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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold2/July-Dec1899/36
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date6 October 1899
Address FromKarree Kloof, Kran Kuil, Northern Cape
Address ToLyndall, Newlands, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who ToWilliam Philip ('Will') Schreiner
Other VersionsRive 1987: 385-6
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. Schreiner was resident on the farm Karree Kloof from the end of August to early November 1899.
1 Oct 6th 1899.
2
3 Dear Laddie
4
5 I am thinking much of you. You must be passing through at time of
6terrible strain. I am quite sure that your action during the last year
7has been in every way the wisest & best the situation allowed of. I
8cannot help feeling that in having got rid of Garrett at the Cape
9Times we have got rid of one great element of evil. I am going to
10write a letter to Milner which I will send you to addressed to post, &
11which will prepare for my meeting him if I come to Cape Town. Of
12course you will not mention you saw it. It is curious that even now my
13feeling to Milner is much more one of pity than of anger. He is a man
14in the wrong place & who has taken the wrong path; but he seems to me
15rather one who has lost his way than intentionally take it. After
16Rhodes, & in a sense more than Rhodes, I blame Garrett.
17
18 Good bye, dear. I have been going about among & seeing a great deal of
19the Boers in this district. The curious faith of these people in the
20Queen & their certainty she will not allow war is touching. If it
21comes, the state of their feeing is something I do not like to think
22of. One man whom we went to see yesterday is the best shot in the
23district & his father the second best. They have ten guns in the house,
24 & an immense quantity of ammunition. How far others are prepared in
25the same way I can’t say. The hatred of Rhodes is something so
26intense, so fierce that ^even^ I am quite astonished. Rhodes thinks he
27will come back to power in South Africa, but that will never be while
28the hills stand. That one thing is certain.
29
30 Good bye, dear. I am always with you in heart.
31 Olive
32
33
34
Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.