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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold2/July-Dec1899/23
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date31 August 1899
Address FromKarree Kloof, Kran Kuil, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToWilliam Philip ('Will') Schreiner
Other VersionsRive 1987: 376-7
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.
1 Karree Kloof
2 Via Kran Kuil
3
4 Aug 31st 1899.
5
6 Dear Laddie
7
8 I’ve just got your note enclosing Loch’s. I returned Butlers
9letter a few moments after I got
it. Cron addressed the envelope as I
10was ill.
11
12 //I’m writing to papers at home or to say Loch &c. I find this
13difficulty, that I cannot write to any effect unless I deal with
14Milner. Milner is the grand mistake. He is too small a man for the
15place. A tool instead of a Governor! The pen is the pen of Milner, but
16the voice is the voice of Garrett. Would it be unwise for me, say in
17writing to Loch to state frankly what I believe, that while a man of
18many most delightful & charming personal qualities, he has thrown
19himself into the hands of a gang of hard agitators & journalist who
20have misled him. It was what I told Milner ^himself^ in the long 16
21sheet letter, which he said he was glad I didn’t send him. Is there
22any use in my stating my view? Of course I should do it carefully as I
23know in writing to Loch that my letters are shown to Salisbury &
24Balfour (Lady Loch told me my last were). I wish I could have a few
25long talks with you I should then have a better grasp of the lay of
26affairs. I am so fearful of not doing just the wisest thing that I
27abstain from acting at all. The Editor of the Do Manchester Guardian,
28has requested me freely to use the cable, send home cables direct to
29him of any length which I think necessary or useful. But at present I
30am too much in the dark to have any useful message to send. If when we
31leave this at the end of the month, I could come as far as Beaufort
32West to meet you, I suppose you & Fan couldn’t run up for a few days
33rest after the session is over? I would come down to Cape Town but am
34afraid of the damp. You must dear, get away for change somewhere. When
35I feel what the 5 days away from Johannesburg have already done for me
36I feel as I never did ^before^ the benefit of change when the pressure
37of life becomes unbearable.
38
39 //All that I am quite clear on politically, & on which I could give
40the most astonishing & enlightening information to the world is the
41ras-calry of the Uitlanders who are working the whole movement in
42Johannesburg; & the general hell like tone of the place.
43
44 If I could paint what I see & as I see it, it would be a picture such
45has not often proceeded from the pen of man. But the time for it is
46not just now. I wish you could spend 6 months in Johannesburg: no
47person who has not lived in Hell can know what that place & those
48people are.
49
50 Olive
51
52
53
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.