"Everything so dark & mysterious, going to be a great European war" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box6/Fold4/1918/8
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateMonday April 1918
Address From9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address To
Who ToWilliam Philip ('Will') Schreiner
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease 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 of this letter has been written on in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.
1 Monday
2
3 Dear old Man
4
5 It was nice to see you looking a little more like your old self.
6I’ve not seen you looking so, since the war began. I hope it’s not
7a flash in the pan.
8
9 Read, if you have time that article in the Nation I left with Fan "The
10recollections of a soldier". Its the only thing that I’ve read that
11expresses what I feel, that no one in England realizes the ghastly
12horror of the war. They think its a sort of dangerous foot ball.
13
14 For me, I see it all day & night in all its horror physical & mental.
15The mental & spiritual the greatest.
16
17 Tell Ol to let me have the Nation back when he’s read it. Ask Fan to
18keep it for me.
19
20 It was cheering & nice being with you dear people yesterday
21 Olive
22
23 ^Just had a letter from Lady Jaffe. They have taken a house at Oxford^
24
Notation
No article or review on 'the recollections of a soldier' appeared in the Nation in March or April 1918. A very short 'notice', in effect just the title, appeared of something relevant: E.G.D. Liveing "Attack! An Infantry Officer's Impressions of July 1st 1916" Nation 27 April 1918, p.91. However, as just a title it hardly seems to match Schreiner's comment.