"Spending the last days destroying letters & papers, no daughter to leave them to" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceLetters/358
Archive
Epistolary Type
Letter Date12 August 1889
Address FromLondon
Address To
Who ToIsaline Philpot
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 166
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
When Cronwright-Schreiner prepared The Letters of Olive Schreiner, with few exceptions he then destroyed her originals. However, some people gave him copies and kept the originals or demanded the return of these; and when actual Schreiner letters can be compared with his versions, his have omissions, distortions and bowdlerisations. Where Schreiner originals have survived, these will be found in the relevant collections across the OSLO website. There is however a residue of some 587 items in The Letters for which no originals are extant. They are included here for sake of completeness. However, their relationship to Schreiners actual letters cannot now be gauged, and so they should be read with caution for the reasons given.
1To Mrs. J. H. Philpot.
2London, 12th Aug.
3
4Stead came to see me on Saturday. I attacked him so violently for what
5I considered all his shortcomings as Editor of the P.M.G., that I
6thought he would never forgive me. So few people can understand that
7fault-finding is the truest sign of friendship, I'm glad he has. I
8think his nature is sincere and good in its lowest layer. ... I have
9been reading Kant and Hegel. I wish I could feel that Hegel was
10genuine at the heart's core. He always seems to me a mind that seeks
11more to gain its point than to find the reality. I've also been
12reading a life of Kant by Stuckenberg, very well written. I get to
13love my books so I take two or three of them to bed with me every
14night; I like to feel them lying by me when I wake even when I don't
15read them. The other morning I got my breakfast ready very nicely and
16set it out on the kitchen table and then came up to my room and began
17to write; after an hour or two I began to feel faint, and wondered
18what it was and when I went down I found I had cooked my breakfast and
19forgotten to eat it. One gets in such a funny dreamy state when one
20lives alone month after month, and you get at last to dread seeing
21people even if you love them. ... This is the longest letter I've
22written to anyone in the last two years.
23