"Rhodes as almighty might-have-been" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner BC16/Box11/Fold1/Dated/5 |
| Archive | University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | Saturday 12 September 1914 |
| Address From | The Mascot, Holmwood, Surrey |
| Address To | |
| Who To | William Philip ('Will') Schreiner |
| 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 date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The letter is on printed headed notepaper; Schreiner was staying with the Pethick-Lawrences at the time of writing the first part of the letter. However, Karl Liebknecht and Rose Luxemburg were murdered in January 1919, with their bodies found five or six months later, so the middle section is likely to be from another later letter.
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1
The Mascot,
2 Holmwood,
3 Surrey
4
5 Saturday
6
7 Dear Laddy
8
9 You did not give me your new address so I am sending this to
10Oliver’s old one. I came down here yesterday morning & slept here
11last night & am going back to London after lunch. Oh the bless'd
12^bliss^, the quiet here!
13
14 It is now 11 o’clock & I am only getting up in my beautiful quiet
15room. I’ve written half my article as I lay here since dawn.
16
17 It is raining gently out side. I will tell you as soon as I have found
18a place. If I can I ?would to get one cheaper than at Alice’s for
19£6.0.0 a month with a large bedroom & board ^an egg for each meal &
20stewed fruit^ but no flights of stairs which I can’t manage. But
21there are hundreds of quiet places if one could find them. Three
22friends are looking out for me at Hampstead. Don’t worry about me,
23I’m all right, I shall find what I want where I can settle down. I
24send you the paper – with the report of the execution of Dr
25Liebknecht the head of the Social Democrats for in the German
26Parliament for refusing to fight ^take up arms against his brothers^,
27also of a woman ^advocate of peace^. It seems to have made all the world
28more beautiful, that hideous blackness of clotted blood that rested
29over everything seems gone There is the ray of light! "Yet have I kept
30unto me ten thousand –" Many Germans will die so. If I had only had
31Liebknecht’s address & could have gone to shake hands with him at
32Berlin.
33
34 Good bye dear. All good be with you.
35 Olive
36 Love to Oliver & Ursie
37
38 Saturday evening
39
40 Have got back to London & found your dear letter. I shall get on all
41right. A friend Mrs Stobart has offered her house ^for nothing^ in
42Hampstead while she goes to Belgium with some doctors & nurses. Of
43course I won’t take it but I was touched by her kindness. I’m
44going up early tomorrow to look at a tiny flat at Hampstead.
45
46 Got a letter from Merriman who calls on me on Monday. He asked most
47kindly after you.
48
49 Olive
50
51 ^Address to Alice’s care till I give you my new address.^
52
53
54
2 Holmwood,
3 Surrey
4
5 Saturday
6
7 Dear Laddy
8
9 You did not give me your new address so I am sending this to
10Oliver’s old one. I came down here yesterday morning & slept here
11last night & am going back to London after lunch. Oh the bless'd
12^bliss^, the quiet here!
13
14 It is now 11 o’clock & I am only getting up in my beautiful quiet
15room. I’ve written half my article as I lay here since dawn.
16
17 It is raining gently out side. I will tell you as soon as I have found
18a place. If I can I ?would to get one cheaper than at Alice’s for
19£6.0.0 a month with a large bedroom & board ^an egg for each meal &
20stewed fruit^ but no flights of stairs which I can’t manage. But
21there are hundreds of quiet places if one could find them. Three
22friends are looking out for me at Hampstead. Don’t worry about me,
23I’m all right, I shall find what I want where I can settle down. I
24send you the paper – with the report of the execution of Dr
25Liebknecht the head of the Social Democrats for in the German
26Parliament for refusing to fight ^take up arms against his brothers^,
27also of a woman ^advocate of peace^. It seems to have made all the world
28more beautiful, that hideous blackness of clotted blood that rested
29over everything seems gone There is the ray of light! "Yet have I kept
30unto me ten thousand –" Many Germans will die so. If I had only had
31Liebknecht’s address & could have gone to shake hands with him at
32Berlin.
33
34 Good bye dear. All good be with you.
35 Olive
36 Love to Oliver & Ursie
37
38 Saturday evening
39
40 Have got back to London & found your dear letter. I shall get on all
41right. A friend Mrs Stobart has offered her house ^for nothing^ in
42Hampstead while she goes to Belgium with some doctors & nurses. Of
43course I won’t take it but I was touched by her kindness. I’m
44going up early tomorrow to look at a tiny flat at Hampstead.
45
46 Got a letter from Merriman who calls on me on Monday. He asked most
47kindly after you.
48
49 Olive
50
51 ^Address to Alice’s care till I give you my new address.^
52
53
54
Notation
The article Schreiner was writing in bed is not certain but will have either an allegory, one of the short anti-war articles and open letters written at this time, or the never completed 'The Dawn of Civilization'.
The article Schreiner was writing in bed is not certain but will have either an allegory, one of the short anti-war articles and open letters written at this time, or the never completed 'The Dawn of Civilization'.