"Detailed advice for nursing Will Schreiner just before his death" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Mary Sauer MSC 26/2.11.83 |
Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
Epistolary Type | Letter |
Letter Date | Tuesday 31 January 1895 |
Address From | The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape |
Address To | |
Who To | Mary Sauer nee Cloete |
Other Versions | Rive 1987: 246 |
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. Schreiner was resident in Kimberley from early August 1894 to November 1898.
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1
Tuesday
2
3 Dear Mary
4
5 I have kept the enclosed letter two days not knowing whether to sa
6send it you are or not. I think I had better, but please not to Mrs
7Innes or Mrs Fuller or anyone mention it. I am sure Dr Watkins will be
8very sorry for his ungentlemanly conduct when he's had time to think
9it over. I fancy there must be some quarrel between him & Dr Ashe of
10which I know nothing, which accounts for his fe furious rage because I
11won't have a nurse who drinks. I've got one now who never takes any al
12spirits. I think she'll do nicely. Darling perhaps you'd ?bee better
13not write to Mrs Watkins at all just a present. If she writes to you &
14you are obliged to write just say that I have written to tell you Dr
15Watkins is displeased with my not taking a nurse ^a nurse^ he
16recommended unreadable & that consequently I thought it might be
17unpleasant for you to stay with them when you were coming every day to
18see me. But don't write at all if you can help it or say a word to any one.
19 Dr W must surely come to his senses in a day or two. You can hardly
20understand how this is distressing me. I resolved when I came here
21never to accept one invitation or go out return any call, just that I
22might keep entirely apart from Kimberley life & people. I have never
23been out of my own house except on business since I came here, but
24they won't leave me alone.
25
26 I don't think you can realize how sad it seems to me that any-thing
27connected with the birth of my baby should make people fight like this.
28 I wish now I had let Alice Corthorn come out, who & then I should
29have had nothing to do with any one here.
30
31 I'm so tired, dear, I can't write a nice letter.
32
33 Olive
34
35
36
37
2
3 Dear Mary
4
5 I have kept the enclosed letter two days not knowing whether to sa
6send it you are or not. I think I had better, but please not to Mrs
7Innes or Mrs Fuller or anyone mention it. I am sure Dr Watkins will be
8very sorry for his ungentlemanly conduct when he's had time to think
9it over. I fancy there must be some quarrel between him & Dr Ashe of
10which I know nothing, which accounts for his fe furious rage because I
11won't have a nurse who drinks. I've got one now who never takes any al
12spirits. I think she'll do nicely. Darling perhaps you'd ?bee better
13not write to Mrs Watkins at all just a present. If she writes to you &
14you are obliged to write just say that I have written to tell you Dr
15Watkins is displeased with my not taking a nurse ^a nurse^ he
16recommended unreadable & that consequently I thought it might be
17unpleasant for you to stay with them when you were coming every day to
18see me. But don't write at all if you can help it or say a word to any one.
19 Dr W must surely come to his senses in a day or two. You can hardly
20understand how this is distressing me. I resolved when I came here
21never to accept one invitation or go out return any call, just that I
22might keep entirely apart from Kimberley life & people. I have never
23been out of my own house except on business since I came here, but
24they won't leave me alone.
25
26 I don't think you can realize how sad it seems to me that any-thing
27connected with the birth of my baby should make people fight like this.
28 I wish now I had let Alice Corthorn come out, who & then I should
29have had nothing to do with any one here.
30
31 I'm so tired, dear, I can't write a nice letter.
32
33 Olive
34
35
36
37
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.