"I've got a little Socialist dream, the men in the morgue" Read the full letter
Letter Reference | Schreiner-Hemming Family BC 1080 A1.7/33 |
Archive | University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town |
Epistolary Type | Letter |
Letter Date | 1898 |
Address From | The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape |
Address To | |
Who To | Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Schreiner m. Stakesby Lewis (1891) |
Other Versions | |
Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
Legend |
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The year 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
My own old Ettie
2
3 You are always in my thoughts. I was so glad to get Etta Leuw’s
4reply address to my wire. I feel so anxious lest the long watching &
5terrible anxiety of that time might have prostrated you. One can’t
6bear as one gets older the agony or physical strain one could easily
7stand when young: the body gives in!
8
9 I do long so to see you my dear one, if I could only see you for ten
10minutes.
11
12 Cron’s mother has been staying with us a fortnight, & I have
13unreadable no servant, but the Hottentot boy who looks after the horse
14who helps me wash the pots &c.
15
16 Good bye my own darling.
17
18 Your old
19 Olive
20
21 Dear old Stakesby, it was always such pain to me that somany people
22fancied he was giving way to his illness, & I could always see that he
23was trying to bear up in a condition when most people would just have
24given in. I think I never saw a man bear up more nobly under what one
25might call a slow death! Isn’t it strange how some people can’t
26see what a human creature is going through unless they lie down &
27unreadable can’t eat. When people once get to that stage then the
28worst is over for them, & I almost comparatively, cease to be sorry
29for them.
30
31 Good bye my own darling
32 Your old sissie
33 Olive
34
35
36
2
3 You are always in my thoughts. I was so glad to get Etta Leuw’s
4reply address to my wire. I feel so anxious lest the long watching &
5terrible anxiety of that time might have prostrated you. One can’t
6bear as one gets older the agony or physical strain one could easily
7stand when young: the body gives in!
8
9 I do long so to see you my dear one, if I could only see you for ten
10minutes.
11
12 Cron’s mother has been staying with us a fortnight, & I have
13unreadable no servant, but the Hottentot boy who looks after the horse
14who helps me wash the pots &c.
15
16 Good bye my own darling.
17
18 Your old
19 Olive
20
21 Dear old Stakesby, it was always such pain to me that somany people
22fancied he was giving way to his illness, & I could always see that he
23was trying to bear up in a condition when most people would just have
24given in. I think I never saw a man bear up more nobly under what one
25might call a slow death! Isn’t it strange how some people can’t
26see what a human creature is going through unless they lie down &
27unreadable can’t eat. When people once get to that stage then the
28worst is over for them, & I almost comparatively, cease to be sorry
29for them.
30
31 Good bye my own darling
32 Your old sissie
33 Olive
34
35
36