"Meeting, you are large enough to take me impersonally" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceLetters/483
Archive
Epistolary Type
Letter Date14 December 1909
Address FromMuizenberg, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToAdela Villiers Smith nee Villiers
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 291-2
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. Francis Smith.
2Muizenberg, 14th Dec.
3
4... Did you get my little Prelude? Please return it, darling. In the
5novel, when the little girl grows up she spends some of the most
6important moments of her life at Muizenberg close to this spot. It's
7so curious that I feel as though some great tragic events of my own
8life had taken place here. I walk again and again to the spot where
9years ago “Farmer Peck's" little thatched house used to stand, and
10think “Yes, here Rebekah walked.” I don't think anyone else can have
11an idea how real and how "out of oneself," something not made up by
12oneself but which one simply knows, all these people are.
13
Notation
The ‘Prelude’ is to From Man to Man and Rebekah is a character in it.