"My heart is heavy over my work" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Edward Carpenter 359/20 |
Archive | Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield |
Epistolary Type | Letter |
Letter Date | 12 April 1888 |
Address From | Alassio, Italy |
Address To | |
Who To | Edward Carpenter |
Other Versions | Rive 1987: 139 |
Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
Legend |
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.
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1
Alassio
2
3 This is a word to greet you in London, if indeed you have left the
4Riviera. I feel as if you had – so I suppose you have.
5
6 You ought to have stayed to see the Fords. I am sure, just now, you
7need more of woman’s society than man’s, & such a woman as
8Isabella would have been very good as your companion.
9
10 I have nothing to tell me of you myself. The Swills asked me to go out
11with them this afternoon but I’ve had enough of Lords & Ladies for
12the present & am going to write.
13
14 //Do you ever have days that are so peace-ful, as if a great hand were
15opened over you & all were so calm under it? I feel like that today.
16
17 We If you ever see my friend & helper Karl Pearson, you will tell me.
18But it’s not likely you ever will. I often wonder whether there
19might be any bridge built by which you might cross over to each other;
20he blaspheming against the emotions & the instinctive reason; you
21against the intellect & the conscious reason; you are both wrong, but
22I wonder whether it would be possible for you to understand eachother
23& teach each other! I guess not.
24
25 He is living now at West View, Christchurch, Hampstead.
26
27 If you feel it no burden will you write sometimes & tell me about your
28feelings & life? I hope you will stay some time in London, & not go up
29to Sheffield. But perhaps that is just where you feel you ought to be.
30As I felt last year that I had to go back to England for six months
31– I couldn’t say why.
32
33 Now it is all dead. I have no need ever to return there. It is like
34having your last look at the face of a corps.
35
36 I shall leave this about the first of May & get on as quickly as I can
37to Tyrol.
38
39 You must give yourself entirely up to your work, Edward. When you are
40helping one man or woman you help that one only; when you work you
41help many in the present & also in the far future. Since you told me I
42have so often thought of poor old ?Pasy bursting into tears because we
43all have to live alone.
44
45 Goodbye, my brother.
46 Olive
47 ^
48If you should wish to see Alice Corthorn her address is 69 Chancery Lane,
49 but I think it would be a waste of time, simply shedding blood for
50nothing, you would never likely get to know her really well, & she
51would not be helpful to you in the way a woman like Isabella might be.
52
53 Olive^
54
55
56
2
3 This is a word to greet you in London, if indeed you have left the
4Riviera. I feel as if you had – so I suppose you have.
5
6 You ought to have stayed to see the Fords. I am sure, just now, you
7need more of woman’s society than man’s, & such a woman as
8Isabella would have been very good as your companion.
9
10 I have nothing to tell me of you myself. The Swills asked me to go out
11with them this afternoon but I’ve had enough of Lords & Ladies for
12the present & am going to write.
13
14 //Do you ever have days that are so peace-ful, as if a great hand were
15opened over you & all were so calm under it? I feel like that today.
16
17 We If you ever see my friend & helper Karl Pearson, you will tell me.
18But it’s not likely you ever will. I often wonder whether there
19might be any bridge built by which you might cross over to each other;
20he blaspheming against the emotions & the instinctive reason; you
21against the intellect & the conscious reason; you are both wrong, but
22I wonder whether it would be possible for you to understand eachother
23& teach each other! I guess not.
24
25 He is living now at West View, Christchurch, Hampstead.
26
27 If you feel it no burden will you write sometimes & tell me about your
28feelings & life? I hope you will stay some time in London, & not go up
29to Sheffield. But perhaps that is just where you feel you ought to be.
30As I felt last year that I had to go back to England for six months
31– I couldn’t say why.
32
33 Now it is all dead. I have no need ever to return there. It is like
34having your last look at the face of a corps.
35
36 I shall leave this about the first of May & get on as quickly as I can
37to Tyrol.
38
39 You must give yourself entirely up to your work, Edward. When you are
40helping one man or woman you help that one only; when you work you
41help many in the present & also in the far future. Since you told me I
42have so often thought of poor old ?Pasy bursting into tears because we
43all have to live alone.
44
45 Goodbye, my brother.
46 Olive
47 ^
48If you should wish to see Alice Corthorn her address is 69 Chancery Lane,
49 but I think it would be a waste of time, simply shedding blood for
50nothing, you would never likely get to know her really well, & she
51would not be helpful to you in the way a woman like Isabella might be.
52
53 Olive^
54
55
56
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.