"Extended family news, that little casket holds so much for you & me" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Letters/67 |
| Archive | |
| Epistolary Type | |
| Letter Date | 29 March 1885 |
| Address From | Hastings, East Sussex |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Havelock Ellis |
| Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 66-7; Rive 1987: 63 |
| Permissions | Please 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.
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1To Havelock Ellis.
2Hastings, 29th March.
3
4Only about 130 pages revised, and four or five hundred more! When will
5it be done? Yet I can't quicken myself. My mind must work at its own
6pace. ... To-day I thought of these things that always goad me up into
7life and work again: my want to be independent, the thought that I may
8die and leave my book unfinished. I shall perhaps send you a couple of
9pages, revised and unrevised, and not tell you which is which, and see
10which you like. Oh, I must work, I must work. Death'll come and I've
11done nothing, and I've so much I want to say and so much I want to
12paint. You know my mind is beginning to feel a little like when I
13wrote the African Farm, and at Ganna Hoek and Lelie Kloof and Ratel
14Hoek. My work and my people seem more real to me than I myself. ...
15This morning I looked at Elle et Lui., How splendid it is in some
16parts! That last little bit is like the grand parts of the Bible in
17style.
18
2Hastings, 29th March.
3
4Only about 130 pages revised, and four or five hundred more! When will
5it be done? Yet I can't quicken myself. My mind must work at its own
6pace. ... To-day I thought of these things that always goad me up into
7life and work again: my want to be independent, the thought that I may
8die and leave my book unfinished. I shall perhaps send you a couple of
9pages, revised and unrevised, and not tell you which is which, and see
10which you like. Oh, I must work, I must work. Death'll come and I've
11done nothing, and I've so much I want to say and so much I want to
12paint. You know my mind is beginning to feel a little like when I
13wrote the African Farm, and at Ganna Hoek and Lelie Kloof and Ratel
14Hoek. My work and my people seem more real to me than I myself. ...
15This morning I looked at Elle et Lui., How splendid it is in some
16parts! That last little bit is like the grand parts of the Bible in
17style.
18
Notation
The ‘pages revised’ were in From Man to Man.
The ‘pages revised’ were in From Man to Man.