"Saddest & loneliest old years eve, old days at Heald Town" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner BC16/Box5/Fold4/Jan-June1915/11 |
| Archive | University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | 15 March 1915 |
| Address From | Kensington Palace Mansions, De Vere Gardens, Kensington, London |
| Address To | The Cottage, Ivy Deane, Rondebosch, Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Who To | Alice Greene |
| Other Versions | |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The letter is on printed headed notepaper and an attached envelope provides the address it was sent to.
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1Telephone: 3675 Kensington.
2Telegrams: Apartment, London.
3
4Kensington Palace Mansions & Hotel,
5De Vere Gardens, W.
6
7Dear Alice
8
9I have a niece whom I introduced you too - Wynnie Hemming. She is
10teaching at Marshes Homes. I think you would like her so if you got to
11know her. She quite the most unselfish & beautiful character of all in
12my family. She’s led such a strange life of devotion to others.
13She’s very reserved, but if you got to know her I think you would
14feel great sympathy with her. She’s curiously like you in many ways.
15I always feel about her, as I feel about you (you will laugh at me for
16saying it) – such an abiding sorrow that you didn’t marry & have a
17large family of children! You would both have made such splendid wives
18& mothers. But life has willed it otherwise.
19
20Many women I feel glad have never married. I never feel how they could
21have made marriage a success. Wynnie was one of the loveliest children
22I ever saw; & a beautiful young girl. As a little child people used to
23stop the nurse two or three times in one afternoon to comment on her
24beauty.
25
26I am not very fit, but no doubt shall soon be better. But the weather
27is getting warmer; the thermom= at 60, & I feel it at once. Oh to live
28in a country where there was hard frost every night. We are having
29thick, warm foggie weather now – but oh some of the dear little
30snowdrops & crocasies are out in the park under the trees!
31
32It’s going to be spring outside. But in the human heart is nothing
33but hatred & the will to stay & dominate. It doesn’t seem like
34English spring coming, one’s heart is so heavy.
35
36Good bye dear. Love to my dear Betty
37Olive
38
2Telegrams: Apartment, London.
3
4Kensington Palace Mansions & Hotel,
5De Vere Gardens, W.
6
7Dear Alice
8
9I have a niece whom I introduced you too - Wynnie Hemming. She is
10teaching at Marshes Homes. I think you would like her so if you got to
11know her. She quite the most unselfish & beautiful character of all in
12my family. She’s led such a strange life of devotion to others.
13She’s very reserved, but if you got to know her I think you would
14feel great sympathy with her. She’s curiously like you in many ways.
15I always feel about her, as I feel about you (you will laugh at me for
16saying it) – such an abiding sorrow that you didn’t marry & have a
17large family of children! You would both have made such splendid wives
18& mothers. But life has willed it otherwise.
19
20Many women I feel glad have never married. I never feel how they could
21have made marriage a success. Wynnie was one of the loveliest children
22I ever saw; & a beautiful young girl. As a little child people used to
23stop the nurse two or three times in one afternoon to comment on her
24beauty.
25
26I am not very fit, but no doubt shall soon be better. But the weather
27is getting warmer; the thermom= at 60, & I feel it at once. Oh to live
28in a country where there was hard frost every night. We are having
29thick, warm foggie weather now – but oh some of the dear little
30snowdrops & crocasies are out in the park under the trees!
31
32It’s going to be spring outside. But in the human heart is nothing
33but hatred & the will to stay & dominate. It doesn’t seem like
34English spring coming, one’s heart is so heavy.
35
36Good bye dear. Love to my dear Betty
37Olive
38