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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold4/1901/5
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateThursday 31 January 1901
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToBetty Molteno and Alice Greene
Other Versions
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. The names of the addressees are indicated by salutation.
1 Hanover
2 Jan 31st 1901
3 Thursday
4
5 Dear Friends
6
7 The town is heavy with reports today. The commandant & the magistrate
8^as said to^ day de Wet is over the border with 3000 men: fresh orders
9are out that we are not to stir out after 9 o’clock under risk of
10being shot, & the air is full of stories. One knows not what to
11believe, nor what is going to happen.
12
13 I am glad you got the MS all right. I’ve a curious tenderness for
14that little bit of writing. It always seems to be the incarnation of
15my own childhood, that seems so far now, & yet is nearer & more real
16than anything else in the world. I wonder if all people feel so to
17their childhood? Some seem almost to forget it! I always think my
18brother’s little Oliver & Ursula lead such lives. A whole little
19world to themselves which other people don’t see into, or else they
20come tramping in with their big boots, & destroying everything!!!
21
22 The novel which follows is the life of Rebekah & her little sister.
23
24 Your last letter to me was dated the 23rd you didn’t tell me you had
25the MS. But a letter from Cron a few days later tells me you gave it
26to him. Have you written since the 23rd. I ask because often I have an
27idea that my friends write & I don’t get their letters.
28
29 Saturday. Its most amusing the way wild stories are flying about here
30now its de Wet & 5000 who are four hours from the village. I don’t
31believe a word of it! But the anxiety here is great!
32
33 Olive
34
35
36
37
Notation
The 'little bit of writing' referred to is Schreiner's 'Prelude', and the 'novel which follows' is From Man to Man.