"Great native question, we shall reap as we have sown" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner BC16/Box4/Fold1/1908/32 |
Archive | University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town |
Epistolary Type | Letter |
Letter Date | 23 May 1908 |
Address From | Matjesfontein, Western Cape |
Address To | |
Who To | Betty Molteno |
Other Versions | |
Permissions | Please 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 of this letter is indicated by salutation and content.
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1
Matjesfontein
2 May 23rd 1908
3
4 Darling Friend
5
6 I am still here you see, but leave next Wednesday for de Aar.
7
8 No I don’t like the Isle of Weight. I dislike it very much, its
9scenery is to me so petty & mean; worse than most of the scenery in
10England, & the climate is so damp & ?warm – I have spent months
11there.
12
13 Kent, & Surrey, Sussex, & Norfolk & Yorkshire ^& Bedfordshire & Herts^
14are all much more attractive to me. But if I am in England I love to
15be in London & the day I leave it to go onto the dear glorious old
16continent England suffocates me. The really big cosmopolitan thing in
17it, is London, which really is not England at all, but a world’s
18city, as Rome must have been in the old days, a nation in itself. In a
19way, London is to me what no other place on earth is. If there were
20life after death it would be one of the places my spirit would go back to.
21
22 The woman’s cause seems progressing well. I believe those wretched
23"Liberals" will be compelled to give them the franchise before long.
24We are having another meeting on the 2nd of June I think at Mrs
25Murray’s. Emily Hobhouse is going to speak. Mary Sauer has wired for
26me to come, but I can’t. I wish you & Alice were here to help us. I
27wish Mrs Murray were president of the association. I am going to work
28hard that she may be elected ^next time.^
29
30 I expect when Federation comes the sop that will be thrown to Natal to
31make her take a back place, is that the other states will crush her
32natives for her:
33
34 I am working a little at my book with great pleasure & am much
35stronger.
36
37 Good bye dear friend. Love to Alice. I wonder
38
39^where you will be when this reaches you, if it ever does. ^
40 Olive
41
42 ^There are delightful little houses here you can have furnished for £4
43a month & unfurnished for £2.10. If ever you & Alice do come out
44perhaps you will like to take one I somehow think.^
45
46
47
2 May 23rd 1908
3
4 Darling Friend
5
6 I am still here you see, but leave next Wednesday for de Aar.
7
8 No I don’t like the Isle of Weight. I dislike it very much, its
9scenery is to me so petty & mean; worse than most of the scenery in
10England, & the climate is so damp & ?warm – I have spent months
11there.
12
13 Kent, & Surrey, Sussex, & Norfolk & Yorkshire ^& Bedfordshire & Herts^
14are all much more attractive to me. But if I am in England I love to
15be in London & the day I leave it to go onto the dear glorious old
16continent England suffocates me. The really big cosmopolitan thing in
17it, is London, which really is not England at all, but a world’s
18city, as Rome must have been in the old days, a nation in itself. In a
19way, London is to me what no other place on earth is. If there were
20life after death it would be one of the places my spirit would go back to.
21
22 The woman’s cause seems progressing well. I believe those wretched
23"Liberals" will be compelled to give them the franchise before long.
24We are having another meeting on the 2nd of June I think at Mrs
25Murray’s. Emily Hobhouse is going to speak. Mary Sauer has wired for
26me to come, but I can’t. I wish you & Alice were here to help us. I
27wish Mrs Murray were president of the association. I am going to work
28hard that she may be elected ^next time.^
29
30 I expect when Federation comes the sop that will be thrown to Natal to
31make her take a back place, is that the other states will crush her
32natives for her:
33
34 I am working a little at my book with great pleasure & am much
35stronger.
36
37 Good bye dear friend. Love to Alice. I wonder
38
39^where you will be when this reaches you, if it ever does. ^
40 Olive
41
42 ^There are delightful little houses here you can have furnished for £4
43a month & unfurnished for £2.10. If ever you & Alice do come out
44perhaps you will like to take one I somehow think.^
45
46
47
Notation
The book Schreiner was working on 'with great pleasure' is From Man to Man.
The book Schreiner was working on 'with great pleasure' is From Man to Man.