"Desire for self-expression not sermonising, writing desecrated by showing to others" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceHRC/CAT/OS/1a-xi
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateThursday 21 May 1884
Address From7 Pelham Street, Kensington, London
Address To24 Thornsett Road, South Penge Park, London
Who ToHavelock Ellis
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 20; Draznin 1992: 57-8
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. This letter has been dated by reference to an associated envelope and its postmark, which also provides the address it was sent to. The last insertion is written on the back of the envelope.
17 Pelham St.
2Thursday
3
4Dear Mr. Ellis,
5
6I have so much to say about Hinton & Hinton’s views (I have some
7questions to ask too) that I shan’t try to say it to-day. Thank you
8much for your letter & for the proofs.
9
10I send you a little bit of my friends first letter. I would like to
11send you all of both. In the second she tells me of a lady (of several,
12 but of one especially,) whom Hinton knew when she was a widow & whom
13he tired to make love him, & of how she burnt his letters & would
14never have anything more to do with him, &c, &c.
15
16The writer of the letter I send you is a Freethinker, & freer in ther
17her thoughts on social & moral questions than on any other. Though
18married happily herself she does not believe in formal marriage, but
19^only^ in a marriage of mutual consent &c, &c. So you see the ordinary
20narrow prejudices will not have acted in her case.
21
22Hinton says much in those proofs that I have thought & felt but never
23seen expressed before; but, I think, I see what he does not see, &
24where his theory [part of page torn away]
25
26human nature & in woman nature in Hinton. There is something to me
27infinitely touching in that last little note you read me of
28
29 [part of page torn away] I am going to see Herbert Spencer on Sunday week.
30
31Did Hinton aply the same measure to man & to woman? Would he have been
32satisfied if his wife had had six “spiritual husbands”? I mean this
33really as a question.
34
35I am writing this lying down; I hope you can make it out.
36
37^Please send back the enclosed.^
38
39^Have just got your note. Sunday suits me very nicely.^
40
41
Notation
The ‘little bit of letter’ enclosed is no longer attached. Draznin’s (1992) version of this letter is in some respects different from our transcription. Cronwright-Schreiner’s (1924) extract is incorrect in various ways.