"Trying to help Will Schreiner politically; I want 'She wrote Peter Halket' on my grave; it's what it cost me" Read the full letter
Collection Summary | View All |  Arrange By:
< Prev |
Viewing Item
of 586 | Next >
Letter ReferenceHRC/OliveSchreinerLetters/OS-JohnHodgson/46
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date16 September 1915
Address FromLlandrindod Wells, Wales
Address To
Who ToJohn Hodgson
Other Versions
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. The date has been written on in an unknown hand. Schreiner first stayed in Llandrindod Wells from late July to late October 1915, and then again from mid June to mid September 1916.
1^c/o Dr Parker^
2Llandrindod Wells
3Wales
4
5Dear Mr Hodgson
6
7I hope the world goes well with you, I am very happy here, as happy as
8one can be anywhere in war time. I am writing a little & when one can
9write one is always happy.
10
11I wonder if you saw anything of the Air Raid? The most terrible
12reports are going about here: hundreds killed (Government keeping it
13secret!) Broad Street & Houndsditch destroyed in the City; Golders
14Green & Hampstead in a terrible condition. My friend Havelock Ellis
15tells me a man came down from London the day after the Raid, & h said
16half London was destroyed; but when he went up he found enough still
17standing “to go on with.”
18
19They say a good many fell at Hendon. I suppose they were trying to the
20Air-Machine works. I hope you weren’t in them at the time. It’s a
21strange world; one ceases to believe anything.
22
23When is your play coming out? I hope I shall be able to see it some
24time, but I feel such horror of the thought of being in London again,
25that I may go straight on to some place in Cornwall or else where for
26the winter with out staying in London more than a day or so.
27
28This is a beautiful part of England, much the prettiest I have ever
29seen: the gorse & the heather & the hills make a beautiful mixture.
30
31My beloved nephew Oliver is still in the trenches & Lyndall & Ursula
32nursing at Cannes. I wonder if England will insist on keeping the war
33on for another year. Will all our vast wealth it seems to me the
34pressure must become too great.
35
36Yours ever
37Olive Schreiner
38
Notation
Schreiner writing 'a little' refers to the never completed 'The Dawn of Civilization'. A play by Hodgson, who seems to have published his more literary writing as Lawrence Hodgson and his engineering work as John L. Hodgson, has not been traced.