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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold6/1907/25
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday August 1907
Address FromRossyvera, Norfolk Road, Sea Point, Cape Town, Western Cape
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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
1 Rossyvera
2 Norfolk Rd
3 Sunday
4
5 My old Laddie
6
7 It was beautiful to see you looking so well, with something of the
8freshness & dew of your youth upon you.
9
10 I am writing to beg something of you. Do play golf! It is your only
11chance of keeping up your health.
12
13 Cron will be so delighted to call for you & have a game or two any
14time (he got a lot of extra sticks ) if you haven’t any) & he will
15infect you with his own passionate enthusiasm. I feel it had^s^ added
16years to his life & made a new man of him. He comes out of his office
17every day at 4.30 & he goes straight to the course. He is back at 6 to
18have his dinner, & sits writing in the office again till ten or eleven;
19 but it ^the office work^ doesn’t tell him as it did since he has that
20hours golf every day. He would come out & play with you at Rondebosch
21next Saturday afternoon, or you might come out with him & play on the
22round here. Cron is a member of both clubs. If only you could get
23infected with the true passion for it, I know you’d keep on. The
24thing is to get properly started. Cron plays on Sundays of course too,
25but perhaps you wouldn’t like to. I am a great opponent to the
26spending all ones spare time in the sitting & watching other people
27sport: I am a most intense believer in the importance of keeping up
28the habit of sporting for what Ursula would call "Middle Aged" people.
29The Parliamentary Golf players & Government House, including the
30Governor, are I believe going to play Sea Point golf club. If you drop
31a line to Cron at the House he’ll meet you & you could make
32arrangements. I started golf at Matjesfontein & infected Cron & if he
33infects you I shall feel I am the ^unreadable^ benefactor of my family.
34
35 I want so much to see you & hear more about the people & things of
36your visit. I am very sorry you didn’t see Mrs Earle: I made sure
37she would ask you so I didn’t trouble to give you a letter to her.
38She will be much disappointed at not meeting you.
39
40 I have just got an interesting book Con Lytton has sent me called "A
41Year in Russia" by a young journalist of talent Maurice Baring. It is
42dedicated to her. She is a wonderful woman with strong socialistic
43sympathies, broad, & tender, & wise in every way. She & Adela Smith
44are the women nearest to me in the world; I should scarcely have got
45through the last five or six years of loneliness without their
46sympathy & love thought it could only reach me through their weekly
47letters.
48
49 I hope they will get really to know our little girl. I’ve so much
50I’d like to talk to you about but it isn’t possible for me to come
51out to Rondebosch. I have to sit up all night even here, so I shan’t
52stay long. I would leave now only I can’t face that absolute
53solitude in Hanover again, & I can’t find anywhere else to go.
54
55 The little ?weary wandering Jew,
56 Olive
57
58 Cron would so much enjoy the golf with you because then he could
59really see something of you. I’d like so for you & he to get to know
60each other.
61
62 Curiously enough I got a long letter this morning from that ?S ?Denny,
63the head unreadable Mining Expert of the ?Albu ?body of mines at
64Johannesburg whom I was asking you about when you were here. I’ll
65tell you the little story about him when we meet.
66
67
68
Notation
The book referred to is: Maurice Baring (1907) A Year in Russia London: Methuen.