"Saddest & loneliest old years eve, old days at Heald Town" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceLetters/456
Archive
Epistolary Type
Letter Date3 April 1903
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToEmily Hobhouse
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 235-6
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 Miss Emily Hobhouse.
2Hanover, 3rd April.
3
4I have been reading your book.
5
6Given the conditions, it seems to me you have dealt with the subject
7in the most admirable manner, upon which nothing could improve. Has
8your book been translated into Dutch? ... I consider you did more
9effective and useful work in the cause of humanity and justice in
10South Africa than any other individual has been able to do. You saved
11not hundreds but undoubtedly thousands of lives.
12
13I fear your work must have told heavily and permanently on you. One
14does not pass through such a time of combat with injustice ever to be
15quite the same again. ... I am glad you are not in South Africa which
16will enable you to escape the past and its memory as we cannot on whom
17the present still presses.
18
19This is just a word to express my admiration of your book; with its
20strong self-restraint and deep feeling.
21