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| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner MSC 26/2.16/15 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Extract |
| Letter Date | 11 July 1896 |
| Address From | The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape |
| Address To | Karree Kloof, Northern Cape |
| Who To | S.C. (‘Cron’) Cronwright-Schreiner |
| Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 222 |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Extracts of Letters to Cronwright-Schreiner were produced by Cronwright-Schreiner in preparing The Life and The Letters of Olive Schreiner. They appear on slips of paper in his writing, taken from letters that were then destroyed; many of these extracts have also been edited by him. They are artefacts of his editorial practices and their relationship to original Schreiner letters cannot now be gauged. They should be read with considerable caution for the reasons given. Cronwright-Schreiner has written the date, where it was sent from and the place it was sent to onto this extract. There are some differences between this transcription and the version that appears in The Letters....
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1
…Did I tell you the day or so after you went I went to see Mrs.
2Solly (in Kimberley). There were some lovely likenesses of a baby, one
3just like our baby would have been if she had lived with big dark eyes.
4 It was so like our baby. When Mrs. Solly came into the room I
5introduced myself & said a few words & said what a pretty baby it was
6in the likeness, & then I burst out crying & had to go away. She must
7think I am quite mad. I will never pay a call again in Kimberley. You
8know that’s the reason I don’t want to go to England, I don’t
9want to leave our baby’s body. You don’t know what that little
10brown heap is to me … I don’t know why, when I lay awake last
11night & all the evening, I seemed to hear you, my arms just round you,
12& I got afraid lest you had shot yourself by mistake, or the cart
13fallen over; such curious thoughts come to one when one lies awake all
14night…
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2Solly (in Kimberley). There were some lovely likenesses of a baby, one
3just like our baby would have been if she had lived with big dark eyes.
4 It was so like our baby. When Mrs. Solly came into the room I
5introduced myself & said a few words & said what a pretty baby it was
6in the likeness, & then I burst out crying & had to go away. She must
7think I am quite mad. I will never pay a call again in Kimberley. You
8know that’s the reason I don’t want to go to England, I don’t
9want to leave our baby’s body. You don’t know what that little
10brown heap is to me … I don’t know why, when I lay awake last
11night & all the evening, I seemed to hear you, my arms just round you,
12& I got afraid lest you had shot yourself by mistake, or the cart
13fallen over; such curious thoughts come to one when one lies awake all
14night…
15
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