"Minds go through stages, like a caterpillar" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Mary Sauer MSC 26/2.11.46 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | Thursday 31 December 1891 |
| Address From | Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Mary Sauer nee Cloete |
| Other Versions | Rive 1987: 197-8 |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Project is grateful to the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Content indicates Schreiner was in Cape Town when it was written.
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1
Thursday
2
3 Dear Mary,
4
5 I was so dis-appointed not to be able to come to the lunch. I looked
6forward to it so. I had a bathe on Sunday morning & went to sleep on
7the rocks after it, & took cold as it was rather foggy, & have been
8laid up since I'm better today.
9
10 Do come & have lunch with me on Saturday if you have no one staying
11with you. I shall be going away & not seeing anything of you at all!!!
12
13 Yours tiredly
14 Olive
15
16 It's been such a disappointment this visit to Town I've been looking
17forward to it like a child, & working so hard, & I haven't yet been
18able to go up Table Mountain or even to the Block House; & even my
19brother has gone away to Port Elizabeth. It isn't right to look
20forward to things. But when what one's looking forward to doesn't take
21anything from that other people care to have, & doesn't make them
22jealous in any way, it doesn't seem it can be wicked! If one never
23allowed oneself to look forward even to impersonal things one would
24die I suppose.
25
26 I hope you'll have a Happy New Year dear. Full of all good things that
27you can wish. Come on see me on Saturday, if you can!
28
29 I've just come across this in an American
30
31 Love to the little ones. I hope I shall see them awake before I go.
32 O.S
33
34 ^I'll send you that silly little thing about the Cape Parliament
35^^Ministry^^ when I can turn it out, but you must send it back to me
36
37 OS^
38
2
3 Dear Mary,
4
5 I was so dis-appointed not to be able to come to the lunch. I looked
6forward to it so. I had a bathe on Sunday morning & went to sleep on
7the rocks after it, & took cold as it was rather foggy, & have been
8laid up since I'm better today.
9
10 Do come & have lunch with me on Saturday if you have no one staying
11with you. I shall be going away & not seeing anything of you at all!!!
12
13 Yours tiredly
14 Olive
15
16 It's been such a disappointment this visit to Town I've been looking
17forward to it like a child, & working so hard, & I haven't yet been
18able to go up Table Mountain or even to the Block House; & even my
19brother has gone away to Port Elizabeth. It isn't right to look
20forward to things. But when what one's looking forward to doesn't take
21anything from that other people care to have, & doesn't make them
22jealous in any way, it doesn't seem it can be wicked! If one never
23allowed oneself to look forward even to impersonal things one would
24die I suppose.
25
26 I hope you'll have a Happy New Year dear. Full of all good things that
27you can wish. Come on see me on Saturday, if you can!
28
29 I've just come across this in an American
30
31 Love to the little ones. I hope I shall see them awake before I go.
32 O.S
33
34 ^I'll send you that silly little thing about the Cape Parliament
35^^Ministry^^ when I can turn it out, but you must send it back to me
36
37 OS^
38
Notation
The 'silly little thing about the Cape Ministry' was eventually published as 'The Salvation of a Ministry' in: Olive Schreiner (2005) Words In Season Johannesburg: Penguin Books. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.
The 'silly little thing about the Cape Ministry' was eventually published as 'The Salvation of a Ministry' in: Olive Schreiner (2005) Words In Season Johannesburg: Penguin Books. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.