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Letter ReferenceHRC/CAT/OS/3a-iv
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateThursday 6 November 1884
Address From144 Marina, St Leonards, East Sussex
Address To24 Thornsett Road, South Penge Park, London
Who ToHavelock Ellis
Other VersionsDraznin 1992: 207-8
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.
1144 Marina
2Thursday
3
4I wonder if Mrs were Hinton would have any objection to my brother’s
5seeing “The Home” He feels so interested in Hinton. The little bit
6about the nigger child is rather interesting to me. One would like to
7know what kind of woman the mother was. The Mr. Hope mentioned is the
8I man I was so fond of who was married to my cousin.
9
10Evening. Your letter has come I have been lying on the bed reading it.
11You letters are so beautiful so sweet, they make my whole life
12different. They make my days beautiful coming in the evening.
13
14Would Miss Jones mind my ^your^ showing me the letters she wrote you
15when you I first came to London. Now I know why she told me I was a
16savage, or something like that, when I said I didn’t think polygamy
17would answer as a rule. Of course it was quite natural that you should
18tell her that you liked me just as told Mrs. Walters & Mrs. Brown that
19I liked you.
20
21I have been out walking up & down in the starlight on the f seawall.
22There is never a soul on this end of the Marina in the evening.
23Does^n’t^ that rejoice your heart! You are always as afraid of the
24people as I am. Isn’t it funny that the whole of my visit to
25Derbyshire & your visit there & all seems just like a dream to me. I
26cannot realize that it was true, or that I really was there, or that
27such a place as Derbyshire really exists. I think it must be because I
28have now dropped back into the old solitary life I lead for two years,
29& that seems like a dream coming in between.
30
31I hope it will be fine when you are here. We will walk under that arch
32where I used to walk so desolate two years ago. How different the
33world is to me now. Good night sweet boy,
34
35Olive
36
Notation
'The Home' is a reference to James Hinton's unpublished essay 'Thoughts on Home', which Ellis had been lent by Mrs Hinton and later passed on to Schreiner. Draznin's (1992) version of this letter is in some respects different from our transcription.