"Your dear eyes, I know dear" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | HRC/CAT/OS/4a-xviii |
| Archive | Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | Tuesday 7 July 1885 |
| Address From | 9 Blandford Square, Paddington, London |
| Address To | 24 Thornsett Road, South Penge Park, London |
| Who To | Havelock Ellis |
| Other Versions | Cronwright-Schreiner 1924: 75-6; Draznin 1992: 366-7 |
| Permissions | Please 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. Schreiner was resident in Blandford Square for the last part of July 1885.
|
1Tuesday Afternoon
2
3That article of Aldis’s is splendid.! I feel as if I’d written every
4word of it so much I agree. May I send it to my brother & Mrs Waters
5with orders it is to be returned at once?
6
7I have been lying down & reading it now I am going to work
8
9Your comrade.
10Olive.
11
12I must live to write that story I’ve I had in my head so many years,
13about the woman who marries a man who’s loved another woman as a
14mistress before & how she gets the other woman so beautifully to live
15with them. What Aldis says about monogamy being our present highest
16aim but something higher coming after it, is what I’ve so long felt
17but never seen expressed any where. No state will ever be final, as soon
18
19^as we have attained to it we shall cease to need it.^
20
2
3That article of Aldis’s is splendid.! I feel as if I’d written every
4word of it so much I agree. May I send it to my brother & Mrs Waters
5with orders it is to be returned at once?
6
7I have been lying down & reading it now I am going to work
8
9Your comrade.
10Olive.
11
12I must live to write that story I’ve I had in my head so many years,
13about the woman who marries a man who’s loved another woman as a
14mistress before & how she gets the other woman so beautifully to live
15with them. What Aldis says about monogamy being our present highest
16aim but something higher coming after it, is what I’ve so long felt
17but never seen expressed any where. No state will ever be final, as soon
18
19^as we have attained to it we shall cease to need it.^
20
Notation
Aldis’s article cannot be identified. Schreiner seems not to have written ‘that story in my head’. Draznin's (1992) version of this letter differs in some respects from our transcription. Cronwright-Schreiner’s (1924) extract is incorrect in various ways.
Aldis’s article cannot be identified. Schreiner seems not to have written ‘that story in my head’. Draznin's (1992) version of this letter differs in some respects from our transcription. Cronwright-Schreiner’s (1924) extract is incorrect in various ways.