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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box1/Fold4/1897/11
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1 May 1897
Address FromGrand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To139 Avenue de Malakoff, Paris, France
Who ToBetty Molteno
Other VersionsRive 1987: 310
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 name of the addressee and the address this letter was sent to are provided by an attached envelope.
1 Grand Hotel
2 Alassio
3 Italy
4 May 1st 1897
5
6 Dear Friend
7
8 I was so disappointed to hear you & Miss Green had not been having the
9delightful time I fancied you were having in Rome. Alice Corthorn
10wrote me some time back that she had met you, & I understood her to
11say that you & Miss Greene were starting off the next morning to spend
12a month in Rome together! I hope you find my beloved old Paris as
13restful & delightful as I do. I love the art & picture galleries so
14there. I am looking forward much to our time there. I know too many
15people in England & the climate is too awful for me ever to feel rest
16in London much as I love it. Here we have been spending a good time.
17
18 We go on our bicycles nearly every day, & hardly ever mention South
19African affairs. Cron is revising his book on the goat & reading & I
20am writing. There are such lovely peaceful views of sea & ?land here.
21There is one little Cape, Santa Croce, where I always think I should
22like to be sitting when I died. Do you know that Mrs Innes is in
23England?
24
25 Did I tell you that Mrs Sauer wrote me she had resolved to send
26Dorothy to you to Port Elizabeth. If you are going to start the school
27at Cape Town I would write & tell Mrs Sauer about in case she should
28send Dorothy else where. I’ve not mentioned about you perhaps going
29to Cape Town as I want didn’t know if you wished it mentioned to any
30one.
31
32 Do learn to bicycle in Paris. You will find it such a mental rest. The
33action of the for legs seems to rest one. We shall get to London about
34the second week in June as I want to spend two or three weeks in Paris.
35 If I don’t unreadable get my book done as soon as I hoped we shall
36perhaps stay a year longer in this country. I don’t want to have to
37make the voyage again soon.
38
39 Good bye dear. My love to Miss Green.
40 Olive
41
42 It’s not certain when we shall leave for Paris. If the weather keeps
43a hot as it is now we shall leave in a week or ten days, if it gets
44cooler not till the 26th of this month.
45
46
47
Notation
The book Schreiner mentions wanting to 'get done' is likely to be a reference to Schreiner’s ‘A Returned South African’ essays, originally published in a range of magazines and intended to be reworked in book form, as Stray Thoughts on South Africa. A dispute with a US publisher and then the outbreak of the South African War (1899-1902) prevented this, and they were in the event with some additional essays published posthumously as Thoughts on South Africa. Cronwright-Schreiner's 'book on the goat' is: S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner (1898) The Angora Goat London: Longmans. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.