 ^cannot return, is it not better for them never to meet? Yet I, if I
25loved a person, would so much rather see them than not see them even
26if they hated me.
27
28 Olive^
29
30^Write to me only when you ?turn to me. We must work, Edward, & every
31time our heart pains us work till the agony gets still. Love to George
32& his wife & child. ^
33
34 OS
35
36 It’s possible I may again be in the winter Riviera next winter
37
38
39
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/22
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: 1887 ; Before End: 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888. This letter has been dated accordingly, as content indicates Schreiner was in Italy or perhaps France.
1 Is there no possibility of your coming to see me for a time in the
2summer or autumn. I should of course tell you if I didn’t want you
3when you wrote to say you were coming. You are helpful & pleasant to
4me. ^And I’m unpleasant but not unhealthful for you!!!^ It would be
5something to look forward to. I had it sorely in my heart to ask you
6to meet me at Geneva, & go on to Venice with me. But just now you have
7too many problems to work out & need to be left alone. You wouldn’t
8have come.
9
10 Good bye, Edward.
11 Send me your socialist group
12

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/23
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 23 April 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address ToMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 140
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date of this letter has been derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, while the address it was sent to is on its front.
1 Alassio
2 Sunday night
3
4 Dear Brother
5
6 I’ve got your letter. Yes, I know how you feel in England, that
7weight & pressure on the top of one’s head & on one’s whole body,
8one doesn’t know why. George Eliot felt the same you know. All
9artistic natures do, we can’t work in England.
10
11 During the next ten years you ought to do your best literary work &
12you must. It will take you six or eight months at least for you to
13work yourself free from all the little bonds. You must cut yourself
14free from them resolutely. It is the terrible condition of our
15labouring for others that some times we must seem to fight against
16them. It is the truth that has been revealed to me during the last two
17years, that a point is reached ^more easily than people think^ when
18human creatures need to be taught selfishness! That Whenever a man is
19in danger of braking down his own little individual particle, unless
20for some great high end, he commits murder. He sins against all his
21fellows whom he can only serve while he is whole.
22
23 Edward, Isabella Ford has been here for one night. She’s a great,
24true, noble hearted woman. If Karl Pearson loved her I would see him
25turn to her without a doubt & without a fear.
26
27 I am glad you want to see my little Alice if it did not cost you much.
28
29 Goodbye.
30 Olive.
31
32 I am going to Venice on Tues the 1st of May I think perhaps. I’ll
33see the Fords for a day or so.
34
35
36
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/24
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date11 June 1888
Address Fromna
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 140-1
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 My dear old Brother
2
3 I’ve not written to you because I’ve had nothing to say.
4
5 It joys me to know that things go well with thee. Best greetings to
6Adams & the Fords &c.
7
8 I’ve not been physically up to going to Africa or Riviera, so I’m
9taking a tiny unfinished cottage at Harpenden, a little village 27
10miles from London, live by my-self without servants. I think it will
11be lovely.
12
13 The ?Leycesters, those people who had the room next to mine at Alassio
14were very kind to me. They met me at Calais very ill, & brought me on
15with them. Their kindness to me that day was something I can never
16forget. I don’t think I should ever have reached London without them.
17 She’s a splendid woman.
18
19 I haven’t seen or even heard the names of any of the people I used
20to know, except Miss Müller & Alice Corthorn, & Ellis I’ve seen
21once for a few minutes. All the people I’ve seen have been new. I
22think that’s all my news. I expect to like Harpenden as much as
23Alassio. No one is ever to come & see me there. Except one girl who is
24very lonely.
25
26 It’s funny when one’s faith in human friendship dies. One says it
27hasn’t, but one knows it has sometimes.
28
29 I love all humans & believe that each to ^in^ him or herself is noble &
30good & means well. I believe the worse people in their heart of hearts
31do that; they are only blind, but one soul shall never understand
32another, the Almighty hath walled us round.
33
34 How does your work go, E. C? That is really a thing that shall not
35pass away. Through impersonal work one soul can, a little, reach
36others, but ^though^ personally it can’t.
37
38 Goodbye. Don’t trouble to write, dear Brother, but let me soon see a
39book of yours, something that shall more satisfy me as being the
40expression of your genius than anything else you have done. Don’t
41let absorption in individuals take away your power of work. You have
42had enough of that. You must stand alone; though your work in life is
43to give expression to your perception of the beauty of all Union, yet
44you must stand calmly apart to express it. I wish you could marry;
45marriage gives no soul the Union and strength we dream of, but in your
46case it would be a calming, restgiving relation.
47
48 Olive
49
50
51
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/25
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 16 July 1888
Address FromHarpenden, Hertfordshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. .
1 Harpenden
2Sunday afternoon
3 Pouring rain
4 I sit here alone

5
6 Dear E.C.
7
8 Maggie Harkness was here the other day & she said that Mrs Besant told
9her once that whenever she was tired & weary she read nothing but
10"you", that yours were the only books that helped her. Somehow I like
11so much to think of her finding help from you, she has so much hard
12fighting to do. Is it nice to you too?
13
14 I had something else to say but I can’t remember it now. Will you
15please let me know if you are lecturing any-where in London, & when,
16that I may come & see ^hear^ you. I don’t care about your coming to
17see me, dear old brother. I only care about ^seeing^ the one or two
18people who really need me like unreadable some women. The Custom is
19splendid. The little ending goes deep, very deep, eh?
20
21 Good-bye
22 Your tired old sister
23 Olive
24
25
26
Notation
The 'Custom' referred to cannot be traced

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/26
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date20 July 1888
Address FromHarpenden, Hertfordshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Harpenden from mid June to the end of September 1888.
1 Dear EC.
2
3 I shall be going down to Surrey to look for a tiny cottage at Dorking
4or Woking or some such place. If I am early in the morning to St
5Pancras could you perhaps meet me there? We might go & have lunch
6together somewhere, & I might then go on my way? Which days would you
7be free? Most days? Because I can’t arrange long before on account
8of perhaps not being up to it when the time comes.
9
10 O.S.
11
12 You would love Mrs Bland very much. She’s quite genuine. She wants
13to come again & bring all her children. I haven’t told anyone you
14were here except Alice & she has orders not to mention it. Do you know,
15 I don’t feel a bit that horror of London now I know you are there?
16
17
18

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/27
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date11 November 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 143
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.
1 Thou ?wert right & not right about the article. I should not have
2mentioned unreadable ^a^ friend’s name. I’ve tried three times to
3write of Englands Ideal & I found I couldn’t. There seems to me
4something immodest in praising your own work, & I so entirely
5appropriate my friends’ writings that I can never write of them.
6However I lent Mrs Wilson the Ethic of Free thought which she had not
7seen, & pointed out to her the great value of it &c his & how Mrs
8Caird
had simple built up on his ideas. I quite agree with all she
9says. She is now at Lugano ordered there by the Doctor. I have written
10to ask her to come on here if she can for a few days, that I may love
11her a little.
12
13 I hope ^unreadable^ George is better. It must have been nice to be with
14him when he was not well, & take care of him.
15
16 Good bye.
17
18 I think I am conquering. Things look very grey, even the sky & sea
19don’t seem as bright coloured as they used to be last year, but
20every thing is very peace-ful ^& I am happy.^ I saw at Mrs Casey’s a
21portrait of a young man, & then I realized or rather saw, what I had
22long known; how the older man is a residue left after much struggling,
23not simply a thing so born.
24
25 My dear little Alice is working hard. I have got her to resolve to be
26a doctor. I am going to try to get her out here in the spring. You
27never saw the best of her. Isn’t Ellis’s Ibsen ^?vol^ splendid!
28
29 I heard before I left England that Mr Pearson had been dangerously ill
30with bronchitis on the continent; & three people who saw him after his
31return said he looked ill & pale, & had a cough. If it should chance
32that you hear anything of his health you might let me know but don’t
33trouble about it?
34
35 O.S.
36
37 ^I may be going to Mentone in a couple of months time, but I fancy
38it’s not easy to live so cheaply there as here is.^
39
Notation
Schreiner's article which Carpenter was 'right and not right' about cannot be established. The books referred to are: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co.; Karl Pearson (1888) The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of essays and lectures London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/28
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypePostcard
Letter Date1 December 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address ToMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner postcard, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date is provided by the postmark on this postcard, while the address it was sent to is on its front.
1 The Doctor has ordered me to Mentone. Address Poste Restante there if
2you need to write. I’ve had low fever: Oh Edward, I’m so happy
3such a beautiful thing has happened to me. A letter I’ve been
4waiting for for two years from a woman has come. Love to George Adams
5& you. I wish you could all come to the sunshine.
6 Olive
7
8
9

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/29
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date15 December 1888
Address FromHotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 143-4
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Hotel du Pavillon
2 Mentone
3
4 Dear Edward Carpenter,
5
6 Will you please send me back Mrs Bland’s letter. You will forgive me
7I know for having spoken to her of you; but indeed it was not my fault.
8 A dear old Swede has just been to say goodbye to me. Such a beautiful
9childlike nature, a huge strong man with the pure heart of a little
10child. He wanted me to marry him. Edward, life is very funny isn’t
11it? We are all so thirsty, & there is plenty of water, & the water all
12goes wrong! I am glad your civilization article will soon be out.
13
14 I’m glad Adams gets on with his painting.
15
16 All good be with you all. Isn’t this place beautiful.
17
18 I shall be quite alone now in this big house with only a Russian who
19can’t speak a word of English. Do you know I should like to go to
20Sweden. I love those simple child natures so, the Swedish people, have
21a somewhat of the child & nature in them that others have lost.
22
23 All strength & joy be with you, dear old poet.
24 Olive
25
26 A happy Xmas to you all.
27 OS
28
29
30
Notation
Carpenter's 'civilization article' is: Edward Carpenter (n.d.) Cruelties of Civilization London: Reeves. It later appeared as Edward Carpenter (1889) 'Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure' Pioneer January 1889. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/30
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 17 December 1888
Address FromMentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 144
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Mentone
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear Ed’ard
5
6 Yes it’s very beautiful here. I went for a walk this afternoon to
7that other far point beyond your end of Mentone; where the break the
8stones & the cliffs are so bright. Do you know I shouldn’t have
9liked to stay in your part, those hotels are so grand & so many of
10them, you would like it better here, & there’s so much room, & you
11know those great mountain peaks are looking down at you even when you
12are asleep.
13
14 //Yes, it would be a splendid plan to print them in a little cheap
15book, but isn’t it possible to get them printed in American or
16English magazines first, & get paid for them? See my calculating, mean,
17 & money making spirit! You are well known now. You ought to get paid.
18
19 I’m glad you are not cross with me about Mrs Bland. If I could tell
20you about her you would love her so! It’s not that she does a hard
21thing. All of the "us" can do that; but then we break down in health
22like Mrs Wilson & some others, but she goes on so sweetly & strongly
23it seems as if she must be drawing her strength from some source that
24no one sees.
25
26 Thank You mustn’t mind if you’ve no time to give her when you are
27in town. I mean she’s one who understands how ones heart goes out
28much further than one’s hands can reach in this short life.
29
30 I am all alone in this big house now with no one but a Russian who
31doesn’t speak a word of English but I’m not lonely. I’ve got a
32room just overlooking the sea. Thankyou for telling me about your poet
33friend. I’m glad you’re going to town to lecture a bit.
34
35 I am coming back to England in May to go into the Endle Street
36Hospital where I was before, to finish my course in midwifery. I shall
37not be a common nurse then, you are to know, I shall be a real midwife
38licensed by the College of Physicians! I shall think no end of myself!
39I want to do some material work for a little time, & not think, & it
40is very beautiful to me to work with those mothers & little babies,
41you can’t think how beautiful. Then I shall always have a means to
42earning my living & being independent of my brain. It ought to be so
43with every one. Don’t mention my coming yet to any one. After my
44three months are over I should like must to come & stay a bit with you
45folk in August. I might take a room in Sheffield near the Adams’s be
46& deliver a few women while I’m there! & come out to Mill Thorp with
47them often. I want to see a bit more of those North Country people
48before I go to the Cape.
49
50 Yes, it’s all very good. She writes me he is coming to spend his
51Xmas holidays with her & the children & that they are closely united,
52& all very happy. This is quite good. I am going to dedicate my book
53to them together when it is done.
54
55 Reddy writes like you only with the best part of you left out. It’s
56singular how some minds can permeate others.
57
58 I wish some of you people were coming to the Riviera this spring. The
59weather is just too lovely for words. We’ve had some days of rain &
60cold, but even then it was beautiful. Now today the sky is that
61perfect pale blue, that one feels, "This is Heaven." Even the sea here
62has a particularly nice sound. The rocks are so uneven that they break
63in different ways making a complex sound quite different from that
64suck-suck of a wave on a smooth beach. I wonder if ever noticed the
65difference, & how much more soothing this kind of noise is.
66
67 The Swede went away yesterday morning at six o’clock. He said I had
68brought "something of the nature" into his life & I think he was glad
69to have met me, so it’s all right. I can’t feel very sorry for
70anyone who loves anything, it seems to me such a great good. It’s
71the person who is so that the other can love them who has to be
72thanked. Remember I’m coming to Sheffield in August!!
73
74 Olive
75
76 ^I’m learning to make pots here, real pots. Think how much grander
77that is than your common old sandals! I’m going to make you a tea
78pot though you don’t drink tea!! It’ll do for show you know.^
79
80
81
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/31
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 December 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.
1 Old year’s night
2
3 Dear EC
4
5 I send you a cutting from Stephen’s article on unreadable in an old
6number of the Nineteenth Cen. It’s all so lovely you ought to read
7it. I’ve never seen that side of the question so deliciously put,
8it’s as if one of us were taking off the other side. It was torn up
9when I got it or I’d send you the whole. He adviseds that that the
10rich boycott those wicked poor unreadable not giving any more to their
11hospitals &c, &c & then what would the poor do!! That it would be the
12best thing that could happen to them if the rich didn’t throw them
13any more sops, & that there would soon be no rich he doesn’t for a
14moment see!! It’s so lovely. Don’t trouble to answer this, it just
15came into my head to send it as I was reading it. Never write me duty
16letters.
17
18 I hope you’ll have a good time in London in Feb. We have terrible
19weather here just now, this afternoon the waves wild & roaring, & one
20can’t see more than a foot or two, but we’ve had such fine weather
21^ we mustn’t complain. It’s all arranged for my going to the Cape
22in September, money in bank. Can you think how glad I am. All good be
23with you a glad new year. Its going to be for me a year of more work
24than I ever did before.
25 Olive.^
26
27 I send you a pamphlet. To me it is full of that greatly to be prized,
28rare truth loving spirit that constitutes his greatness, & which has
29made him so greatly helpful to me in all my weaker moment. I am well
30satisfied now Dost thou know the old story – "While the child was
31yet alive I fasted & wept: for I said, "Who can tell – " I have
32always understood David.
33
34 Do you think Mrs Wilson was quite right in that Mrs Parson’s affair?
35My fear always is that in the end Mrs Beasant may take to temporizing.
36She lacks that fine spiritual inspiration which Mrs Wilson has.
37
38 Olive
39
40 The waves are making such a noise just out of my window. I must get up
41& put some more wood in the fire
42
43
44
Notation
The article by 'old Stephen' is likely to be: Leslie Stephen "Belief and Conduct" Nineteenth Century 24 September 1888 pp.372-89. The pamphlet Schreiner sent to Carpenter cannot be established.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/32
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: December 1888 ; Before End: March 1889
Address FromHotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 143
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed in the Hotel du Pavillon from mid December 1888 to mid March 1889.
1 Please return my precious letter to me. I send it you because I want
2you so much realy to know her.
3
4 I was ordered here by Doctor because I had low fever at Alassio.
5
6 I’m better. Isn’t this a lovely place!!! No wonder you didn’t
7like Alassio. It’s nothing to this. I’m staying in a quiet hotel
8quite out of the town, it’s the other end from where you stayed. So
9lovely & quiet. I’m the only person in this big house & it’s all
10so lovely.
11
12 I’ll send you the woman’s ^penny^ paper with my two little dreams.
13Glad "Civilization" is going to be published.
14
15 Sometimes feel as though I should never do any more real work in the
16world - but it doesn’t matter.
17
18 I’m hoping my little Alice will come a bit in the Spring. It’s too
19beautiful here for any words. The sea & sky are more perfect than I
20ever knew them.
21
22 Goodbye.
23 Olive
24
25 Hotel du Pavillon
26 Mentone
27
Notation
The two allegories in particular were published in the The Women’s Penny Paper, edited by Henrietta Muller, a friend of Schreiner's met at the Men and Women's Club. These were: See: "I Thought I Stood" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 7, 8 December 1888, p.1; "Once More I Stood" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 8, 15 December 1888, p1; and "Life's Gifts" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 47, 14 September 1889, p.7. Civilization' refers to: Edward Carpenter (1889) Civilization: Its Cause and Cure London: Swan Sonnenschein. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/33
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 1888
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 144-5
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888, where she met and corresponded with Mary Drew in the early part of 1888.
1 Sunday night
2
3 My dear Edward,
4
5 I was glad to get your letter. You must get away to the sunshine if
6you can. We’ve had rain here for three or four days but the sun is
7sure to come out soon. Today has been a day of great anxiety to me. I
8have told someone to telegraph tomorrow if any of our people are
9killed. but I don’t think it will go so far.
10
11 I am working pretty well here. I cannot do very much in the day but
12what I do is good. I have just finished off a dream tonight. Mr
13Gladstone’s
daughter said she would like to see it: when she has
14done with it I’ll tell her to send it to you. I am writing a long
15dream on socialism which I am going to publish in the Fortnightly. I
16think it will be good, but writing it nearly kills one with excitement.
17 I am living quite alone here, never see or speak to anyone except
18about food at meal times. I shall stay here till summer then go to
19Venice for a few months & return here next winter. Give my love to
20George Adams. I hope your soul grows strong.
21
22 If you should see Karl Pearson will you write and tell me. If you
23should see him anywhere without speaking to him. I have not heard from
24anyone who has seen him for a very long time. You would never mention
25^me to him if you met him? I am going to try & get my novel off my
26hands next year.^
27
28^Rather a good published Fischer Unwin 26 Paternoster Square. If you
29can’t make arrangements with another you might go to him with the
30song book. Write to me soon if the spirit moves you. ^
31
32 Goodbye my old Chips.
33 Olive
34
35
36
Notation
The 'long dream on socialism' was in fact not published in the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/34
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date10 January 1889
Address FromHotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 146-7
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Hotel du Pavillon
2 Mentone
3
4 Thank you, dear old Edward, for your letter. Thank you for telling me
5you had seen my friend ^Karl Pearson.^ I knew you would love him if ever
6you met: the nature is rarely pure & truth loving. When you have met
7him several times you will find you have gained something from him. I
8feel if justice were done he would have a share in any praise my work
9might have, even in the little dreams & allegories, that seem so
10intensely unlike him, & which he might even laugh at. I work better
11because I have known him. I wish sometimes I could just come & take
12his hand for a moment & sit & talk over those matters that interest us,
13 or better still sit & say nothing at all. It might be if I were a man,
14 but I shall never be that - eh? Whatever comes never that. Well, the
15compensation comes to me so; that being a woman I can reach other
16women where no man could reach them. A growing tenderness is in my
17heart for them. I shall never be a man & a brother among you men that
18I love so, but I have my work.
19
20 Why do you not print some more poems? Have you sent any to ?reviewers
21magazines? Next month there will appear in the Fortnightly a little
22allegory of mine you will like very much. It is socialistic. It’s
23not my long one, my best beloved; that will appear bye & bye. I am
24working & you know how happy that makes one. I have given your
25greetings to all the rocks & sea & sky. To-day they are all grey & yet
26so sweet & beloved. I don’t think nature seemed so alive to me, when
27I was a child, even, as it does here. I can’t
28
29 //I know so well how one gets overrun when one comes to London;
30that’s the penalty one pays for being loved - & the fog makes it
31worse!!!
32
33 I’ve had great pleasure, the Roberts’ came here yesterday, & they
34are coming on Sunday to stay for a few days. I am going out to buy a
35little tea-service for them, to put in their room as a surprise with
36some flowers.
37
38 Don’t trouble to answer this. Send me anything you write.
39
40 Deepest thanks my dear brother.
41 Olive
42
43 I’m getting on so splendidly with my work.
44 ^I’m so glad you love him, Edward, it’s so beautiful to me when
45anybody loves him.^
46
47
48
Notation
The 'socialistic' allegory was in fact not published in the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. . Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/35
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date21 January 1889
Address FromMentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 147
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Mentone
2
3 My dear old Edward
4
5 You don’t know how precious your last letter has been to me. You can’t
6understand.
7
8 I’ve read your paper in Pioneer. I like it best about the nakedness,
9but I like all, except where you talk against the intellect. You do
10understand, my Ed’ard, that the same joy and peace comes to my little
11soul from reading Spencers First Principles or Mills Logic or even
12Gibbons Decline & Fall that comes to it from looking at a sunset
13behind these tall mountains. God can and does reveal himself through
14the intellect as through nature, through the reason of the man as in
15the blowing of the wind. Thou darest no more blaspheme against the
16intellect than another dare against nature.
17
18 What you, who have been over taught, are striking at, is that wretched
19choking of the intellect that goes on in schools & colleges, but we,
20people who have never been over fed like myself, we who have never
21been to school who have never been taught anything, we cannot feel as
22you do. You have been over fed. We are dying of hunger. That’s true
23about things coming to us when we don’t care any more. But then we
24can’t be said ever to have them. What we have gained is the power to
25do without them, the part of ourself which wanted them we kill slowly,
26& the benefit is that so much more is dead. This sounds sadder than I
27mean, but I think you
28 understand.
29
30 I would like to have heard the discussion at the "New Noah’s Ark." It
31will have been lovely I’m sure. Will you please send me all you write.
32If you ever should go to Mr Pearson’s again would you send me
33something out of his garden; pick it for yourself. You know my heart
34lives always in that little study in Hampstead; ^it is like a little
35chapel to me;^ it is all so beautiful to me. Now I know that he never
36needed ^wanted^ my friendship ^I can rest.^ It’s to me as if he was buried
37personally but so beautiful to know he’s alive & working ^impersonally.^
38All goes well and happily & me here. Such loving letters from my
39people rejoicing at my return to the Cape in August. It’s not a secret.
40 I’ve told the Robertses. My hospital plan has to be given up, no room
41for me.
42
43 I’m writing something very lovely. Edward, it isn’t really the
44intellect & nature that are at war, it’s the personal & impersonal.
45
46 Your sister
47 Olive
48
48 ^I’ve got a beautiful likeness of Walt Whitman. I wonder if you would
49like to see it? I’ll give it you if you would value it. I value it, so
50I’d like to give it you.^
51
Notation
The 'very lovely' thing Schreiner was writing cannot be established. The references are to: Edward Carpenter (1889) 'Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure' Pioneer January 1889; Herbert Spencer (1862) First Principles London: Williams & Norgate; John Stuart Mill (1843) System of Logic London: Parker; Edward Gibbon (1776-1787) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire London: T. Cadell. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/36
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 January 1889
Address FromHotel du Parc, Mentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 148
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Hotel du Parc
2 Mentone
3
4 Thank you, Edward, I know you write just for my sake. Thank you.
5
6 You are entirely wrong about me, how people have got the idea that I
7retouch & overwork my work I can’t make out! My great fault as
8writer is that I cannot bear to re- touch, even to reread anything
9when once I have written it. I have three novels, two other books, a
10whole box of dreams, all dashed off & then never looked at again. Take
11my novel From Man to Man; for 9 years I have not touched or not opened
12or looked at any, but the first chapters. The My fault is that I shall
13go on producing producing producing, & finishing off nothing in such a
14shape that I can present it to the world. If my ambition could wake up
15again it would be different, but its quite dead, it seems to me I
16can’t rouse it. I write for myself & to myself. This is the secret
17of my work as an artist. The very thought that I shall have to publish
18seems to seems to kill out my power of work. This is why Karl Pearson
19was so good for me. Just for a little time while I was near him, he
20woke up my ambition, that is, my wish to express myself to others. He
21never taught me anything, he never sympathized with me, he just did
22that for him me! I must think & I must produce as long as I live, but
23that is for my self. It is against this feeling that I have to fight.
24I know what I am & what I can do, what does it matter to me what any
25other person says? That’s ^unreadable people^ I’ve just finished a
26beautiful dream (to me). Well, why should I sit & write it out now?
27The only reason I go on writing ^out^ at all now is because I want to
28get a lot of money to help other people to do their work. Oh, I live
29other peoples work. I feel ambitious about that.
30
31 Olive
32
33 ^Yes, at heart you & I are at one on that question of the intellect;
34you will see if ever I publish one of my novels that we are; but I
35would like the qualification given.^
36
37
38
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/37
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date28 January 1889
Address FromMentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 148-9
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Dear Edward,
2
3 If you get to know Mr Pearson well you’ll never say any thing of
4anything I’ve told you of other people, men or women. Tell him
5anything you like about me, I mean in all that, I know you & feel to
6you as a little child does to its mother. But you know I want to
7forgive & love every one - not only seem to forgive them, but to do
8what will be happiest for them. ^I feel it would be mean of me to try &
9come near him.^ Don’t try ever to bring me & him near each other,
10dear heart. I’m quite close to him now, but if I had to see or speak
11to him the old bitter fight must begin again. You see I can’t feel
12to his friends as he feels. I have tried. I can feel all kindness &
13love to them, but I must keep far from them. Suppose, dear, I prized
14you more than anything in the world, but I couldn’t feel just as you
15felt to your friends at Sheffield, say I couldn’t sympathize with
16your George & his wife. Well then my love for you would teach me I
17must leave you. I would always bring an element of strife, I mean
18internal strife into his life if I came into it ^in any way^ & that’s
19just what mustn’t enter it. Don’t you see what I mean, the element
20of division? I mean if I never see him, but simply write to him I must
21influence him in some way. The only one of his friends I feel unity
22with is his dearest man friend Parker. Did you see him? But between me
23& the others, all his women friends, ^& some of his men friends^ the
24Almighty hath set a gulf. I would like him to know I felt he had been
25true & generous in all his relations to me, but that’s all. He knows
26I love him. Don’t ever mention me to him, dear old Ed’ard unless
27he speaks of me, & then just turn it off. Other people need him much
28more than I do, & can give him more. My life is so full & joyful with
29my work. You understand.
30 Olive
31
32 ^Do you know that my novel ends by the mother telling her children
33they’ll all go up country & dance naked on the rocks!!!^
34
35 ^My brother is selling his big school to a company for £70,000.
36Isn’t that a lot!!!! When I print my next book I shall have a lot of
37money too & we’ll all have fine times. My little Alice will come &
38live with me when she is a doctor. And an old bachelor brother, can
39come out to the Cape & see us & we’ll bake him in the sun. Alice
40tells me you look happy but not well!!!!!^
41
42 ^Address – Post Restante Mentone, but there’s no need to write.
43I’m working.^
44
45
46
Notation
The novel whose end Schreiner refers to is From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/38
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date5 February 1889
Address FromHotel du Parc, Mentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 150-1
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hotel du Parc
2 Mentone
3 Feb 5 / 89
4
5 Thank you, Beautiful Boy, for your letter. Yes it’s all right, quite
6quite right. I send here a little thought that came into my mind this
7afternoon when I was walking up & down my room after I’d got your
8letter. I’ve got a most beautiful bit of sea from my window over the
9tops to the trees. It was dark blue to-day with little white horses of
10foam. There was a fall of snow the day before yesterday & all the
11mountains were ^are^ white. How I wish that you could see it, Boy, that
12loves the sunshine just as much as I do. It’s such beautiful, cold
13weather here.
14
15 You must get out of England a bit this spring, Edward. You wouldn’t
16have done all the good work you’ve done this year if you hadn’t
17been here last winter. It’s not waste of time sitting in the sun.
18
19 You must always stick up for Ellis if ever you hear anyone talk
20against him; he’s one of the quite purest, noblest souls, & people
21don’t understand him.
22
23 Olive
24
25 When are you going back to Sheffield? How happy you seem to have been
26making Alice & Louie Ellis. Please tell me if your stay in London has
27been nice.
28
29 ^I don’t know why I always feel more drawn to ?Oats than any of your
30friends you’ve told me about.^
31
32 ^Will send little dream another day. Olive.^
33
34
35
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/39
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date21 March 1889
Address FromMentone, France
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 152
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Mentone from December 1888 to later March 1889 and left there for Paris.
1 My beautiful old Ed’ard
2
3 I have been clinging to you these last days as a little child clings
4to its mother. Some far off day to come it will be seen what a light
5you were, how far before your time.
6
7 I have been passing through much darkness, & when I have looked round
8the world for a ray of light, I have found you. Go on your path,
9Edward, my beautiful brother.
10
11 I am obliged to go to Paris on private business but don’t mention
12the fact to anyone.
13
14 I will write & give you my address when there.
15
16 Edward, pray for me. Talking isn’t of any use, but if you should let
17your thought go out to me, I think I should feel it.
18
19 Your little thing in W.P.P. is beautiful. I liked about the old
20Harpist.
21
22 Edward, I want to love always the poorest, lowliest natures. You are
23right, they are nearer God.
24
25 Olive
26
27 There is something wrong, something all wrong in this life of ours. I
28have so much to learn.
29
30
31
Notation
The 'little things' refers to a part of Carpenter's Towards Democracy. See: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; and the 'little thing' is: Edward Carpenter "The Mother to Her Daughter" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 21, 16 March 1889, pp.6-7. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/40
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date28 July 1889
Address FromLadies Chambers, Chenies Street, Camden, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 155-6
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Chenies Street between June and August 1889.
1 Dear Edward
2
3 Please send this to Bob Muirhead. I didn’t see him to say good bye &
4so didn’t thank him. I thought I should see him again.
5
6 It is a lovely day here, one almost sees the sky over the houses.
7
8 I wonder how it goes with you at Mill-thorp. I never like to ask you
9because I’m always afraid of touching you roughly when I mean to be
10quite ^so very^ gentle. I have got my full marching orders for Africa
11now. I wonder if you will get yours.
12
13 I wish we could have spent a day up the river together, you & he & I:
14it would have been so perfect to have you both: One never hardly loves
15two human beings who love each other.
16
17 Good bye. I hope it goes well. I’ll send you a nice savage book soon.
18
19 Olive
20
21 Life is full of compensations. When the desire of the soul is taken
22from us she gives us calm.
23
24 You don’t know how beautiful it was with Bob here. Perhaps Bob
25himself less than anyone could understand. I don’t myself. He seems
26to me to be a bond between me & other human beings.
27
28
29
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/41
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSaturday 18 August 1889
Address FromLadies Chambers, Chenies Street, Camden, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 156
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Ladies Chambers
2 Chenies Street
3 Saturday
4
5 My dear Edward
6
7 If you don’t find the savage book what you like send it back &
8I’ll send you a nice one about Malays. I’m reading about nothing
9but savages; I don’t care for anything else now. Thank you about the
10sandals. I send my measure, a little large, as it’s better than too
11small. They will be just the thing because I can’t be bothered with
12shoes & stockings there & my feet have got so tender in England that I
13shan’t be able to manage the rocks for some time without something on.
14
15 I’m very glad about G Adam’s pictures. It will be a great thing if
16he can make any money out of them because then he could give up more
17time to his painting. Dr Brown has just sent Alice a splendid skeleton
18& beautiful books of prints. He is going to pay entirely for her
19education & living & books & all for the next five years. It’s very
20beautiful, & she’s to repay him when her fortune is made. It’s all
21so happy & nice about her.
22
23 I hope the school gets boys.
24
25 It was funny your following me about like that for three or four days,
26& there wasn’t any reason or cause for it! I’m so glad its lovely
27at Sheffield. I am Please give greetings to Bob when he comes. I send
28him a book of African poems.
29
30 I went for a lovely walk to Regent’s Park this afternoon & sat first
31by the lake with the by boats & then among the flowers. I’ve just
32got home. It was so beautiful & restful just sitting there & not
33thinking of anything! It must be very nice bathing in your stream.
34
35 I’ve taken my passage in the Norham Castle for the 11th of October.
36I’ve got a nice deck cabin.
37
38 Goodnight.
39 Olive
40 ^
41I think I would rather the "general public" didn’t know I was going
42to Africa & the date of my going, so don’t mention it - except to
43Bob.
44
45 Won’t it be lovely seeing the stars again? I can’t believe it’s
46true: Oh the stars.^
47
48
49
Notation
The 'savage book', a 'nice one about Malays' and 'a book of African poems' which Schreiner refers to cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/42
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date4 September 1889
Address FromSt Leonards, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 156-7
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in St Leonards for most of September 1889
1 Dear Edward
2
3 Isn’t the strike splendid? You ought to see the East End now. The
4strange, earnest look on the people’s faces, that sort of wide-eyed
5look. You look straight into their faces & their eyes look back at you;
6 they are possessed with a large idea. It’s very wonderful. I went
7yesterday to the place where the Salvation Army are giving away tiny
8packets of tea. About 500 men were there standing in rows waiting. The
9curious, silent, elate atmosphere, the look in the face of the most
10drunken old man was wonderful. I think I never felt so full of hope as
11yesterday. But perhaps you are here seeing it.
12
13 Yours, Olive
14
15
16

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/43
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSeptember 1889
Address FromSt Leonards, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 157
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in St Leonards for most of September 1889.
1 Dear Ed
2
3 The sandals are quite perfect. I have already lent one to a woman who
4wants to have a pair made like them. But no others will be like them
5to me. I value them immensely.
6
7 I should have written yesterday but I had had a blow that somewhat
8unfitted me. My dear friend Amy Levy had died the night before. She
9killed herself by shutting herself up in a room with charcoal. We were
10away together for three days last week. But it did not seem to help
11her; her agony had gone past human help. The last thing I sent her was
12the Have Faith page of Towards Demo. She wrote me back a little note,
13"Thank you, it is very beautiful, but philosophy can’t help me. I am
14too much shut in with the personal." You need not refer to all this
15when you write. I only tell you that you may know why I didn’t write
16sooner. They say the East End women are getting terribly tired of the
17
18^strike.
19
20 Olive^
21
22 ^I send you an allegory of mine. Return; don’t show to anyone else as
23it is only to appear in the Fortnightly next month.^
24
25 Olive
26
27
28
Notation
The allegory referred to was to have appeared in the Fortnightly Review was in the event turned down because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/44
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateOctober 1889
Address FromEngland
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. It was written immediately before Schreiner sailed to South Africa, in a short period in which she stayed in St Leonards, Eastbourne and also London.
1 My dear Edward
2
3 What I hope you are finding the work begin satisfactorily. I am
4sailing next Wednesday morning from the London dock. If ever you want
5to write to me when I am gone address: W.P. Schreiner
6 Mount Vernon
7 Cape Town
8 Africa.
9
10 Thank you for the book. Thank you, Edward, for all you’ve been to me.
11
12 Olive
13
14 The Fortnightly won’t take my article after all says it’s too
15strong
16
17
18
Notation
The allegory was turned down by the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/45
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateFriday 11 October 1889
Address FromOn board Norham Castle, Dartmouth
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 157
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 On Board
2 Norham Castle
3 Dartmouth
4 Friday morning
5
6 Goodbye, dear old Brother. You will have to come out after me some day,
7 when you hear about the stars & the black people & all the nice
8things. I’m going to be quite well. Goodbye.
9
10 Olive
11
12
13
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/46
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 January 1890
Address FromMount Vernon, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 164
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.
1 Cape Town
2 Jan 31 / 90
3
4 My Ed’rd,
5
6 I send you a note I’ve just got from Ettie. It was a great
7disappointment to me that she was in such an abnormal condition when
8she was in England. You wouldn’t know her if you saw her now, so
9pretty, & sweet & fresh. You must come to us some day, you & our Bob.
10In about a year time from now I hope to be able to have seen my way
11clear to going up to travel in the interior of Africa. If you & Bob
12could come then it would be splendid.
13
14 How goes it with you? I wonder if this sunshine would be to you what
15it is to me - Life - creeping through every little pore in one’s
16body & brain. I had such a glorious day the day before yesterday lying
17on the top of a mountain with the sea down at the right, & these
18glorious table mountains on my left, & the town a little speck below,
19that you couldn’t see, & the bushes & the butterflies about you. It
20is like the Riviera only infinitely grander, wilder, brighter,
21intenser! But I am afraid to say too much, because of course it might
22not be to you what it is to me. It is my land, my own that I have been
23longing for in London fogs & summer mist & drizzels, shut-in with
24hedges & those terrible high walls in England that nearly break ones
25heart.
26
27 I have been making several friends for you here with your books though
28as a rule the people are the hardest narrowest hard-shell philistines
29that God Almighty ever made.
30
31 How about the school? Goodbye, my old comrade. I’m going tomorrow to
32see Bertie Everitt, my convict friend. He is working here on the
33breakwater. I like to think he is working under this blue sky. He must
34feel a bit free whenever he looks up, whatever he may feel when he
35looks down. Give my love to George Adams. I wear the sandals every day
36here in the house, they are so nice & cool in this hot weather - but I
37love the heat. I bask in the sun, like one of my dear old salamanders.
38
39 Have you heard anything of Karl Pearson: is he well? Oh I wish I could
40give him a little of this sunshine.
41
42 Olive
43
44 I’m still living in this big house all alone leave at the end of
45March for up country. If you could come then I would take you & show
46you the Karroo.
47
48
49
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/47
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 15 February 1890
Address FromMount Vernon, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 164-5
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.
1 Sunday morning
2 Beautiful blue sky. Mountains twirling up into it.
3 Feb 15 / 90
4
5 Dear Edward,
6
7 I have just come back from the convict station where I’ve just been
8to see a lad with beautiful blue eyes. He has still 6 years to serve.
9He stood on one side of the wooden palings & I on the other, & He a
10police man between us. Behind us in the great yard were rows of
11convicts black & white in their marked dresses. I wanted to put my
12arms round them all. It was beautiful that the blue sky was over us
13all. Upwards we are all free, we can only chain each other sideways.
14He always seems to belong to me more than anyone in Cape Town. You
15must come out, & see the sunshine some day. I’m glad your work goes
16well. It’s beautiful to be here in a country where there are no
17hungry & over-worked.
18
19 I am living here in this big house alone, & I have been wanting to get
20a woman to come for the day just to help me scrub the floors & I am
21quite willing to pay 5/- a day, but I can’t get one though I’ve
22been trying for weeks
. That sounds good doesn’t it. Servants & hand
23workers of all kinds can ask pretty much what they like here. Brain
24work is not quite so much in request.
25
26 I leave this at the end of March for a solitary place up in the Karroo
27about two hundred miles from here called Matjesfontein.
28
29^Good bye love to George Adams. ^
30
31 Olive
32
33
34
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/48
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: October 1889 ; Before End: March 1890
Address FromCape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.
1 Cape Town
2
3 Dear Ed,
4
5 I expect you are all at Abbottsholm. Just a word because I want to
6communicate with you but I’m too stupid to write. It’s better here
7than I could have dreamed. I am going out to Vischhoek tomorrow.
8Address Vischhoek, Somerset West, Hotten-tots Holland, Cape of Good
9Hope. I’m going to have a "house" with only one little room bedroom
10& sitting room all in one.
11
12 This land is too beautiful. You must see it some day.
13
14 Olive
15
16 ^Give my love to George^
17

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/49
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date19 April 1890
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 169
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 A wild place in the Karroo
3 200 miles from Cape Town.
4 Hour; 10 at night.
5 Sky; dark: mixed stars & dark clouds.
6 Date April 19 / 90.
7
8 Dear Ed’ard,
9
10 It’s a long time since a word passed between us. I’ve been living
11up here for about a year ^month^ now. I am enjoying the wild, barren
12karroo & the old stars, & the sunlight, & the thunderstorms even more
13than I had hoped, & I am very strong & well. I have three tiny rooms
14where I live alone & go over the way to fetch my meals. I shall likely
15be here for the next six months, all through our winter. It is already
16very cold, we are three thousand odd feet above the sea, & in winter
17the snow has to be shovelled away from the doors. But it is dry
18cutting cold. I like it almost as well as the hot weather. I am
19working when I’m not walking up & down & looking at the sky.
20
21 I am going to go up into the interior in 6 or 7 months time. I My
22plans are slowly ripening. Please tell me a little about yourself when
23you write. I am very happy, & it’s all right with me.
24
25 Give my love to our Bob. He’s the only friend I’ve made in the
26last three & a half years. He’s precious to me as a snowdrop in
27winter. I used to make many friends before, now my heart feels kind to
28everyone but I have no personal feeling to. He is the only person has
29made me love them, & I feel so grateful to him. I think I should
30always care about his wife & children & anything that belonged to him.
31Mrs Walters wrote to me a little time ago. She too seems to have seen
32Reddie as he is. There are many Hottentots & Bushmen near here, but
33they are all half civilized & always drunk. The way people drink in
34this country is simply terrible.
35
36 Do you know How did your visit to London go off? Fancy there really is
37a London! It’s all such a dream to me all life.
38
39 I’ve not any books at all here, & only see a newspaper once a week.
40
41 Goodnight.
42 Olive
43
44
45
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/50
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date20 July 1890
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 176
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 Cape of Good Hope
3 South Africa
4 July 20 / 90
5
6 It was such a surprise & pleasure to get your letter last mail. I
7thought you had quite forgotten me Here in my solitude I can forget no
8one. I don’t know what I told you or didn’t tell you when I last
9wrote. This is a place up in the solitude of the dear old Karroo where
10I have been four months & am like to remain another six at least. It
11is not a farm because no farming goes on here but it all belongs to
12one man from whom I hire the little cottage I live in by myself. No, I
13have no friends here, but I am very friendly with all the Bushmen
14Hottentots Kaffers & am very well & very very happy.
15
16 I can understand now why that English life was such a death to me,
17shut out from the sun & mountains & planes that had made all my life
18before I went there. Of course it’s so beautiful to think of you all
19& feel I have you all safe in my heart forever & I am so thankful I
20had that life, but it will be a long time before I want any more of it.
21
22 Yes, I heard my good friend Karl Pearson was to be married: he wrote
23me a note. I think it is the best thing that could have happened to
24him & that he will be very happy.
25
26 I really have nothing to tell you, leading this quiet, happy life up
27here. I write a little, & read a great deal, & wish I could give you
28just one peep at our glorious sunsets.
29
30 Now I’ve given you all my news you must write soon again & tell me
31all about you all about you all. Give my love to our dear Bob when you
32write; & to George Adams when you see him, & come out here some day. I
33am sure you would see the beauty of my land so great so wild so
34untamed. I am still working up steadily towards my trip to the
35interior, gaining exact information as to what to take &c, & finishing
36my books which are to take me.
37
38 Please give my love to Isabella Ford if you should see her, I’ve
39been so glad to hear about her story but have not been able to see it
40up here. I am just reading Stanleys Travels.
41
42 Good bye.
43 Always yours
44 Olive Schreiner
45
46
47
Notation
The 'books which are to take me' refers to the projected 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa', and From Man to Man. The 'Stray Thoughts' essays were originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', with most of them written or drafted while she was in Matjesfontein. Although later prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. 'Stanleys Travels' is likely to be: Henry Morton Stanley (1878) Through the Dark Continent London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington; or else, Henry Morton Stanley (1890) In Darkest Africa London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/51
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date4 September 1890
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 176-7
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 Sep 4 / 90
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 You seem to have got very far from me some how Bob says he won’t
7come with me up country, but I dropped the last half of his letter
8before I had read it & couldn’t find it. Perhaps he said he might.
9 I am really seeing my way to the end of my work, & not long after Xmas
10I shall be able to give up all my time to working getting things ready
11for a start. That will take a couple of months.
12
13 Oh the heavens are such a clear, lovely blue here. You can’t think
14how near Heaven one feels when one looks up at it. I hope you will see
15it some day. Those people you want won’t come to you, and those you
16don’t, will.
17
18 I am going to have a great joy next week, perhaps; my brother is
19coming to stay two days with me. He’s such a noble fellow. Not a
20socialist in theory, but more of a socialist in practice than any man
21I know. Very broad & willing to let everyone go their own way. He’s
22a barrister.
23
24 I wish you could see the wonderful little plants here. Do you know
25I’m beginning to feel I should be quite
26
27^Have you heard anything of my dear old Friend Karl Pearson lately? Is
28he married I’m sure he’ll be very happy & have the best of all
29possible lives. ^
30
31 Olive
32
33 Address Matjesfontein
34 Cape Colony
35 South Africa
36
37
38
Notation
'My work' refers to the articles Schreiner originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. Most of these essays were written or drafted while she was in Matjesfontein. Although later prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Riv'?s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/52
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date22 April 1891
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 191-2
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 April 22 / 91
3
4 My dear old Edward
5
6 Why comes it in my heart tonight to write to you. I am sitting here in
7my little house alone with my lamp hanging over me, & suddenly just as
8I was going to turn in for the night the thought came I wanted to
9write. Perhaps it’s because a little while ago I was outside looking
10at the moonlight & felt so rested by it, & all restful & complete
11things remind me of you.
12
13 I really haven’t any news to give you. I’m living on here quietly
14enough with nothing ever happening & quite happy. I could live here
15forever if the warm weather would only last, but we are at the
16beginning of winter. I may have to go down the mountains a bit &
17return here when it gets spring again. I wish you could see our spring
18here in the karroo, all the barren plains one carpet for of flowers
19for two months. I hope you have come back strengthened & body & full
20of hope from India. Doesn’t the black nightmare of city life in
21England seem like a dream out here in the sunshine? But you know, I
22don’t think all people feel it as black as we do or this clear air
23as beautiful. I know people who say they would rather endure a black
24fog in a black slum than live the life we of solitude in a place like
25this. Yes, you must come here some time.
26
27 Give my love to our Bob, I’ve been going & going to write to every
28week. He’s one of the people I shall never forget as long as I live.
29
30 How is my dear friend Adams? Give him my love.
31
32 Did you see my friend Nelly in India?
33
34 I am so unreadable
35
36 Edward, isn’t it good to realize that there are other problems
37besides our Socialist problems, & other conditions of life quite
38important & beautiful besides ours? That’s the good of travelling.
39
40 I’ve got some beautiful friends out here. I’ll show you when you
41come.
42
43 Olive
44
45
46
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/53
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date16 February 1892
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 200
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The address the letter was written from is provided by content.
1 My dear Edward,
2
3 I’m some how wanting to hear from you & I don’t! Bob wrote to me
4the other day, but didn’t give me any news of you, beyond saying "I
5suppose Edward has told you his own news." Of myself there is
6absolutely nothing to tell. I am in one of those stages when one is
7simply shaping what one has & setting it down. I write a good deal,
8not altogether badly. You see I have now more to set down, at least in
9the form I wish, than I could well do in twenty year. Many conceptions
10that lay before me clear, but too spread out for me to grasp, I am
11getting my fingers round a little. But the work will sh seem very
12small when it is done. I am still living alone at Matjesfontein. What
13of George coming out? That he would be better off here than at Home
14there is not the smallest doubt. How good it would be to see you out
15here. You ought to come first & spy-out the land. Come? What are you
16doing?
17
18 Good bye. I’ve sent for the new Towards D. Love to George & my dear
19old Bob if you are writing.
20
21 Olive.
22 ^
23Do you know a man, now out here, called Lionel Bradford? He is very
24like Karl Pearson. What do you think of him? I am strongly attracted
25to him in a sense, & in a sense repelled.
26
27 Olive
28
29 This question is only for you if you care to answer it.^
30
31
32
Notation
The 'good deal' that Schreiner was writing concerns the articles originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rivess (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/54
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 11 April 1892
Address FromCape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 202-3
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date and month have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Sunday night
2 Cape Town
3 1892
4
5 Dear Edward
6
7 It is lateish & I am sitting upstairs in my little room in a boarding
8house & soon going to bed, I’m just writing to tell you that I’ve
9got Towards Democracy. Just the same morning a few hours before, I
10bought a copy of the new edition for my friends, Captain & his wife. I
11don’t know if I ever told you about them, he is consumptive &
12staying out here for his health, & his wife is going to have a little
13baby next month. He’s so like you, & all his ideas are so like yours
14that we’ve given him the name of Edward Carpenter, & his wife & I
15are beginning to think it is his real name. When I went to their
16little rooms tonight I found them reading TD. This I think put it in
17my head to write to you. Come out here, old Ed’ard. I want you to
18see Table Mountain. Tell our Boy, I wish I could show it him too.
19There’s no news to give you of myself. All things continue as they
20were in the beginning. I think this edition splendid of TD. To One Dead,
21 seems to me new, any-how, it never struck me in the same way before.
22Good night dear old Brother.
23
24 Olive
25
26 Love to dear old George. There is plenty of room for you all in dear
27old Africa. Come, but come about Nov October so that you may have all
28our beautiful summer. Even here, the winter comes.
29
30
31
Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1892) Towards Democracy London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/55
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date23 May 1892
Address FromCape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 206
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Cape Town
2 May 23 / 92
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 It’s nice to think of you being in the world somewhere. It’s nice
7to think of all the beautiful souls everywhere. I’m sitting alone in
8my upstairs bedroom in a unreadable boarding house. It’s cold winter
9weather with pouring rain; it’s almost like England. H I’ve got no
10news to give you.
11
12 I’ve been sorry about those anarchist troubles. I’m so sorry our
13people do such things. I’m going to get Plato to read tomorrow to
14make the sky bluer.
15
16 There are no people that think or care about social or impersonal
17subjects in this country, that I’ve found. They are all philistines.
18Its so funny to find a whole nation of philistines without the other
19element at all. I’m getting more used to it, & up at Matjesfontein
20in the beautiful Karroo one doesn’t feel it at all. It’s a lovely
21life up there in the summer.
22
23 I’ve found a couple of people who can understand England’s Ideal a
24little
, but they are from England. People here think anyone is mad who
25supposes that anyone could perhaps think anything nicer than a great
26deal of money. It’s a curious, curious study this whole society. I
27wonder what you would make of it!!
28
29 Good bye Ed.
30 Olive
31 ^
32Loving greetings to my old friend George. In weather like this one
33feels he is almost as well in England but in three months the rain
34will be over & the spring back again.
35
36 OS^
37
38
39
Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/56
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: October 1889 ; Before End: March 1890
Address FromMount Vernon, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.
1 Mount Vernon
2 Cape Town
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 I’ve written to you, but I can’t find the letter now.
7
8 Write to me please sometimes. I’ve said so much in that other letter
9told you how the sunshines & all that, I can’t tell it again. I am
10sending you some photographs.
11
12 Good bye
13 Olive
14
15 You know I’ve been ill all the while or I would have written last
16week, because I want to hear from you.
17

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/57
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1892
Address Fromna
Address ToMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 210
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year of this letter has been derived from the otherwise illegible postmark on an attached envelope, which also provides the address it was sent to.
1 They are bring out a cheap 2/- edition of S.A.F. I’m glad because
2the only people are I really care to read it are people struggling
3with material want & the narrowness & iron pressure of their
4surroundings who won’t be so likely to get a ^more^ expensive book.
5The only thing that ever induced me to write it out was the feeling
6that some soul struggling with its material surrounding as I was might
7read it & feel less alone.
8
9 I hope some day when your tired I’ll be able to help you a little as
10the thought of you helps me.
11
12 It’s very splendid here: even when it snows the air is clearer than
13in London.
14
15 Do you keep well in this terrible weather
16
17 Olive Schreiner
18
19 I liked your paper in To-day.
20
21
22
Notation
The start of this letter is missing. Carpenter's paper in an issue To-day in the 1892 issues has not been established because the relevant issues in the British Library are not available for conservation reasons. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/58
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date23 November 1892
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 215-6
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 S. Africa
3 Nov 23 / 92
4
5 I’ve been lying in bed all day & reading that book of Francis Adams
6you sent me. It’s the first thing I’ve read with keen pleasure for
7a long time. I liked it better to day than ever before. Edward, you
8don’t know how bad things are in this land; we flog our niggers to
9death, & wealth as the only possible end & aim in life, is more
10recognized here than, I think, in any country in the world. I don’t
11mean that there aren’t classes who don’t feel so in every country,
12but then there are other classes, here there are not. It’s funny to
13be in a land which is all philistines! Good, nice, respectable
14philistines, but still nothing else. There are other individuals, but
15no other class. There are money making whites, & down-trodden blacks,
16& nothing between. And things will have to be so much worse here
17before they can be better; in Europe we have almost got to the bottom
18already & the tide is going to turn. I’m coming back in April, I
19think I told you to England. I hope I’ll see you. I’ll be there
20from the beginning of May to the end of July: then I must go abroad
21again, either to the Engadine or Egypt. I thought Africa would make me
22better, but it’s been an unremitted down hill all the time.
23 I was so glad to feel when I was reading Adams’s book today how
24little the world needs one, how much better & stronger folk than
25oneself there are to carry on all work that one fancies one has to do.
26I don’t know why that book seemed such a help to me today. Our warm
27weather is going to begin at last. Its so beautiful to know it must
28come. This has been the coldest year that the oldest people in South
29Africa remember. We have had more cold & rain this November than we
30generally have in the depth of winter. Is your book about India out?
31Do you know Francis Adams? Are you fit?
32
33 Good bye. Love to all Friends.
34 Olive
35 ^
36Bob doesn’t like my little story so I’m sure you wont. But anyhow
37it’s true!!
38 OS^
39
40
41
Notation
Which particular 'little story' Muirhead did not like cannot be established. The books referred to are: Francis Adams (1890) Songs of the Army of the Night London: Vizetelly & Co; Edward Carpenter (1892) From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta: Sketches in Ceylon and India London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Riv'?s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/59
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date25 December 1892
Address FromGanna Hoek, Cradock, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 216-7
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed with her friends the Cawoods on their Ganna Hoek farm over Christmas 1892.
1 Xmas day
2 1892
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 I want to write to you this day. It’s so nice here. I’m staying at
7the old farm where I used to live when I was a young girl & where I
8finished part of An African Farm. It’s a beautiful, wild place, one
9of the most beautiful in the world & I wish you were here to see it. I
10always have been thinking of you since I came here. The wild bush of
11mimosa thorns comes right down to the house & its full of wild animals.
12 The other day we caught a little baby monkey with a long tail in the
13tree just behind my window, & there are heaps of Baboons one hears
14fighting in the trees. The day before yesterday we killed two snakes.
15Early in the morning I was walking on the mountain reading by myself,
16& almost trod on one. Soon after in the house, the girl was making the
17tutors bed, & she heard something fall off. It was a cobra, & we’ve
18got them both in bottles. I like to feel this wild, untamed life with
19"the will to live" still strong & untamed in it, seething about one.
20It makes the old strength come back into ones heart. It’s
21beautifully hot here. You know how lovely that is, the fierce clear
22sunlight shining full on you. Yesterday I went alone on the top of a
23koppje & took off all my clothes & wandered about for hours in the hot
24dry sand & thorny bushes. Its delightful to feel the sand direct on
25one. In England it’s so cold one must cover & peep & have conviction
26of ?sin all the while. I’m staying here with a big family a father &
27mother & eleven children, nearly all grown up. They are such a
28beautiful big family you’d enjoy seeing them all round the table.
29The day after tomorrow we are going to make a big party & climb the
30high mountain behind the house.
31
32 A young farmer who lives 30 miles off is coming with his two sisters
33to go with us. He’s a beautiful fellow draws me greatly, he’s
34something like Waldo, but fiercer & stronger. One day he may make one
35of the few & first men who have ever made a stand in South Africa.
36That is my dream for him. Now in our public life all is low low ebb.
37It has almost broken my heart. I’m so glad to get away here for a
38little while to this dear old wild nature. There are big leopards in
39the bush & every thing nice. I like them better than politicians. One
40feels so sure here, that everything is in a transitional state, & that
41the bigger time is coming some day. It’s harder to feel it in the
42world. If ever you come to Africa you must come & stay here with these
43friends of mine. I’ll give you a letter of introduction, & they’ll
44all love you. Everyone is very busy now reading Morris’s "News from
45Nowhere" which I brought with me. I’m going to send them all your
46books. I’ve been here nearly a month now & must soon be moving on to
47see my little mother. I shall only be able to stop in England three
48months, say May, June & July, then it’ll be too damp. Will you try &
49let me have a look at you while I’m in London?
50
51 The sad side of our life in Africa is our native question. I’m
52writing a paper on it now.
53
54 How does the world go at Mill Thorpe. Drop me a line if you have time.
55Love to George & his wife, & send this note on to our Bob because I
56haven’t time to write him any Xmas letter
.
57
58 Your little sister
59 Olive
60
61 The tutor here is a young consumptive Englishman from Oxford whom I
62got a place here for because he was very ill in Cape Town. He’s a
63socialist, the only socialist I’ve seen since I left England. People
64haven’t heard of socialism here, except a few workmen in the big
65towns.
66
67^All the people here about still call me "de kleine schoolmisses" "the
68little schoolmistress" it’s so nice & so funny. All my English life
69seems sometimes a dream, only when I walk alone in my old places in
70the bush I feel a lot of the fire is burnt out. I wish you could see
71these mimosa trees in flower, they are so nice. ^
72
73 Olive
74
75
Notation
The book referred to is: William Morris (1892) News from Nowhere Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/60
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1892
Address Fromna
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter has been dated 1892 because of its place in the archival sequence.
1 Dear Old Ned
2
3 I’m coming home in April next. It will be beautiful to see you all.
4Old Bob & George & all of you. Couldn’t you come out here this
5summer & go back with me in April. Summer here is fine, winters are
6bad. I’ve had measles been up two months but quite fit again. Very
7well & happy.
8
9 Good bye
10 Olive
11
12 Alice had a peep at you. Said you looked at always. Everyone is very
13good & kind to me here, but I want to see my old comrades.
14
15 The only hope for Africa lies in the English people being unwilling to
16aid in these these things; but I fear there is no hope; no hope!
17
18 You can have no idea reading the paper at Home, where it will seem
19moderate & simple enough, what a storm it has raised in this country.
20You know what wildly excited socialist orators say that capitalism is
21in England & America; - well, that’s what it realy is here. You
22can’t picture anything worse! You don’t know what capitalism is in
23England. You’ve never seen a hord of men sweep down on a country, &
24take possession of every thing!! lands, mines, public works,
25Government, - everything! And we are so powerless. We are just like a
26tiny fly caught by the hindlegs in a huge spiders web. It’s no use.
27Good bye dear old boy. Cron sends his love to you. So do I.
28
29 Olive
30
31
32
Notation
'The paper' referred to is Schreiner's ' Returned South African no. 1' essay, 'South Africa: its natural features, its diverse peoples, its political status: the problem', which was published in the Fortnightly Review in July 1891 to considerable effect. With a number of companion articles, it was intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. With some related essays, they were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/61
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date18 July 1893
Address FromHigh Field, Ben Rhydding, North Yorkshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Highfield
2 Ben Rhydding
3 nr Leeds
4 Yorkshire
5
6 Dear Ed,
7
8 I think though you are not there I shall come to Millthorpe on Tuesday
9thought you are not there, & see the cottages.
10
11 My plans are all very uncertain, Edward. I would unreadable like to
12talk some matters over with you. But I don’t know if I don’t find
13I can stay at Millthorpe I shall either go to St Leonards for a bit or
14go on the continent, but I don’t want to go quite alone. I’m so
15ghastly sociable nowadays. unreadable
16
17 I must see you sometime, dear. I want to tell you about so many things,
18 Africa, & the sunshine, the beautiful sunshine. In Africa is a man I
19love & who loves me, but I’m not quite sure that marriage would be
20right; & you know Edward the curious thing is that I want to marry
21that man, to be always where he is, see him when I go to bed & when I
22rise in the morning & every day at the table, & all day long & all my
23life long till I’m an old old old woman. Now that’s a funny thing
24because that’s just what I’ve never felt before! I’ve loved
25Ellis, & Karl Pearson, & so many men & women, but I’ve never felt,
26"I want to be with you always." And it puzzles me so that I should
27have that feeling! Please He loves your books very much, I’ve given
28them to him, he’s just been reading them, & writing to me about
29England’s Ideal. He’s not like Bob; he’s such a fiercely strong
30passionate impulsive kind of man, I have to be so gentle & sweet when
31I’m with him to make up for it!!! I think you would love him, but I
32don’t know if it would be right for me to marry him because of
33another woman. I left Africa, because I wanted to feel I was removing
34from him any undue fascination I might be exercising over him; & I
35don’t suppose we shall ever see each other again. But I feel it
36would be so nice to live all my life with him. It’s that feeling
37that I can’t understand.
38
39 Our sweet Bob looked a little better I thought but still seemed to me
40tired & weak. Yes, he would make an ideal husband, but and I hope the
41woman he loves will be worthy of him. I understand now how people want
42to be married & live all their life in one house.
43
44 I hope you are having a good time in London. People are very nice &
45good here especially dear Mrs Walters. It will please her so if you
46send a message to her, do when you write again. She hungers so for
47love, & has so little. She is very patient & brave.
48
49 Good bye, dear old Edward.
50 Olive.
51
52
53
Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/62
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateMonday 15 May 1893
Address FromHigh Field, Ben Rhydding, North Yorkshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 221-2
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Highfields
2 Ben Rhydding
3 Monday
4
5 Dear E. C.
6
7 Will be home next Tuesday week (tomorrow week) if I come to see you
8for a couple of days on my way down South? Let me know as, if not, I
9shall go straight down ^to St Leonards.^ I should like to see you. When,
10a little later, (I don’t know exactly when) I go with a sweet little
11African friend, Mrs Sauer, to the Black Forest won’t you come &
12visit us there? I want so to see you. Perhaps Mrs Sauer won’t go, &
13then I’m not sure I shall. I’ve got very social & don’t like to
14be alone after my years of solitude in the karroo; I care less than
15ever for a whirl, but I like some sort of folk to say good morning to.
16Please be that sort of folk for a few days to me sometimes.
17
18 Thine Olive
19
20 Isabella Ford came to see me the other day. She’s developed &
21expanded splendidly. I hope all will go well with our Bob & that
22she’ll love him.
23
24
25
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/63
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateTuesday 1 August 1893
Address From39 West Hill, St Leonards, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 222-3
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Note address 39 West Hill
2 St Leonards on Sea
3 Tuesday
4
5 Dear E.C.
6
7 Thought you were going down to the Isle of Wight from the 28th to the
831st, & you said perhaps you come & see us here! "Anyhows" that’s
9you how I understood it. I can’t come up to town dear old man ‘cos
10I’ve got Alice Corthorn arriving today to spend a week with me here.
11I came down because she needed a holiday & it would have been an
12expense getting her up north & then sending her down again if it
13doesn’t suit. I’ll try & have a look at you at Millthorpe if I can
14before I leave England. It would be beautiful all my life to think of
15having seen you there. I’m not sure about my getting married yet, &
16that’s what keeps me so unsettled. If I don’t I shall go to Italy
17for a long time; if I do I shall have pretty quickly to go out to the
18Cape. Each mail I wait for with uncertainty, not knowing what it will
19bring forth.
20
21 I did have a splendid time up with Mrs Walters. Those moors are the
22best things I’ve seen in England. No, dear, it wouldn’t have done
23ever for me to marry Bob. He’s too good. If I marry it’ll be the
24type of man most removed from our divine Bob, a man compared to whom I
25shall be a saint!!! A sort of small Napoleon! I don’t know why it is
26those natures allways draw me. Not the man of thought & fine-drawn
27feeling like Bob & Ellis & Karl Pearson, intensely as I love them; but
28the wish to marry comes towards the man of action the philistine with
29me. There are only three men I’ve ever thought I should like to
30marry & they’ve all been of that one type, men I felt needed me for
31their moral education! It’s very funny. If it’s right I shall
32marry this man though I know life will not be very easy with him. But
33if it’s not right I shan’t. So the world wags on. I hope Alice
34will have a nice week here. She needs rest & change, & love so sorely.
35
36 Ed do you know, if ever it comes your way I think you would like to
37see my friend Mrs John Brown of Burnley. She’s developed so
38wonderfully in the last few years. If I come to Millthorpe it would be
39partly that I may ask her there for a day, & a wish of her life will
40be realized.
41
42 With my love dear old brother, I’m always your little sister
43 Olive
44
45 After next Tuesday I might come up to Mill thorpe. But I can’t make
46any plans till I know more of my future. I’m sometimes afraid that
47the desire to have a child weighs very heavily with me in making me
48
49 ^willing to marry. And it’s wrong to want anything so much. This
50friend of mine wants me so much to have a child & that’s one great
51bond between. No other man I’ve ever known has the same feeling
52about having children.^
53
54
55
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/64
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 7 August 1893
Address FromMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 223-4
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Millthorpe
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear EC.
5
6 This place does suit me better than any place I’ve ever been in in
7England. I shall stay here as long as I can. I’ve got a little
8cottage just down the road for three weeks, I can’t have it for
9longer, but am so glad to have it for that time. I’m not sure
10whether what I like best is the Adam’s, the Salts, the air or
11Smeetly wood. I like it all. Smeetly wood is the first place I’ve
12been in in England in which I’ve had the same sense of free-ness, &
13near-ness to nature I had at the Cape. You must come out to the Cape E.
14C.
Come when I go. You can go & stay at my friend’s farm. I think
15you’ll love him. He’s a young man of thirty, a farmer in the
16Karroo. He’s got lots of Kaffir’s for you to study & you won’t
17mind the wild simple life in a little mudfloored cabin as most would.
18Millthorp reminds me a little of our farm life in Africa. I’m not
19able to stand artificial civilization without getting depressed.
20
21 I’m sleeping in your room. I’m not a bit of a communist in my
22feeling that each & every human creature should have a little spot of
23earth of their own. It’s happier for all. I love Millthorpe ever so
24much more because I know this little bit of earth does belong to you.
25I only wish every-body had a little spot of earth somewhere! You must
26come & see my farm at the Cape Ed if I settle down there as I think I
27shall. You’ll like it as much as I do Millthorpe. Alice is looking
28so well & strong in the two days we’ve been here. I like Adam’s
29wife so much. She’s such a sweet creature. Good bye dear old man;
30we’ll be glad to see you back.
31
32 Olive
33
34
35
Notation
Rive's (1987) version has been misdated, omits part of this letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/65
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date22 September 1893
Address FromNew College, Eastbourne, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter is written on printed headed notepaper.
1 New College
2 Eastbourne Limited
3 Eastbourne
4 Sep 22 1893
5
6 Dear EC.
7
8 I got the paper &c. Thanks. My thoughts are often at our old
9Millthorpe. You really must come to see the sunshine, & niggers in
10South Africa.
11
12 Give my love to dear old Max. I’m very well & strong all ways &
13quite satisfied ever since I allowed myself to speak what I thought.
14Give my love to Lucy & George. Ask them to write to me.
15
16 I’ll send them my likeness. I’m really going to be taken tomorrow!!
17 It was good of you to come to Chesterfield with me. I’ll always
18remember that.
19
20 Try Unwin if you have anything to print again. But I think if you put
21it in Watt’s hands it will be better than troubling yourself, &
22you’ll get more. Watt’s address is
23 A Watt Eq
24 2 Paternoster Sq
25 London EC.
26
27 I mean to give him all my things. Mention my name if you write & he
28may treat you better as he’s very anxious to please me.
29
30 Good bye my dear brother
31 Olive
32
33 Remember me on the 6th when I sail.
34
35
36

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/66
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date9 November 1893
Address FromMiddelburg, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 226-7
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Middelburg
2 Nov 9 / 93
3
4 My dear old Ed
5
6 I want so to write to you tonight though I have not much to say that
7is interesting.
8
9 I got to Africa 11 days ago. I had to go to bed as soon as I landed &
10have been there almost ever since, but up here in the high Karroo I
11guess I shall get better soon. Ed: you would love Cron very much: he
12gets more & more beautiful the more I know him. He’s a great rest to
13me. There’s the most curious & complete "now" when I’m with him.
14He loves your books very much. He made me give him one of your
15likenesses to take back to the farm with him. You will be loved by
16both of us if you come to see us, as you must, Edward when we are
17settled. It’s all very beautiful with that friend of his. She is
18coming to stay here with me this week. If only I was stronger, life
19would be too beautiful; so I have to have a little sadness to tone it
20down! Everyone is so good & kind to me; & all my friends will welcome
21you if you come. The sky is so beautiful & blue. I think very tenderly
22of old Millthorpe. If ever Cron & I do come come to England we shall
23come straight there, & stay in the little cottage I was in.
24
25 I will send a paper on Colonial politics Cron has written. I think you
26will like it much. Cron’s very nice & uncivilized. When he came to
27see me he came very properly dressed, high collar, white shirt, tie, a
28very handsome young man. As we sat talking in the sun before my door,
29he suddenly unbuttoned his collar & threw it off without a word. In a
30few moments off went his necktie; then he took off his coat! then his
31waistcoat! then he rolled up his shirtsleeves! then he leaned back in
32the chair & drew a great sigh, as much as to say "Thank God!" & folded
33his arms, blissfully happy. Its really a great bond between us that we
34have such a horror of clothes. I could never have married anyone who
35believed that clothes were people! Give my love to my own old Bob when
36you see him; & to dear old George, & Lucy, & Harry & Louie. Good bye,
37dear old brother
38
39 Olive
40
41 Cron said he was going to write to you this week. I don’t know if he
42did.
43
44^I think we shall be married the middle of next January. Don’t speak
45about it generally because I don’t want it in the newspapers of
46course. ^
47
48 When you write next, address
49 c/o S. C. Cronwright
50 P. O. Halesowen 4
51 Cape Colony
52 South Africa.
53
54
55
56
Notation
It is not clear which paper on 'Colonial politics' by Cronwright-Schreiner is referred to, as he wrote frequent short articles and leaders for local Eastern Cape newspapers. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/67
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date4 December 1893
Address FromRailway Hotel, Grahamstown, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 228-9
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Railway Hotel
2 Grahamstown
3 South Africa
4 Dec 4 / 93
5
6 Dear old E. C.
7
8 I got your note yesterday. It was good to hear all went well. The
9sandals have not come yet. I guess they are on the way from Cape Town.
10Thanks, old I’ve EC.
11
12 I came down here about a fortnight ago. The doctors have found out
13there was something very wrong with me internally, & I had to undergo
14an operation. I was an hour and twenty five minutes ^under chloroform^
15unconscious while they did it. I guess death is very like that curious
16unconsciousness; I have been lying motionless on my back for ten days,
17& shall have to lie still for a fortnight more, then when I get well
18the doctors say I shall be better than I’ve been for years & years.
19They say they can’t understand how I’ve kept about all this time,
20& that’s a great comfort to me because I’ve not hated myself for
21being ill without a cause. I can’t understand how with so much wrong
22I was able to walk at all. When I’m well I’m going to work again
23like long ago, & adopt some children & begin life quite new.
24
25 I don’t think I shall marry, E.C. Cron grows more beautiful & sweet
26every day; but marriage is a terribly complicated problem, where two
27human creatures do not live alone on a desert island, - there it would
28be simple enough; there would be no question of right & wrong.
29Sometimes it seems to me the the existing marriage institution is a
30barbarous relic of the past, too primitive & crude & narrow, for the
31latest men & women to work into it. It’s not only for my own sake
32but I always feel so afraid of cramping the other individuality. Well,
33we shall see when I get well again. Cron said he was going to write to
34you; he loves Towards Democracy more than any of your unreadable books
35is loved by any one. I think you would love him much.
36
37Love to all the dear folks.
38Olive
39
40
41
Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/68
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1 January 1894
Address FromMiddelburg, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 229-30
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter has been dated as 1894 from content.
1 Middelburg
2 New Years Day
3
4 A good new year to you all at Millthorpe. I was so glad to get your
5note E.C.
6
7 Tell Harry he must hope on, his pony will come some day. My horse
8hasn’t come yet because I’m not well enough to ride yet; but I
9make no doubt it will some day. I hope old Bob is well & flourishing
10in his new life. Give me news of him. I’ve had a very happy New Year.
11 I’ve had Cronwright & Mrs Carter up here together to spend a couple
12of days days with me. He left by this morning’s train but I’ve
13just been to the station to see her off now. It’s been very
14beautiful to have them. Cron loves you & your work so much. He sends
15you New Year greetings. He says if he were asked what he would like
16best it would be to have you on his farm for six months.
17
18 I don’t know if we shall ever be married: it may come some far off
19day, but it won’t be now, & likely not ever. The attitude in which
20marriage seems so beautiful & possible is somehow one which seems ^to
21narrow^ one a little: & when one has killed out the narrowness in one,
22- well then - that which made absolute union with one beloved soul so
23absolutely necessary is almost gone!! Canst thou understand? But
24I’ve had one of the happiest I ever had in my life the last few days.
25
26 The sandals are very lovely. People here say "Are they fashionable in
27England? Does everybody wear them?" - & they wait for my answer before
28they commit themselves to an opinion on them!
29
30 Dear EC. will you do some business for me. Those nice women I had the
31cottage from say when they sent the last cheque to the London Bank I
32had already withdrawn my money. Will you pay the rent. I think it’s
33unreadable 25/- but they’ll tell you, all right whatever it came to,
34& will you dear old man, I know how horrid business is! send whatever
35is over in an envelope to Alice Corthorn. I’ve told her it’s
36coming. I would not trouble you, but the landlady’s letter came
37while I was so ill in bed, & I can’t remember the amount nor her
38name.
39
40 Edward, if ever I do marry Cron on our desolate farm, there will be a
41little bedroom for you & two pairs of arms open to receive you. Cron
42took away my picture of you, & when I went to his house the other day
43I found it on his bedroom mantelpiece. Good bye dear. Next week I am
44starting for Kimberley to see the doctors there. They hold out great
45hope of my getting quite well again some-day soon, & so I let them do
46what they can, ^but for me if I am not to get well, I think I would
47rather rest now: but one hasn’t the chance!^ Write a little line to
48Cron, if the spirit moves you: it will be very welcome to him on his
49solitary farm among the Karroo bushes. His address is
50 SC Cronwright
51 P.O. Halesowen
52 Cape Colony
53 South Africa
54
55 Your little sister sends love to all.
56 Olive
57
58^Drop me a card to let me know whether you get the £5 note all right.
59Alice Corthorn’s address was ^
60 2 New Heath
61 Hampstead
62 London
63 but you will know if she has left.
64
65
66
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/69
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date19 January 1894
Address FromTaung, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 230
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner has misdated this letter as 1893, although it is clearly 1894.
1 Taungs
2 Bechuanaland
3 Jan 19 / 93
4
5 Dear Ed,
6
7 I’m here nearly halfway up to the Zambezi. My sister is going up
8with her family, & she & her family are camped here for the rainy
9season.
10
11 I am spending a few days here & then returning to then the colony.
12Yesterday, as I was sitting hear & watching the chickens running
13across the floor between the waggons, the thought struck me, "How E. C.
14
would like to be here," & at the same time my brother-in-law to whom
15I gave your books broke out with the same idea. You must come some day,
16 dear old boy, there are quite a handful of people here who love you,
17especially Cron. Ed, perhaps I shall be married when you next hear
18from me. I’m beginning to feel more & more it’s what I must do, &
19Mrs unreadable
& now my health is so completely restored I feel as if
20I must.
21
22 How is our dear old Max? It’s pouring with rain here, & yet this air
23is better for the lungs than England on a fine summers day. If ever I
24can I shall come up & live in this part of Africa.
25
26 Goodbye, E. C. My love to all,
27 Olive
28
29
30
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/70
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date8 February 1894
Address FromMiddelburg, Halesowen, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Middelburg at various points in November 1893, between December 1893 and February 1894, when she married and removed to Krantz Plaats.
1 Address C/O S.C. Cronwright
2 P.O. Halesowen
3 Cape Colony
4 South Africa
5
6 Dear Ed,
7
8 You see you will have a little band of lovers to welcome you here,
9even if you don’t find me here when you come.
10
11 Write to me & tell me if you got the £5.
12
13 Your little sister
14 Olive
15
16 I’m getting strong, better than I’ve been for many many years.
17
18 P.S. I am going to be married on the 25th of this month, February.
19Address your next Olive Schreiner just as of old I shall not change my
20name.
21
22
23
Notation
Enclosed with this letter is a letter dated 25 January 1894 from Erilda Cawood of Ganna Hoek to S.C. Cronwright, as follows:

I hoped to return your books before this. And hope you have not missed them, but they are not the sort of books to read hurriedly.

I have never read anything like Carpenter’s and am ordering them ^today.^ When I get them I’ll return your copies but please drop me a line to say whether you can spare them a little longer. I am sorry I did not come across Carpenter’s books years ago. Olive says I must write and tell him the pleasure I have had from them & ask him to come and see us when he pays you a visit but I’m half "bang" who am I to write to such a man in spite of his ideas of equality.

In great haste
I remain
Your sincere friend
Erilda Cawood

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/71
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypePostcard
Letter Date2 March 1894
Address FromHalesowen, Eastern Cape
Address ToMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner postcard, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date of this postcard is provided by the postmark, while the address it was sent to is on its front.
1 Dear E.C.
2
3 I was married last Saturday. I am turning into an old farmers wife. I
4got your sex pamphlet: it’s splendid. Cron sends his love to you. We
5have your picture on our bedroom mantelpiece. Address Mrs Olive
6Schreiner, PO Halesowen, ^South Africa^
7
8
9
Notation
The pamphlet referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1894) Sex-Love, and its place in a free society Manchester: Labour Press Society.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/72
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date17 May 1894
Address FromKrantz Plaats, Halesowen, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Krantz Plaats
2 May 17 / 94
3
4 Dear E.C.
5
6 Thanks for letter, would much like to help forward any movement for
7the dropping of clothes, but I haven’t any likeness in light dress;
8& intensely as I feel on the question & good as I feel Shaw’s
9intentions are & open & sunshiney his feelings, I don’t think he
10always treats the matter quite rationally. Its a bigger broader
11question than it would appear from his handling.
12
13 If you were to write a pamphlet on the subject it would be much more
14satisfactory. I’ll send any native photos I can get. I send you by
15this post a picture of my Husband & myself standing at our front door.
16The photographs are bad, but the picture of the door is excellent; you
17can even see the hollow under it, worn away by countless generations
18of Dutch Ooms & Tantes’ feet; & which the snakes now find convenient
19for making an entrance by. My Husband grows sweeter & gentler daily to
20me; I’m very happy & thankful that I married him.
21
22 Yours ever
23 Olive.
24
25 ^I am sending photos next week to Lucy of the house & one for Max of
26Cron & myself by the river at our bathing place but unfortunately we
27are in full civilized dress.^
28
29

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/73
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date8 October 1894
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 241-3
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 The Homestead
2 Kimberley
3 South Africa
4 Oct 8 / 94
5
6 Dear old E. C.
7
8 The marriage pamphlet has come. I think it splendid! You don’t
9perhaps dwell quite enough on the monetary independence of woman as
10the first condition necessary to the putting of things on the right
11footing: but you do mention it.
12
13 You see the monetary question between man & woman is not the same as
14the monetary question between two close friends of the same sex. Were
15a man to live with a closely loved friend on whom he was dependent,
16there would be no antecedents & traditions implying inferiority on one
17side & superiority on the other to back-up the mor be fought against
18as well as the monetary inequality, before the true equality of true
19friendship can be reached.
20
21 A man & a woman stand in the same relation to each other as a white
22man & a black man, supposing the two to have struck up a deathless
23friendship & to have determined to live together. It would not do for
24the black man to be dependent on the white because at least in this
25country there are such centuries of traditions of the inferiority of
26the black on one side & & the superiority of the white; of submission
27on one side & masterhood on the other; & these tradition & the force
28of education would so deeply, ^if unconsciously^ have affected both,
29that if the monetary power were on one side, I believe a friendship
30true equality would be impossible between the two. Even if this was a
31perfect monetary equality, even if the black man were supporting the
32white, & even if in his heart the white man believed the black man to
33be much his superior & deeply honoured him, yet even then there would
34difficulty in the small things of life; there would be an unconscious
35tendency on the part of the white man to expect, & of the black man a
36subservience which culture would expect or give to those born their
37equals. It would be rather desirable than otherwise that the black man
38should have money & the white not; it would tend to put things in a
39truer & more beautiful relation to eachother. Just so with a man & a
40woman; with two thousand years of slavish submission on one side &
41animal dominance on the other as the tradition of their race, they can
42neither of them afford anything which tends to keep up those
43traditions. I can believe the most ideally happy fellowship might
44exist between a man & woman where the woman had material wealth & the
45man none. I think it would tend to make them both happier in the
46deepest sense but I can’t picture the opposite. The newly freed
47slave has to stand a little on his dignity!!
48
49 With regard to my own marriage, dear, I will not only say it is an
50ideally happy one, but I will say much more; I believe it is
51satisfactory & for us both not in the narrow but in the highest sense
52the best thing that ever happened to either of us. The most
53satisfactory thing is, that it becomes increasingly satisfactory; not
54less so. We understand each other much better than when we first
55married, & I believe our respect for each other increases as we know
56each other better - & that’s the main thing. He has a very strong
57nature, very simple, very direct; but with a very clear reason, & the
58power of organizing every thing he knows. He is intensely passionate &
59intense, but with immense powers of controlling himself. He has not my
60complex intuitive nature, always flashing out side-lights upon
61every-thing; but the light ahead that he sees he sees clearly, & he
62has the strength to follow after it.
63
64 I do not think you would wonder, if you knew him that I had chosen him
65for my life’s companion: I think you would love him as much as I do.
66He’s a man; & that’s a great things. He is away from home now;
67will have been gone a week tomorrow. He has been to Cradock, & then to
68see his mother. He will be back sometime this week. I like him to go &
69see her often: there is nothing so terrible as the way in which people
70often allow marriage to shut them off from their old affections &
71relations, & really narrow the world for them instead of widening.
72There is something very beautiful to me, almost touching, in the way
73in which Cron’s heart wants to stretch out & take in all my friends
74& families. It draws us much nearer to eachother than anything else
75could. We had our difficulties of course at first; he couldn’t quite
76grasp my funny nature without an epidermis as God made it; & I
77didn’t realize the depth of feeling & keen thought that underlay his
78"silence" - but we understand now. He is very very tender to me. As to
79money matters; we pay half & half every month when we make up accounts
80& as we have bought this little cottage with its three acres, we can
81live on very little. We have two little studies; one for him & one for
82me, & a bedroom & dining room & a little kitchen separate from the
83house. It’s very pretty "& very neat"!!! You would like it.
84
85 We only have a girl come in for a couple hours in the morning, & all
86the rest of the day we are alone, & the house so quiet you can hear
87the cat walk across the floor. Cron loves quiet, if possible more than
88I do; I don’t know what he will do with the baby’s noise when it
89comes, but he’s very anxious to have it.
90
91 No I don’t make tragedies out of things. I take life very
92comfortably. Women are, as they always will be something of an agony
93to me; but I’m getting to see you can’t make them different from
94what they are you must leave them to "gang their ain gate." The rarest
95& most heroic souls I have ever met have been women, & you can’t
96expect all to be alike.
97
98 We don’t know any folk here except the milkman & the cabdriver &c.
99Of course some of the carriage folk came to call on us when we came
100but we haven’t returned any visits. Cron is as uncivilized as I am;
101it’s really curious how we fit in to eachother in little ways.
102
103 I’m telling you all this because I know you want really to know.
104 Good bye, dear. Love to all the friends at Millthorpe.
105
106 Olive
107
108 ^Give my love to dear Kate Salt. I think her loving heart would be
109satisfied that all goes very well with me if she saw me. NB It’s
110wonderful & terrible to watch the sudden growth of capitalism in this
111country. It’s wonderful to see a tree spring up in a night & cover
112the whole land^
113
114
115
Notation
The pamphlet referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1894) Marriage in Free Society Manchester: Labour Press Society. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/74
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date27 July 1895
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 254-5
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 The Homestead
2 July 27 / 95
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 I am sending you Cron’s little paper. It was very amusing when Cron
7read it. No one in room had ever heard of you. I do not believe there
8were above two people who had ever heard of such a thing as Socialism,
9& they didn’t know any thing about it! One good fellow got up & said
10they had been very much interested in the paper, & from what Mr
11Schreiner
had said, I of course felt sure that Mr Carpenter was a very
12good man - what what could Mr Carpenter mean by speaking as he did
13about respectability"!!! It was all so funny, but I think it will do
14good. The Editor is printing 2000 copies in leaflet form, & it may
15lead to people in this country buying your books, & so getting new
16views with regard to respectability.
17
18 I am very strong & well & working hard. I work just all the time. My
19sweet husband grows more & more precious to me as time goes along.
20Give my love to Lucy & George & Max & especially to my old friend Mat
21if you see him. I want to write a long letter to Kate Salt. But I want
22to write to her about things that I can’t, just yet. I am sending
23two little photos for her to your care. Please see that she gets them
24safely.
25
26 Goodbye to you all.
27 Olive
28
29 Cron and I are preparing a paper which he is to read in the Town on
30"the political situation." Of course its anti-Rhodes & anti-capitalist.
31 The Political Association are ^going to reprint it, & distribute it
32all over the country. I’ll send you a copy.^
33
34
35
Notation
'Cron's little paper' cannot be established; The paper Schreiner is 'preparing' is her The Political Situation, which Cronwright-Schreiner read out as a public address in Kimberley Town Hall in August 1895. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/75
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 August 1895
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 258
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The end of this letter may be missing.
1 The Homestead
2 Aug 31 / 95
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 I sent you by last mail the paper on the Political Situation here. I
7shall send you a few copies in pamphlet form soon. Do you think you
8could get them noticed any where
9
10 It’s really too bad that you English should send out your bloated
11millionaires to eat us up! And the English people backing them &
12calling it "extending the Empire"!
13
14^Do you know there’s hope of my getting a first class post for Bob
15out here? I think I shall get a nice situation for Mrs Walters eldest
16son too. ^
17
18 Edmund Garrett wrote a splendid leader on the woman’s question in
19the paper ^^last week^^, of which he is the editor out here. Will you if
20not too much trouble, send the papers I sent you on to Isabelle Ford,
21I can’t get any more copies.
22
Notation
The paper Schreiner refers to is her The Political Situation, which Cronwright-Schreiner read out as a public address in Kimberley Town Hall in August 1895. Edmund Garrett's 'splendid leader on the woman?s question' has not been established. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/76
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date30 January 1897
Address From19 Russell Road, Kensington, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 19 Russell Rd, Kensington
2 Jan 30th 1897
3
4 My dear old Brother
5
6 I asked Alice to write the day I came & tell you how much we were
7wanting to see you. (I was half dead after the seasickness &
8couldn’t write myself). Now I have to go to Eastbourne till Saturday
9the 6th.
Please try & come back when we come back. It’s not only
10that ^my^ I want to see you personally, but I want to talk over some
11matters. The working man ought to know something, of what is going on
12in South Africa. I am sending you a copy of my please as soon as
13you’ve read it write & tell me what you think of it. Address c/o
14Fred Schreiner Eastbourne
15
16 Cron sends greetings
17 Olive
18
Notation
It is not clear what Schreiner sent Carpenter a copy of with this letter, but it could have been an advance copy of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, which she went to London to publish.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/78
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date3 April 1897
Address FromThe Grand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 309-10
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 The Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Riviera
4 Italy
5 April 3 / 97
6
7 Dear old Ed
8
9 It was a good thing seeing your face in London. We’ve been away to
10Rome & Naples & Amalfi but have had to come back here because ^I was^
11ill all the time. Its was wonderful seeing Visuvius. About the most
12impressive thing I’ve ever seen was looking down the crater: it was
13rather active & clouds of smoke & stones going up: & deep down the
14internal artillery. It’s very beautiful & peaceful here; I came here
15thinking I should hardly ever get better & now after only a week I’m
16already wonderfully fit, though I can’t work yet. I am so anxious to
17get my next two articles done because in a few months the fate of
18Africa may be decided, they may have a big war & Rhodes be put back in
19his full power to crush black & white alike. I wonder if you’ve ever
20felt you had anything to say on this matter yet??
21
22 There’s a beautiful blue sea here today, & I think the rain is at
23last over; but oh it isn’t the African sea & sky. I wish so much
24that when we go back to Africa next year you could come too. I’d
25like you so much to write a book on South Africa. You would like our
26sunshine & our niggers.
27
28 Drop me a line when the spirit moves you. I had a nice letter from
29Isabella Ford the other day. She writes she will come & see us when we
30return to London. I hope the spring hasn’t been too cold for you in
31the north dear old man. The Lord hath yet reserved to himself a
32certain handful on the earth, & that hand-full shall become a million.
33
34 Good bye. Cron sends much love.
35 Olive
36
37 Love to George & Lucy
38
39 ^We shall probably remain here for four or six weeks^
40
41
42
Notation
Schreiner's 'next two articles' are likely to be among those originally published pseudonymously from 1891 to 1898 as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. Although later prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/77
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date2 May 1897
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 311
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Alassio
2 Riviera
3 Italy
4 May 2nd 1897
5
6 Dear E.C.
7
8 Send Bob’s letter here. I wish I could see the dear old fellow.
9There’s so much I wish to say to him which is so difficult to write;
10I mean such affairs as his are so complex & many sided.
11
12 I wonder whether the dear lad quite sees his wife’s side of the
13question. It’s so hard for the noblest & best man to. Of course all
14my sympathies & affections are with Bob, so perhaps I could make her
15side of the question even clearer to him than she could. I mean there
16are hundreds & thousands of women who feel just as Bobs wife felt, but
17who because they are not married to men as noble & large as Bob dare
18say & do nothing. Men marry, thinking that if they are faithful & kind
19to their wives & support them & their children it is all right: but
20this is just the mistake. Either, a woman must have her own large
21interests & work in the world as a man has, or the man by a constant
22active outflowing of sympathy & affection must compensate to her. What
23is so appalling is the desolating emptiness & barrenness of the
24majority of middle class women’s lives.
25
26 Bob’s wife seems to have struck out against this; I know of dozens
27among my married woman friends who would, but they dare not because
28they would be dragged through the divorce court. I know of at least a
29dozen women of whom the world would never expect it, whose cry when
30they really can trust you always is - Life is so empty, so barren, our
31husbands are absorbed in their professions; we are so lonely & wonder
32what we live for" &c. The wife of one of the most able lawyers I know
33fell in love with a miserable little drawing master ten years younger
34than herself. She knew he wasn’t one half the man her husband was or
35one tenth as worth loving, but as she said - My Husband gives all his
36real thought & life to his profession. This man sympathizes with me.
37What does it matter to me that my husband is great & noble, I get only
38the fag end of him when he comes home at night." The real solution of
39the marriage difficulty is that men & women should have common work, &
40nothing else will solve it! Friendship & not passion (though with
41passion) must be the basis of a really successful married life.
42
43 I feel that my married life is more satisfactory than so many other
44peoples, because we can do nearly everything together. Dear old Bob, I
45wish I could see him.
46
47 We shall be here for another ten days or a fortnight & then go to
48Paris for two or three weeks. Please send Bob’s letter at once.
49^It’s very lovely here but getting a little hot now. It was very
50beautiful seeing you in London dear old man. They have ordered Peter
51Halket to be turned out at one of the library at the Cape because the
52language is too "hard".
53
54 Thine ever
55 Olive^
56
57
58
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/79
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 25 June 1897
Address From31 Lower Belgrave Street, Chester Square, Westminster, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 312
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 31 Lower Belgrave St
2 S.W.
3 Sunday
4
5 Dear E.C.
6
7 I didn’t get another sight of your face. We are staying on & on in
8London because the Doctors won’t let me move. I’ve been to two big
9specialists who say my heart has completely broken down, & they’ve
10been keeping me on here. I hope by the end of the week I shall be able
11to get away to Broadstairs or Margate, to rest there for a while till
12they’ll let me go abroad or home to Africa. All my earthly ambitions
13now centre in getting back to my little house at Kimberley. It would
14have been splendid if you had been in town when we were here in our
15own little rooms, because then we could really have seen you. I
16suppose you don’t want a bit of fresh air down Broadstairs Margate
17way???
18
19^Give my love to dear Dalmas if you write to him. And to George & Lucy
20& Max & Mat. Please send the enclosed on to Bob. He didn’t give me
21his address. ^
22
23 Olive
24 It’s so irritating. I seem to have seen you & not to have seen you.
25
26
27
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/80
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date14 December 1897
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 321
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 The Homestead
2 Kimberley
3 Dec 14 / 97
4
5 Dear old Ed
6
7 I am sending you a paper concerning our last fight with Rhodes & the
8Capitalist folk out here. You will see we have got the worst of it.
9£250 pounds to pay including damages £50 & costs. But on the other
10hand there has been much sympathy shown. Every one, of all parties,
11knows we are in the right, & that Cron’s name was taken off the
12voters list as an opponent of Rhodes & at the order of Rhode’s agent.
13
14 To day a well known public man in Kimberley sent us a cheque for £25
15& a friend of mine in Port Elizabeth another cheque for £50 towards
16paying the expenses of the case: Of course we are returning the money,
17but it’s well to feel that there are people who though they may
18remain silent are yet so deeply in earnest about the matter that they
19are willing to pay. Had they given the other party the £500 damages
20they asked, we should have been obliged to borrow to pay them but the
21£250 we can easily pay with a little pressing.
22
23 I have just been re-reading From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta, & like it
24even better than at first. You would write a fine book on South Africa
25if you came out here.
26
27 We are suffering from a terrible drought now all over the country, the
28worst that has been known since the great drought of 1862. Throughout
29the greater part of the colony there has been no rain since the May of
30last ^this^ year. We had one small show shower here three months ago,
31but not enough to do any good. To-day it almost looks as if it might
32come to a thunder storm - but one is tired of hoping. Please send the
33news paper on to our Bob. I’ve no other copy. I’ve not written to
34him because I’ve been ill ever since I came back, my heart getting
35worse & worse, but I look to getting better & doing wonderful things
36when the cool weather comes next winter. Give my love to Lucy & George
37& Mat & Max, & my dear old Lucy Salt if you should see her.
38
39 Yours ever
40 Olive.
41
Notation
'The paper' Schreiner sent with this letter refers to a libel case which Cornwall, one of Rhodes's henchmen, brought against Cronwright-Schreiner, who had unwisely and without Schreiner's knowledge sent a libellous letter to the man concerned. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1892) From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta: Sketches in Ceylon and India London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/81
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date18 January 1898
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 324-5
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 The Homestead
2 Jan 18 / 98
3
4 Dear EC,
5
6 I’m not at all surprised that George & Lucy & the young ones are
7going to leave you. I think you must have been three angels to have
8lived together so long. I could live alone, quite alone, with almost
9any one person I ever met, but as soon as a third or still more a
10fourth or fifth appears life becomes very "difficult". In your case of
11course you have so many friends of all kinds, that life is very
12complex for you, & anyone who lives with you. I found it very tragic
13staying with Alice Corthorn when I was in London: of course before I
14was generally alone with her & able to give myself up mainly ^entirely^
15to her, & ^now^ when Cron had appeared on the scene things were very
16"difficult", as you will put it. I hope I shall not go through such an
17experience again. The question how to divide oneself between all the
18different conflicting claims in life is one I suppose which we shall
19never entirely solve, till the last sleep solves all problems for us.
20
21 I’m very much better & having a real good time with my work
22unreadable. We’ve had splendid rains for three weeks after the long
23drought, & are revelling in it like ducks. Its not like your horrid
24sad English ‘rain’ its grand pouring rain, with great breaks of
25blue sky between the masses of cloud. Do come out some day Ed when you
26want a little rest from all the complexities of life. It’s so new
27here, to one who comes from Europe for the first time. To us of course
28it’s just the other way round: Cron & I often feel we must get away
29from the heart breaking problems here. You see we’re at the
30beginning of a long down hill in this country, & we shall personally
31long be dead & in our graves before the path begins to go up again,
32probably. In England the path is going up, things are not getting
33worse; they’re getting better.
34
35 Did I tell you we had to pay old Cornwall (Rhodes agent) two hundred
36pounds, in costs & damages, for telling the truth about him?
37
38 Good bye. I will to bed. My sweet old husband send greetings. He grows
39dearer & dearer to me as the time passes. I wish I’d met him ten
40years earlier.
41
42 Thine ever
43 Olive
44
45
46
47
Notation
The particular work which Schreiner was having 'a real good time' with cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/82
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date13 November 1898
Address FromPO Box 2, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 340-1
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Box 2
2 Johannesburg
3 Trans Vaal
4 South Africa
5 Nov 13th 1898
6
7 Dear E.C.
8
9 I don’t know what makes me suddenly want to write to you this
10morning unless it be that Johannesburg always makes me think of your
11poem "Perhaps in his infinite mercy, God may remove this man."
12
13 Heres this great fiendish, hell of a city sprung up in ten years in
14our sweet pure rare African velt. A city which for glitter & gold, &
15wickedness - carriages, & palaces, & brothels, & gambling halls, beats
16creation. And all around us are the dear little innocent field flowers
17still growing as they grew for the ages, from the very same roots for
18years & years, between the grand new houses that were put up last year
19f or a few months ago. I think you must be a poet, Ed’ard, or I
20wouldn’t keep having your lines in my mind every time I stir out
21here. Just behind this houses on the ridge of the hill there are
22beautiful everlastings & other wild flowers growing among the rocks,
23with houses before & houses behind them, & they always look so
24surprised. I always have such a sense of being an intruder as I walk
25about among them. Isn’t it curious most people seem never to realize
26the possibility that they are intruders on the earth!
27
28 I have never hated any place as much as Johannesburg, and yet there is
29a curious kind of charm about the place because of the nature thats
30not quite strangled yet. My heart has quite broken down, & the doctors
31say I must not work again for many years. I don’t know if they know
32it, but I know its forever.
33
34 Cron has gone to try & make arrangements for his going into an
35attorneys office as I shan’t be able to earn enough to keep us both
36now.
37
38 We have been having a big fight with the Capitalists in the Colony, &
39I think thought there is still a long & stern fight before us, we are
40winning. Rhodes’ doom is written up against him though he may delay
41his hour for a few months or even years. My brother & other friends
42who form the new Ministry are making a good fight.
43
44 When the spirit moves you, write to the above address as I expect we
45shall have to live here now. Every evening Cron & I leave this great
46terrible boardinghouse & go on the ridge. And last night we found a
47lark’s nest in the grass with four eggs in!!! Just away to our right
48was Barnato’s big pallace, not finished yet, which cost £350,000 so
49far, with marble pillars from Italy! This is a curious place. What
50does it all mean
51
52^Write & tell us how the world goes with you, & give my love to dear
53Kate Salt if you happen to write. ^
54
55 Olive
56
57
58
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/83
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date17 June 1899
Address FromPO Box 406, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 362-3
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Box 406
2 Johannesburg
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 Things are going on with us from bad to worse. Fancy having absolutely
7to fight the capitalist for your life. It makes one a bit bitter when
8one thinks that the working men of England who have now the majority
9of votes are actually keeping Chamberlain in power, & backing up
10Rhodes to shoot us down. The only good result of all this is that they
11are educating us South Africans into such an anti-capitalist body as
12the world has not seen. They have licked us with such a very rough
13side of their tongue that we shall not soon forget it. It is a strange
14strange thing Edward, to see a young nation waking up to the
15consciousness of its life & individuality. Chamberlain & the
16Capitalist may fight us & if all England goes solid behind them they
17may crush us. But it will be only for a time. We will rise again. And
18I am not sure they can crush us at all! It will take from 100,000 to
19150,000 men to do it. We shall fall back on our wide desert plains &
20hills, & as fast as they beat us in one place we will rise in another.
21The Boer women are fine here; they keep up the men’s spirits more
22than the men themselves. War means the ultimate severance of this
23country from England, but nothing can stop our ultimate freedom &
24growth. All the stories about the Uitlanders & there oppression are
25pure unmixed lies!! No one here wants to fight but the Capitalists &
26their creatures.
27
28 Good bye. Love to all the old friends, especially Kate Salt.
29 Olive
30
31 17 June 1899
32 Address Box 406
33 Johannesburg
34
35
36
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/84
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date26 July 1899
Address From2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other VersionsRive 1987: 370-1
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.
1 July 26th
2
3 Dear Ed
4
5 Thanks for 12 copies of Towards Dem ^Englands Ideal.^ They will be very
6useful for me to give out in this place. Tell Sonensheim to send the
7account for them to Dr B Dr Brown Stockbridge House Padiham Lancashire
8who has four pounds of mine will pay it. I wish I was well enough to
9write you a long letter; things here would interest you to hear about.
10What put it in your head that Cron had anything to do with ?my the
11paper? Did you think the style was unlike mine? No human being but
12myself saw it till it was in print & it doesn’t even express
13Cron’s views as he is much more anti-English than I am. I don’t
14wish to see our relation with England broken, if only she will act
15properly. But if she wants to oppress us into the dust & back the
16capitalist of course we must fight. It’s worth coming out here to
17see what Capitalism can be. We have an awful fight before us here for
18the next fifteen years. I often wonder if the Capitalist question is
19first going to come to ahead in South Africa after all!
20
21 Good bye dear old man. Love to all my friends, more especially dear
22old Mat. Thank him for his letter. I am ill or would write.
23
24 Olive
25
26 ^A man to whom I lent England’s Ideal has just got out all your works
27complete. They make a nice little lot. Towards Dem is perhaps the best,
28 but I love England’s Ideal best.^
29
30
31
Notation
The paper which Schreiner comments Cronwright-Schreiner had nothing to do with is An English South African’s View of the Situation, originally published in the South African News over three successive days; see 'Words in Season. An English South African's View of the Situation' South African News 1 June 1899 (p.8), 2 June 1899 (p.8) and 3 June 1899 (also p.8). It was also reprinted in a number of other newspapers. It then was published as a pamphlet, then as a book. A second edition of the book was ready but withdrawn from publication with Hodder and Stoughton by Schreiner when the South African War started in October 1899, so as not to profit from this. The books referred to are: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co; Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/85
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date25 May 1902
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 May 25th 1902
3
4 Dear EC
5
6 I wonder how the world goes with you & if you have been up to Glasgow
7& stayed with Bob.
8
9 Please tell Isabella I’ve had no letter from her in reply to my two
10last. I got one newspaper she sent me & two Mat sent me "The Morning
11Post."
12
13 We’ve got two meerkats & two dogs & they are a great comfort & joy to
14us. Cron is sta trying to start business here as a law agent, ^as he
15can’t get away^ but there is not much work to be done here till Martial
16law is over which may not be for many years.
17
18 Give my love to dear old Mat & all the friends. It’s so nice to think
19of Bob having so many children; his little girl looks so lovely. I
20would like to see them.
21
22 We are having glorious cold winter weather here; hard frosts at night,
23& glorious warm sun in the day. The veld looks like heaven. I wish you
24could once see this great blue, free sky. English people can’t
25understand South Africans because they weren’t born under such a sky.
26Good bye. Drop me a line when the spirit moves you.
27
28 Olive
29
30 Love to dear Kate Salt.
31
32

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/86
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date5 January 1903
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 Jan 5 / 03
3
4 Dear old Ed,
5
6 A good new year to you all, especially Mat & his wife. Cron is going
7down to Cape Town with all the other members of Parliament belonging
8to our party. (The South African party it is called) to see Joe
9Chamberlain
& have a talk with him about things I don’t feel much
10interest in his visit or expect anything from any little accident of
11that kind. Things will now run there big appointed course in South
12Africa. Individuals may a little hasten or retard them - nothing can
13change them materially. A few years later, a few years sooner – that
14is all. England has sealed her doom here: there is not a man living
15who can save her now. I am still reading "The Soul of a People". I
16read it every night when I lie awake it seems to soothe the rumples &
17krinkles out of my brain like a large gentle hand stroking & smoothing
18it. It just strikes me that I think once in a PS you did mention the
19book in one of your letters to me during the war, & asked me if I had
20read it.
21
22 The book always reminds me a bit of you & of Bob. Its some such sort
23of book our Bob would have written, if instead of his genius expending
24itself on mathematics & loving his babies he had sat down his heart in
25a book. What is so valuable in the book is not at all the religious
26views expressed; one knew all that long ago: it’s the wide, loving,
27tender soul one comes in contact with in the book that is so sweet. It
28seems to melt all the stiffening & hardening that pain has left behind
29in the soul.
30
31 I don’t think the tendency to unreadable is always to unreadable
32
33 I hear from Bob you & he had a nice time together. Good bye
34 Olive
35
Notation
The book referred to is: Harold Fielding Hall (1898) The Soul of a People London: R. Bentley & Son.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/87
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date27 February 1905
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 Feb 27 / 05
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 The more I read your book the more I like it; that’s one thing I
7have to say. Another is that such a funny thing happened just when I
8was reading your book I got a long letter from a woman friend of mine
9(the Miss Molteno whom you met in my room at Alice Corthorn’s when I
10was last in London). She had been to the British Museum & looking at
11the old Bulls & Gods, & she expressed in quite different words & not
12nearly as well, many of the views in your book in the Chapter (the
13gods are apparitions of the race life &c). It is curious how that is
14in the air; how none of us really live & think alone though we seem so
15utterly alone.
16
17 My heart is very much in Russia now; I sometimes seem almost living
18more in Russia
19
20^than in Africa here. If once you have lived under a crushing foreign
21tyranny as we have here, you know & understand so many things in such
22an utterly new way. There are some things no imagination can show you
23till you have actually lived under them. We leave this next week for
24Cape Town where Cron goes for this his three months in Parliament. ^
25
26 Goodbye
27 Olive
28
Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1904) The Art of Creation London: George Allen & Unwin.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/88
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date27 May 1905
Address FromCape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Cape Town
2 May 27 / 05
3
4 Many thanks for the book about Prisons. If one were young that is a
5subject one might well devote a long life to exclusively. We are still
6down in Cape Town: the cession ends next week & we return to Hanover.
7My little dog was killed the other day, crushed to death under the
8wheels of a cab in which she & I were driving home. I am taking her
9little body up with me in a sealed coffin so that she can be buried
10with me when I die. She has been the best friend I ever had, & I have
11had so many true & good friends. Is there anything on earth more
12lovely than the love of the dog for man? It is so surpassing strange
13to me that when men wish to cast a slur upon each other they call each
14other "dogs"!!
15
16^I would like to write a little life of her as a kind of
17anti-vivisectionist tract. I wouldn’t preach just write of her as I
18knew her. It is at the cost of these exquisite, sensitive, loyal
19little existences that we seek to benefit ourselves. Good bye dear old
20E.C. I am glad to hear from Isabella all goes well with you. ^
21
22 Olive
23
Notation
The particular book about 'Prisons' which Schreiner refers to cannot be established.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/89
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date10 August 1905
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 Aug 10th 1905
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 I got a letter the other day from a Miss Darby; who says she is a
7friend of yours. So many people say they are your dear friends (like
8the Swans & others) that I am always a little doubtful!! She is with
9Miss Hobhouse.
10
11 I’ve had a great joy this week. My dear old friend Dr John Brown,
12once of Burnley came & spent a day here. In the five years I have been
13here, once my sister came for a day, & once Miss Molteno & Miss Green
14for a day, & those are all the friends faces I have seen here in five
15years, & I have only five times left the village, so you can think
16what a red letter day it was. I don’t think the happiness of such
17happy things end too when they are over because you always have the
18memory & it makes everything beautiful. I wonder where Kate Salt is
19now & if you ever see her.
20
21 I’m very well & my dear little Kaffir is a great interest to me. We
22are having a great deal of ice & snow here still. Cron is away in Cape
23Town for ten days, but returns the day after tomorrow.
24
25 I hear the Lawrence’s are coming out to South Africa. Do you know
26them. I fear I shan’t see them, as they are not likely to come to
27this out of the way place. I hope they will learn something true about
28the way they are treating the Chinamen, & about the desire of the
29Colonist to have a
30
31^native way war to bring money into the country. They might be of some
32use; but sometimes it seems to me there not much to be done in this
33world to prevent things & set them right, you must just let things
34drift & drift, till at last wrong doing & oppression bring their own
35punishment - & they do bring it! Though I tarry long saith the Lord. ^
36
37 Good bye dear old friend
38 Olive
39
40 How is my old Bob getting on? I’ve not heard from him for such a
41long long time
42
43

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/90
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date26 October 1905
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 CC Cape Colony
3 South Africa
4 Oct 26 / 05
5
6 Dear Edward
7
8 It was nice to see your handwriting again. The Lawrence spent some, to
9me very delightful, days here & have now gone up to see the Victoria
10Falls. On the 7th of November they return here. You can’t have any
11idea what the pleasure was of seeing them. I was in a sort of heaven.
12They have given me a book called The Souls Of Black Folk by a coloured
13man Burghardt Du Bois. If you’ve not read it you must get it & read
14it at once. Perhaps it can’t be to any you just what it is to me who
15for years & years have longed, "Oh that one man of dark blood would
16rise, who would express, not what he feels it polite & wise to say to
17white people, but who whould would say what he feels." Uncle Tom’s
18Cabin or poor little Peter Halket are all very well; but you are
19always met with the remark, "Yes thats how you paint the nigger, but
20he’s not realy like that, you put your own thoughts & feeling into
21him, & fancy he feels as a white man, but he doesn’t." - & what can
22one answer. But this book from the heart of a black man can surely not
23be unreadable met so. To me the most wonderful chapter is called "the
24passing of the first-born," where he speaks of the death of his little
25child, a dark child - loved so! I can’t even write of the book it
26touches me so. Of course it can’t be quite the same to you who have
27not all your life been face to face, with persistent quiet oppression
28& humiliation which white man deals out to dark. The book makes me
29feel Before us ^so^ much that sometimes I can’t look at it; it seems
30to come from within me.
31
32 //Before us here looms a terrible thing, a great desolating native war,
33 in which Boers & British will combine to wipe out the black man’s
34freedom, ^take^ his land, his franchise, where he has it, as in the Cape
35Colony & gain cheep labour. The Boer has not got the teeth of the
36Englishmen out of his flesh when he turns around to join him in
37tearing the the dark man to pieces. And one cannot speak - because one
38fears by even whispering under one’s breathe of what one sees
39approaching that one may bring it nearer!
40
41^The only things of Lafcadio Hearn’s I have seen were two short
42articles Ellis sent me. I should like very much to have unreadable any
43thing of his very much indeed. Love to George & Lucy, & Mat if you see
44him. I sometimes hear from Isabella & the dear old Bob. ^
45
46 Olive
47
Notation
The books referred to are: W.E.B. Du Bois (1903) The Souls of Black Folk Chicago: A.C. McClurg; Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) Uncle Tom’s Cabin Boston: J.P. Jewett; and Lafcadio Hearn (1895) Koroko: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life London: Gay & Bird.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/91
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1906
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere.
1 Dear old Edward
2
3 I like your picture very much. But I like best the little snap Ellis
4sent me of you standing in a door. I think thats rather wonderful in
5the way of a photograph. You will see the Natal & Johannesburg
6capitalists are trying to raise a mighty native war, & England’s
7hands are again red with the blood of executed men. How Englishmen can
8talk about Russia, & not see that the same cap fits themselves were
9any but Englishmen are concerned puzzles me. Edward you haven’t any
10idea how awful it is to live in a country where the things happen
11which
12
13^happen in South Africa. ^
14
15 Good bye. Love to the old friends. Its more than a year since I had
16any news of Bob - I wrote about nine months ago but he hasn’t
17answered. Give me any news you can of him.
18
19 Olive
20
21
22

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/92
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date9 February 1907
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 Feb 9th 1907
3
4 Dear old Ed’ard
5
6 I send you a bit of a letter I’ve just got from a very dear &
7remarkable friend of mine, Mrs. Earle. She the grand daughter of an
8Earl, I mean a an Lord Earl, all her relations are lords & ladies, but
9she’s a grand old Radical. She’s over 70 & as young & lovely in
10mind as if she were 20. I’m going to tell her to send you some of
11her books with which I think you’ll like. How she will love you when
12I tell her, as I’m going to in my letter today, that you were an
13anti meat eater twenty five years before the fashion came in. She is
14quite mad on the no meat question. Its She quite wrong about my meat
15eating. I’ve not eaten meat or soup practically now for one year & a
16half, & never taste it when I’m in my own home, live principally on
17sour milk & a very very little dry biscuit (bread & sugar are worse
18for me than meat). What I contend with her is that what suits us does
19not of necessity suit everyone. Here are the Boers one of the biggest
20& most powerful races the world has yet seen who live entirely almost
21on meat. My objection to meat eating is & remains the horror of eating
22ones animal brothers. I never pass a flock of sheep, or cattle with
23their dear large restful eyes but I get a stick in my heart. Of course
24people like Mrs. Earle with generations of port drinking overeating
25aristocrats behind her ought for purely physical reason to eat meat or
26take any stimulating diet. I believe that nearly all the diseases of
27the wealthy ?men classes in England, might be cured by a non-meat diet.
28
29 Everything is going on all right with me. I am still at Hanover living
30quite alone now as Cron has his business at De Aar where I can’t
31live, I stayed there a month & nearly died. He’s coming over on the
3224th of this month to see me ^which is our wedding day^ & then on the
3324th of March which is my birthday. It is very hard to be separated
34from him, but I stay here so that if he were ill or wanted me I could
35go at once.
36
37 He is going to start a newspaper at De Aar, a general paper, but it
38will support labour, the doing away with the disabilities of sex, &
39above all seek for justice for the native, the one great all important
40problem here now. The different white governments here are going to
41bring on a terrific native war here within the next few years! They
42will likely bring on a small one in Natal next May. There is no one
43here to defend the native because it doesn’t pay.
44
45^Good bye dear old Brother. I had my likeness taken here the other week
46by a little travelling photographer who goes round to take the Boers,
47if its a passable likeness I’ll send you one. Do you ever see
48anything of our old Bob? Is he changed or much the same as ever? ^
49
50 Olive
51
52 Dear Isabella has written a fine paper on the woman question. I’m
53writing at my book.
54
Notation
The book Schreiner was 'writing at' is From Man to Man. The paper referred to is: Isabella Ford (1907) Women and Socialism London: Independent Labour Party.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/93
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date24 April 1907
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Hanover
2 April 24th 1907
3
4 Dear Edward,
5
6 My thought seem always turning to you now-a-days, or rather, you
7always seem to be coming into them. It has made me feel quite restless
8& anxious about you. But a letter I got from Isabella Ford last week
9said that when last she heard you were quite well. I’ve had
10curiously many letters lately from friends about your books. One of my
11closest women friends, the woman with whom I perhaps feel most
12akinness in the world wrote me a long letter some weeks ago about
13loves Coming of Age & what one passage in the book had meant for her.
14Curious how we find our own in this world, & find the food we need,
15when we need it often. She is a daughter of Lytton (Owen Merideth) &
16to me the loveliest completest soul woman’s soul there is on earth.
17We’ve hardly seen eachother for 16 years but our friendship always
18keeps on growing.
19
20 //I had a great surprise & joy a week ago in a long, long letter Lene
21"Bob’s" wife. It made me so glad I could have cried for joy, because
22I find she’s finding & seeing our "Bob" as we always saw him. I’d
23like to see their little children.
24
25 I am still living here alone with my dog & three meerkats. I think I
26told you Cron sold his business here, & has gone to live at De Aar a
27Railway camp about 36 miles from this. I went & lived there with him
28for a month, but I very nearly died; so I’ve come back here for the
29present. He comes over to see me every fortnight from Saturday to
30Monday if he can. I’m feeling much better just now & am writing hard
31at my book so of course I’m never lonely.
32
33 It is a very cold snowy rainy night, & nearly eleven, so I’ll go to
34bed to get warm. Curious that people think it is always hot in all
35parts of South Africa. They forget it’s a continent almost as large
36& quite as varied as Europe. I hope you are well & nothing is
37troubling you.
38
39 Olive
40
41 ^Its grand how the women are fighting now. I wish I were with them. We
42are starting a little society here - But here it’s hard work to
43rouse people.^
44
Notation
Schreiner was 'writing hard at' From Man to Man. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1896) Love’s Coming-of-Age Manchester: Labour Press.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/94
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date19 February 1909
Address FromMatjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Matjesfontein
2 Cape Colony
3 Feb 19 / 09
4
5 Dear Edward
6
7 You are an absolutely wicked boy! I did send those two photographs to
8Bob. - I paid 5/- each for them as they are large ones, & I had I had
9only a couple. I did send you a copy of my article. It wasn’t a
10pamphlet it was a news paper. I suppose you are so superior at
11Millthorpe, you just throw news papers into the wastepaper basket
12without troubling to look at them! (Had him there!)
13
14 Con Lytton cabled to me yesterday that she had made arrangements for
15its coming out in the form of a small book so I’m writing her to
16send a copy to you. I could send you another newspaper with it do in.
17But no doubt you wouldn’t deign to open it!
18
19 I’m still at Matjesfontein oh so glad, so thankful to be here.
20It’s so peace-ful & rest-ful. I can’t write about the Closer Union.
21 It distresses me too much. If the plans of this miserable convention
22are carried out we stand at the beginning of a long steady downward
23course of 20 or 20 years. There is no hope of even that little shred
24of justice to the natives there has been in years past. The Rant
25capitalists & the retrograde Boers are going to dominate the country.
26We shall have native wars which for injustice & horrors will make the
27Boer war seem an innocent little game: & we have no working class to
28fight with because our working class is the natives themselves who
29will have no votes, & who if they strike or move in any way will be
30shot down like dogs.
31
32 It is all depressing me so I can’t work just now. And you see one
33has to be so careful how one moves
or what one says lest one makes
34matters worse. When one thinks one is dipping one’s pen into ink one
35may so easily be dipping it into blood in this country.
36
37 Olive
38
39
40
41
Notation
'Its coming out in the form of a small book' refers to Closer Union, which originated as a lengthy article published in the on 21 December 1908 and the Cape Times on 22 December 1908 (p.9); it appeared as a short book in 1909.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/95
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 January 1911
Address FromOudeberg, Graaff-Reinet, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 Oudeberg
2 nr. Graaff Reinet
3 Jan 31st 1911
4
5 Dear Ed
6
7 I was glad to get your letter. I don’t know why I’ve had you so
8much in mind of late. I’m glad you’ve got your friend George with
9you to make it homelike. Give my love to dear Kate Salt. I’m staying
10up at a little wayside "Hotel" at the top of a mountain pass. It’s a
11wild weird solitary place, a little flat roofed house standing by the
12roadside. Just before my bedroom door across the road yawns a huge
13gorge full of rocks & prickly pears, & every where are wide deep
14gorges & valley down which you look (I think gorges & valley are so
15fine when you look down at them from above. Just behind the house
16rises the huge crest of the Oudeberg, the highest peak, crowned with a
17gigantic circlel of precipice hundreds of feet high that no one has
18ever been able to scale. When I went for my walk early this morning
19there were thousands of baboons calling & climbing all over the
20mountain. It was very grand. I love baboons in these wild solitudes:
21they bring one back to the pre-historic past. There is no one in this
22place but the "Hotel" man & his wife & the barman & the baby, &
23unreadable some black servants. Sometimes carts or waggons go down the
24mountain pass; but except for that we have no connection with the
25world. We get our post once a week. If I keep on feeling as well as I
26do now I expect I shall stay here for a couple of months. It would be
27rather fine if Bob & you were here. You could go into one "kloof" &
28meditate, Bob could go into the next & meditate mathematics or
29invensions; I could go into a third & listen to the baboons, & at
30mealtimes we could all meet, & at night lie out together on the warm
31rocks & sand looking at the stars, & talking if we want. I never feel
32lonely in the morning & all day; but towards evening & at night I
33begin to long for "folks as one loves."
34
35 I’m working a bit at my book. If ever I should finish it perhaps
36I’ll bring it home to England myself to publish but I don’t think
37I ever shall finish it - but I mean to try to the end.
38
39 I’ve no news to give you. You see I’m so out of the world, I
40don’t even know what’s going on parliament or the country
41generally. I wish I could have a long talk with you Edward. As one
42grows older one gets more & more shut up within oneself: & I think it
43causes a kind of internal spiritual congestion!
44
45 Are you writing anything? I liked Edith Ellis’s little essay about
46you: but I detested what she said about Hinton & the other fellow.
47
48 It’s very sad to think George Adams is gone. I always seem to see
49him about the house at Millthorp.
50
51 Good bye: send this note on to Bob as I can’t answer his this week.
52I’m full of thought about that invention of his. I hope it’s
53something to do with "wings." I’ve hungered for wings ever since I
54could desire anything. One day they will discover a way of condensing
55force in some convenient way, & you’ll fasten the container onto
56your back between your shoulders & then spread two beautiful butterfly
57
58^wings on each side - & away you’ll fly. I’ve always known people
59must fly, some day, just as there must be perfect love & fellowship on
60earth sometime. Our dreams are prophetic because we are part of life. ^
61
62 Good bye,
63 Olive
64
Notation
The book Schreiner was 'working a bit at' is From Man to Man, which she was spasmodically editing, having completed Woman and Labour. Edith Ellis?s 'little essay' about Carpenter and also Hinton and Nietzsche appeared as: Mrs Havelock Ellis (1910) Three Modern Seers London: Stanley Paul & Co.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/96
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date3 April 1911
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 De Aar
2 April 3rd 1911
3
4 My dear E.C.
5
6 I am sending you a copy of my Woman & Labour. You will see its only a
7fragment.
8
9 I had rather a surprise today John X. Merriman one of our quite
10leading politicians, the most brilliant man we have in South African
11public life; but who has been the bitterest opponent of woman’s
12emancipation in any form wrote me a long letter of several sheets
13expressing great sympathy with my book. It surprised & touched me much.
14 Our native question grows darker & darker here. You can’t take up a
15paper but there is some terrible case of the ill treatment of a native
16& the white man is always let off by the juries; it would be much
17better if we had no trial by juries in this country & all cases were
18tried by judges. The juries are quite shameless. This week there was
19an attack on a perfectly innocent native who was almost linched. But
20if they try the American linching here they will not be very wise -
21there are 100,000 whites & about 500,000 dark men in South Africa. The
22strange thing is that people can’t see their own madness & that a
23pay day must come. I long to see you Edward. W I’m alone at De Aar
24now. My husband has gone to Cape Town for 10 or 12 days. I haven’t
25been there for more than a year.
26
27 We’ve killed two snakes here one at the front gate & one at the side
28of the house. They were both Ringhalses - the most venomous & dreaded
29kind of hooded cobra. The other cobras even when six or seven feet
30long don’t show fight, but the Ringhals attacks you, & fights. He is
31peculiar to South Africa I believe. He has a wonderful power of
32spitting out poisoned venom which no other snake has. Cron had a big
33fight with the one; he came in "blowing" at him.
34
35^My books will be here tomorrow & I’ll send you a copy next week. ^
36
37 I’m alone in this house now; it’s about ten o’clock & my little
38dog & grey Persian cat are sleeping in my bed & my little meerkat, the
39last of the lot is sleeping in his box in the kitchen. What a blessing
40there are animals in the world. If I had a hundr million given me, I
41would give 250,000 to the Anti-vivisection movement. It is cowardly
42wickedness to torture animals to satisfy our own curiosity & help
43ourselves.
44
45 Olive
46

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/97
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date28 April 1911
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 De Aar
2 April 28th 1911
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 No I like my long sentences – when they come! There are things you
7want to present short off & blunt; and there are other things don’t
8present themselves to your mind so. Their tails are part of their
9nature - like my little grey Persian cat’s tail. My dog has no tail
10hardly - & thats his nature. It’s the way things come to you that is
11their spirit. If they came in a different shape they’d be different
12things!
13
14 I’m losing all my German. I’ve not touched a German book for 20
15years. If I were to work up for a few months I’d get it back.
16Can’t you have your article translated or send me the original
17English M.S. I’d return it carefully.
18
19 I hope I may see Ida Hyett this summer. Its just possible she may be
20going to Cape Town. She’s a fine little person. We have few women
21like her in this country. I’m back at De Aar & the weather is
22getting cooler. The thermom. is only 61 tonight in my bedroom the
23coolest its been here for 9 months. Our three winter months are just
24beginning: in the end of August it will be fiercely hot again. My
25little garden is doing beautifully. I’ve got nearly half an acre of
26flowers - just a blaze of colours. I take great joy in it. My little
27Persian cat is becoming so clever - quite a person. Cats do & all
28animals if you love them & converse with them enough. We’ve a cat &
29a little meercat, & the little dog Ollie. My real dog, that’s going
30to be buried with me, died long ago; & my own meerkat that I had for
31ten years died last year.
32
33 Things are going from bad to worse in this country as far as the
34natives are concerned. Their bitterest enemies are the white working
35men who are trying to get a law passed that natives shall not be
36allowed to do skilled labour!!! I want to write an address to white
37working men at the Cape if ever I get a little better.
38
39 I wish our Bob would make some of his inventions so successful that he
40flew right up into the air free from all material anxieties. I
41haven’t heard from dear Isabella Ford for a long time. I hope all
42goes well with her.
43
44 I wish I knew Greek perfectly. I’ve been having the most blissful
45joy reading Gilbert Murray’s translations of Euripides plays. They
46are glorious. For the last 20 years all the books that have given me
47the most pleasure are the translations of Greek & Latin writers.
48Jowel’s Plato & all the prose writers one has been able to get at,
49but Gilbert Murray is the only man who has made Greek poetry live in
50English. I like Euripides more even if be possible than our sweet Will
51Shakespeare he seems closer to me - but it’s ill judging between the
52dear Gods - they each sit on their own throne with a crown of eternal
53glory on their heads.
54
55 Edward, do you hate Well’s books as much as I do? The note of that
56type of modern book is that the writers seem to have lost all sense of
57the existence of such a thing as loyalty - even to oneself!
58
59 Good night.
60 "Alles ten besten" (All of the best to you) as our old Dutch men say
61 Olive
62
Notation
The books referred to are: Benjamin Jowett (ed 1892) Plato, The Dialogues of Plato Oxford: Oxford University Press; Gilbert Murray's translations of Euripides include: Euripides (1900) Andromache London: William Heinemann; (1904) Euripides: The Bacchae London: Allen & Unwin; (1905) Trojan Women London: Allen & Unwin; (1905) Electra of Euripides London: Allen & Unwin: (1910) Medea London: George Allen; and (1910) The Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides London: George Allen & Sons.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/98
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date17 June 1912
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.
1 De Aar
2 June 17th 1912
3
4 Dear Edward
5
6 Thank you much for your book. I would have written sooner but I’ve
7been through a time of much sorrow. My favourite sister Mrs Stakesby
8Lewis
died of heart disease the week before last after 7 months of the
9most terrible anguish I ever saw a human creature go through. I have
10just been down to Cape Town to her funeral. Oh it is blessed to think
11she is enjoying an everlasting sleep. I don’t know how those can face
12death who believe their beloved are still as individuals ^existing^ in a
13universe where such suffering & torture exists. My husbands mother
14also died when I was down there. It was a very terrible death. She was
15buried on the same day as my sister.
16
17 Cron is well. He is going next Sunday on a trip to the Victoria Falls
18& will be away for two weeks. You ought to see the Falls. There are
19much the most beautiful & wonderful thing in nature that I have ever
20seen any where on earth. We were all nearly drowned when I was there
21last year - my sister in law her young son of 20 & my two young nieces
22with 12 other people. We were in a steam launch with which broke down
23when we were above the falls & we were slowly but surely drifting down
24to them when eight boats manned by powerful natives came from the
25shore a mile off & saved us. It was splendid how brave everyone but
26one woman was. It is curious how instead of making me shrink from the
27falls it made me love them more than ever. It was as though after that
28there was an organic connection between one & them, as if they were
29calling to me. No pictures of it give you the slightest idea of its
30glory. It is not a bit as they paint it mere water. It is an infinite
31wild strong spirit leaping down on an edge hundreds of feet high &
32turning into smoke which rises miles into the air. You can see the
33smoke miles & miles away rising in a great cloud into the sky. There
34is a place called Danger Point, where you look at it from there the
35mist is covered by three or four rainbows, & you can only cry with joy
36as you look at it. I asked an American, who was there what he thought
37of it. He said "Well after this I think they’d better dry Niagger up &
38run it into a furrow – it’s nothing." When it is full as when we were
39there it is a mile & a half wide. When you are in a boat in the middle
40of it you can’t distinguish objects on either bank. You can see a boat
41but you can’t distinguish the people in it.
42
43 Good bye dear old Edward
44 Olive
45
46 My dear friend Lady Constance Lytton is very ill. She has been almost
47insensible for two weeks, she knows people & can make a sound in her
48throat but cannot speak or move her right hand or leg. The specialists
49say a little particle of the tissue of her worn out heart has got into
50the brain. She may never speak or move herself again or in two or
51three months it may have dissipated & she may partly recover; but it
52will always happen again as the heart is quite broken down.
53
54 ^She & Adela Smith are the two women nearest & dearest to me in the
55world now my sister is gone.^
56
Notation
Carpenter's book is likely to be The Art of Creation (1912, London: Allen).

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/99
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 18 January 1914
Address FromAlassio, Italy
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Alassio
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear EC.
5
6 I’m here at my beloved Alassio. I wonder if it wouldn’t do your
7sisters good to come here. London with out sunshine depresses people
8so when they are ill. Oh Edward it is like Paradise here today. I
9walked to the promontory & saw the blue bays & ^blue^ mountains with the
10white snowy mountains beyond Spitzer, sticking out beyond. There could
11be nothing on earth more beautiful. I am so well here, that I can’t
12help feeling it would do everyone else good. I shall be here for two
13or three weeks, before I tear myself away to go on to Florence. Flor
14Thankyou for the cards of introduction. I shall use them when I go. A
15very nice old German (I fancy a professor) & his delightful wife are
16here, & they are expecting in a few days a friend who sha has been a
17professor in Japan & has married a Japanese wife, who is coming with
18him. It will be interesting to meet her. I’ve never personally met a
19Jap; I wonder if I shall feel drawn to her as I do to Indian ^women.^ I
20have a curious sympathy with many Indians.
21
22 Its so beautiful & restful here, Edward. For 17 years I’ve longed to
23be here, & now I find it more beautiful than I thought.
24
25 There is only the nightmare of Africa in the background. The
26Government there thinks that by imprisoning hundreds of men & shooting
27^down^ others they can keep a whole people down. I see nothing but a
28?path of blood before us.
29
30 Good bye dear.
31 Olive.
32
33 ^I suppose your sisters are unreadable ^^too^^ ill to be moved, otherwise I
34think a change to some part of the Riviera must be good for them.^
35
36 ^If they thought of coming here I would try to find suitable rooms.^
37
38
39

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/100
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday May 1914
Address From30 St Mary Abbotts Terrace, Kensington, London
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 30 St Mary Abbotts Terrace
2 Sunday
3
4 Dear Ed
5
6 I’m leaving on Wednesday night for Nauheim If you could come on
7Tuesday evening I’d be so glad. Who knows when I shall see your face
8again. I’m pretty bad old man I’ve got a stone in the kidney as
9well as my heart Good bye
10
11 Olive
12
13 I was at the gate & saw the police knocking down the women - but why
14oh why do the women use force. Force must be met by force. Don’t you
15think so.
16

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/101
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 1 June 1914
Address From30 St Mary Abbotts Terrace, Kensington, London
Address To8 St Albans Road, Sutton, London
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date of this letter has been derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, while the address it was sent to is on its front.
1 30 St. Mary Abbott’s Terrace
2 Kensington
3 London
4 Sunday
5
6 Dear Edward
7
8 I wonder when you are coming to London? I have been up to Cambridge
9most of the week where my little niece Ursula who is a student at
10Newnham has had to undergo an operation for appendicitis. She’s
11doing splendidly. I returned last night. That visit to your friend &
12the unreadable concert were one of the brightest things since I came
13to London. I sent your message to Con Lytton. She is lying very ill
14now; no one but her mother allowed to see her, but the last news is
15that she is improving.
16
17 I wish you were here & we could go up the River & to Kew or Hampton
18Court. One longs for the spring air & the May at this time of year. My
19brother Will is still up at Cambridge but goes to Nauheim in about a
20week. I shall follow a little later.
21
22 It was splendid to see you looking so bright & fit. One for
23vegetarianism!!
24
25 I am going out on Thursday to see that Women’s deputation to the
26King. It will not be allowed to reach Buckingham Palace the Mounted
27Police - I hear - are going to ride them down long before they get
28there. In the evening there is to be a meeting of the man and
29woman’s suffrage ^society at which I’m going to say just one
30sentence! Let me know when you are coming.
31 Olive^
32
33^Alice Corthorn asks won’t you come to supper at seven o’clock on
34Tuesday. Do. ^
35 OS
36
37
38
Notation
Schreiner's final insertion is written on the back of the envelope attached to this letter.

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/102
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date4 August 1920
Address From9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address ToMillthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date of this letter has been derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, while the address it was sent to is on its front. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.
1 Dear Edward
2
3 Cron send me a letter - he did not ask me to send it on to you, he
4only said in the P.S. you can send this on to Edward if you like. I
5will look for it & send it you if I find it. I have been so unwell I
6have not been writing to any one. I am sailing on the 13th of August
7for South Africa. If I dont see you again dear old Edward Good bye.
8All good be with you.
9
10 Olive
11
12 My darling husband is with me now & will be till I sail. I fel feel
13that after this glorious happy time with him I’m willing to go when
14the time comes. How much of rarity there has been in my life: & he the
15most precious of all the things life has given me. One is glad to have
16lived, & that one day after thousands of years a world will rise on
17earth in which nation hate & the love of dominance will have passed
18away - is what I believe - though I can’t prove it.
19
20 Olive
21
22
23

Letter Reference Edward Carpenter 359/103
ArchiveSheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Datend
Address Fromna
Address To
Who ToEdward Carpenter
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. No further information is available for this letter or note, so it cannot be dated.
1 As a rule one wants to kill anyone who sends you a friend’s letter
2to read, but save this till you have time & it will interest you. The
3writer is the only person I ever knew who entirely on their own
4account that has determined to live a kind of Thorean life, & has
5stuck to it for 20 years. W She is one of my oldest friends. They are
6rich people. The farm they have cost £12,00 alone, yet she she has
7never had a servant in her house. They cook wash &c, &c, &c as you can
8see from the letter. In Africa where no white person does anything
9this is considered quite mad. She has twelve children not one of whom
10have ever had a nurse except her ?son, they unreadable have never lost
11a child, all are living at home except the eldest son Ossy who is at
12the gold fields. Five or six of them are grown up, they are a little
13family socialist
14
15 ^all living & working together ?as well.^
16
Notation
The 'friend's letter' which Schreiner sent with this letter is no longer attached.