"Wonderful Dot Schreiner, tall thin woman who caused me no end of trouble" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceHRC/OliveSchreinerLetters/OS-JohnHodgson/52
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateWednesday 20 November 1915
Address FromMaer Lake, Bude, Cornwall
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 this letter in an unknown hand.
1Maer Lake
2Bude
3North Cornwall
4Wednesday
5
6Dear Mr Hodgson
7
8I was glad to hear from you.
9
10No, I won’t read Miss Wickam’s poems. I make a rule never to read
11any ones MS, & never to criticize it. In artistic matters each man
12must be his own critic. In matters of fact its different. If I state
13the number of men in the Bulgarian army is so & so: & you have been
14there & know better can valuably set me right. But if express a
15passionate love for the Bulgarian people, you can not set me right,
16for I am expressing my feeling, & my feeling cannot be yours.
17
18No this is not so beautiful as Wales. How can be be, there are no
19mountains, only low hills? In summer it may be tolerably pretty when
20the sea sparkles, if it ever does. Now all is grey & dark & stern. I
21hope, If if I keep well enough to go & spend Xmas time with an old
22friend in South unreadable Devon, whom I have not seen for years.
23
24Thanks I should like to see the book of Wells’, if it’s a novel.
25If its just his ideas I don’t feel interested.
26
27If I were near a library I should read nothing but novels & travels
28just now & historical books about the Balkans ?Also ?Asha &c &c. I am
29on the look out for facts. I am reading Perrin’s book on the German
30Emperor now.
31
32I’m afraid you’ll think me very unkind not to read the MS: but its
33a law with me now.
34
35We are having dead still oppressive weather. I shall be so glad when
36the storms & rain & wind come back!
37
38Yours ever
39Olive Schreiner
40
Notation
Marshall Livinstone Perrin was the translator of the book referred to: Heinrich Carl Ludolf von Sybel (1890) The Founding of the German Empireby William I (trans. M.L. Perrin) New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co. Which particular book by Wells is referred to cannot be established.