"Thrown away 10 years of my life to prevent inevitable" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold2/1903/7
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date21 April 1903
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToAlice 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 name of the addressee of this letter has been written on in an unknown hand and is also indicated by content, although the salutation is to ‘Darling Friends’, thus including Betty Molteno.
1 Hanover
2 April 21 / 03
3
4 Darling Friends
5
6 I have your letter & sent the wire this afternoon. The old landlady
7has now let us stay in till the last of May. So I shall have a month
8to look out. I feel sure it will end in my going to Beaufort West, Mrs
9Kriel
(with whom we were) now writes me that she has taken the cottage
10next door & I could have a front room there which has sun. That part
11of Beaufort doesn’t suit me but if I can’t get a room at the
12Queens I shall have to go there. If I could get the other nice front
13room for Miss Molteno & you it would be grand. & after a month we
14might hit on something better. You must certainly not come here during
15the winter, at the Hotel you could only get a cold ^damp^ room, & just
16now they could not take either of you in at all!
17
18 As I The cold here has been bitter the last days; to me it looks
19tonight as if it might snow. It is suddenly getting warmer & closer. I
20shall expect leave this for Beaufort on the 1 or 2nd of June & we if
21you are not there shall look out for good rooms for us. If Mrs Kriel
22can let us have the two front rooms it would be fine: I think up
23country will be better for you in winter than Cape Town, & one can get
24food at Beaufort!!!
25
26 To-day a poor invalid Doctor & his nurse left for Cradock, because
27they could not get a room here, the Hotel would not take them. the
28doctor here let them sleep in his spare room a couple of nights & now
29they are gone.
30
31 //I had a lovely letter today from a dear friend of mine, who used to
32be Adela Villiers; she is going to have her first little baby at the
33end of May, & I am so happy about it.
34
35 Edith Loch who is married to her cousin ^Captain^ Earle is going to have
36a baby this week too.
37
38 I was so glad to have a couple of bunches of the grapes you sent to
39take down to that sick Doctor to-day: it was such a pleasure. He is
40suffering from consumption & disease of the spine both at once.
41
42 I am going down to Grahamstown for one day on the 11th to the trial of
43Jan Vander Berg (who got our three men shot here) which comes on there
44on that date. A large number of witnesses from this are going down too.
45
46 Do you ever see the Purcells? It is such a long long time since I
47heard any news of them.
48
49 Tell me please just how you are. Is it the side itself that troubles
50you most, or is it the general weakness? You will see I am advertising
51in the SA News Ons Land & the Beaufort paper but fear nothing will
52come of it.
53
54 Good bye, dear.
55 Olive
56
57 ^You don’t know what a sweet comfort to me is the thought of you &
58Miss Molteno. I couldn’t do without you here. My heart has been bad
59again the last week: I think I shall be better for getting a little
60lower.^
61
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63