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Letter ReferenceElisabeth Cobb 840/1/5
ArchiveUniversity College London Library, Special Collections, UCL, London
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date25 March 1885
Address FromHastings, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToElisabeth Cobb nee Sharpe
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to University College London (UCL) and its Library Services for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.
1 Hastings
2 March 25 / 85
3
4 Dear Mrs Cobb
5
6 Miss Müller has written to ask me if you would let her see Karl
7Pearson’s lecture. Her address if you care to send it ^is^
8 58 Cadogan Pl
9 W.
10
11 The letter of Mrs Walters which I enclose gives very exactly my
12feeling with regard to love. When I have time I want to write more to
13you on the subject.
14
15 I have asked someone else the question that I asked you, & they have
16given me the same reply. Why I feel the matter of importance is
17because it bears indirectly on the all important question, "Ought
18there to be two moral standards, one for man, one for woman?" My own
19feeling is very strongly that there ought not. But this can only be
20proved or disproved, by showing how like or unlike, the natures of men
21& women are, especially on the sexual side. Every thing I learn, every
22deeper insight I gain into human nature shows me that the difference
23is small, the resemblance great. But I should like to know as well as
24to feel. I think you are very right in what you said in your last
25letter. ^with regard to the frequency of entercourse between men & women^
26Putting the physical question quite aside, it seems to me too
27important, too serious, &, where men & women love eachother, too
28beautiful ^a thing^ to be made common. Physically speaking I am quite
29unreadable sure you are right.
30
31 I hope you have found some suitable women for the club, & I hope you
32are not tiring yourself too much.
33
34 Olive Schreiner
35
36 Do you perhaps know of any young man who would do what Mrs Walters
37wants?
38
Notation
Karl Pearson's lecture was on the poet Hamerling, given at Cambridge for a conference on 'Moral teachers of the present day' on 30 April 1885, and he had given a manuscript copy to Elisabeth Cobb. See also Robert Hamerling (1882) Amor und Psyche Leipzig: n.p.