"Am going to meet Rhodes, more solitary in this country than you can conceive" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box1/Fold4/1897/24
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date15 December 1897
Address FromThe Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToFrances ('Fan') Schreiner nee Reitz
Other VersionsRive 1987: 322-3
PermissionsPlease 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.
1 Dear Fan,
2
3 I hope all goes well with you all & that you’ve had no falls from
4the bike, like Mr Will.
5
6 It’s terribly hot here, much hotter than I ever knew it even in
7Kimberley. Folks say it’s the biggest drought that ever been known
8here since the great drought of 1862. It seems as if it could not rain.
9
10 //Give my love to dear Kitty when you see her. I might just as well
11have stayed at the sanatorium for I haven’t been over fit since I
12came back; my bike stands in the passage & I don’t even like to look
13at it but I guess I shall be fit when the cold weather comes & then
14you & Ollie must come to see us, & we’ll take you to the Bend which
15is lovely.
16
17 Folks have been very sympathetic about that case of Crons. Fancy one
18leading man in Kimberley of whom we know very little sending us a
19cheque for £25, unreadable saying he felt it was a public matter & he
20ought to be allowed to assist in paying the fine. Of course we
21returned it, but it shows how deep the feeling below the surface is
22here, though no one dares to speak. A friend from Port Elizabeth sent
23up a cheque for £50 & offered to pay all costs up to four hundred, &
24another friend an Uitlander at Johannesburg, but one who knows Rhodes
25wrote to ask what the expenses were that he might settle them. Of
26course we’ll let no one pay but ourselves, but it keeps one from
27feeling so terribly lonely in this country as one sometimes does.
28
29 Good bye dear
30
31 Your little sister
32 Olive
33
34 Love to all the small folk & the big father.
35
36 The Homestead
37 Kimberley
38 Dec 15 / 97
39
40 Write & tell me when Nelly’s little one comes.
41
42
43
Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.