1 Sante Croci
2 Alassio
3 Sunday morning
4
5 I’ve come up here. It’s a little ruined chapel on a point sticking
6out into the sea. Oh Edward, I wish you could see this blue blue sea &
7the faraway mountains with the snow upon them! It is perfectly
8solitary up here. There are olive trees about & an old Roman Road
9leads up to it. There isn’t a sound but sometimes a large fly flying
10about, & the sea so far down below one can barely hear it.
11
12 Yesterday some of the women at the hotel laughed at my clothes & said
13at lunch that some people were too poor to afford proper dresses &c &c.
14 I cried after I came out & I’m afraid they heard me, so I
15couldn’t face them again today, so I got the waiter to give me
16something to eat & came up here. It’s so lovely. I like it best of
17all places in the world, except a farm where I lived in Africa. I
18don’t know why this spot helps me so. I come here with all my
19troubles small & large, & they go away. I’m not going back to the
20town till late in the night & I’ve brought my papers to write. Oh
21was there ever anything so glorious as this blue Mediterranean!
22
23 //I got your letter this morning just before I came out. I’m so glad
24it’s so well with you. You must go to Capri. How nice if I could
25think when I looked across the blue water that you were down there.
26
27 I am getting on with my novel, but very slowly. My nervous system is
28shattered, so that when I put pressure on it, even under my own hand,
29it gives. It will be a good book if ever it is done – if ever.
30
31 //You know the air is clear today almost like in Africa. There is a
32little town on the hills about 20 miles away and I can see it quite
33distinctly. There is such joy to me in looking far. Oh, isn’t it
34nice to be out in the open & it doesn’t matter what you wear or
35anything. There’s such a pretty little longlegged fly walking all
36over my paper.
37
38 //I shall be glad when the song book is ready. Have you got many of
39Lowells in? I wish so much I had thought of reminding you of some of his
40
41 Give my love to George Adams. There is always something so beautiful
42to me in the thought of a new little life coming into the world.
43Isn’t it funny I never can see anything ludicrous or unlovely in it
44all. The first time I saw a birth it was a halfcast prostitute at the
45Cape, who had lain down in her labour behind a hedge. None of the Boer
46women or black women would go near her, & I helped ^& an old black man!^
47It was so wonderful & beautiful to see that little new life coming out
48under a blue sky just like this, & a little older child of ^the
49woman’s,^ of two years old, sat watching. I often wonder what has
50become of that little baby I brought into the world!
51
52 Goodbye, my dear old comrade.
53 Olive Schreiner
54
55 You’ll be sure to give my love to G Adams & his wife. Tell me how it
56goes with you all. I sent the Allegory this morning before I came out.
57It’s the one in MS. ^Send them back.^
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