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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box7/Fold4/Mar-Dec1920/11
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date2 June 1920
Address From9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address ToSandown Road, Rondebosch, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who ToLucy Molteno nee Mitchell
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 address this letter was sent to is provided by an attached envelope.
1 9 Porchester Place
2 Edgware Rd
3 Ma June 2nd 1920
4
5 My darling darling Lucy
6
7 I don’t think you could quite understand how I valued your letter.
8It came to me just when I was feeling curiously depressed. It was like
9a dear hand put out me from across the water. You don’t know how it
10cheered me.
11
12 I am sailing on the 13th of August when my nephew & his wife sail, as
13I can’t go alone. I’ve taken my passage.
14
15 I’m very sorry Mrs Murrays house is not still a boarding house, but
16Ruth Alexander has promised to look out a list of places I can choose
17from when I come. I shall go for the first days to Ursula’s at
18Binzana at Plumstead & later for a few days to my dear sister-in-laws
19who has a cottage near Ursula’s. But I want to find some furnished
20or un-furnished rooms somewhere where I can breathe & settle myself &
21my small belongings there for good, & then I can go & see all my dear
22friends when I’m well enough not to be depressing. If I can’t get
23rooms I must go to a boarding house or hotel. Cap the Cape is not like
24Europe they haven’t introduced the idea of letting ro "apartments"
25there.
26
27 I do hope you have quite got over that terrible influenza. The bad
28thing about it is that it so often – almost always weakens the heart,
29 & you are not robust enough to stand weakening. I do hope when I come
30you will be looking quite your old-self, but I fear you will find the
31winter trying.
32
33 I had a letter from Mrs Percy Molteno go today in which she says she
34is going out to the Cape when May & Freddie go out. I have not seen
35her since Lucy was here.
36
37 Betty is still down in Cornwall. I can’t help feeling a little
38anxious about her, & wish I was able to go down to her just to see how
39she is. I do hope she will come out to the Cape. I think she will when
40we all go. Margarets being there will draw her strongly; but she
41doesn’t like to leave the spot where Alice Greene rests, I think.
42She seems to feel nearer her there you know Lucy, I think that what I
43dread in coming out to South Africa is that I won’t find my brother
44Will here. His was always the first voice I heard when I landed the
45first face that looked smiling in at my cabin, & I’ve got a curious
46feeling as if I ought to see him when I go there. All my life he was
47so good to me, such a strength & help.
48
49 It will be very sweet to see your dear Lucy, again. She is such a
50beautifully sincere child & sincerity is after all the greatest of
51virtues.
52
53 Good bye dear dear Lucy. Thank you for your letter again & again.
54 Olive
55
56 My husband writes me that he will be here about the 5th of July so I
57shall have the joy of seeing him for about a month before I leave. He
58hopes to pay America a visit.
59
60
61