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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold4/1905/18
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date10 May 1905
Address FromEastbergholt, Tamboer's Kloof Road, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToBetty Molteno
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 is indicated by salutation and content.
1 Eastbergholt
2 Tamboer’s Kloof Rd
3 Tamboer’s Kloof
4 May 10 / 05
5
6 My dear Friend
7
8 Your beautiful long letter about seeing all my friends came today. I
9was so glad to get it. This afternoon Mrs Murray came to see me; she
10looked so pretty & much more unreadable ^restful^ than I have ever seen
11her. She tells me Mrs Charles is expecting another little one.
12
13 Cron is still up in Hanover, but returns next Wednes Monday. A month
14from next Friday we shall be back at Hanover. I shall be glad to have
15my little meerkats again!!! I knew you must like Isabella Ford, &
16I’m sure she must like you. My sweet friend Con Lytton says she
17would so like to meet any friends of mine who come from the Cape. You
18would both love her so. I am giving her your address. She lives at
19Knebworth the Lyttons an old place but is often in London at Adela
20Smiths
I hope so you will be able to arrange to meet her in London. My
21darling Adela is now very ill having to undergo an operation & her
22baby ^boy^ has been so ill, nearly dying.
23
24 I am sending you a copy of my letter. They say there was a leading
25article in the ^todays^ Times attacking me about it. This morning I
26didn’t read it; but they say it’s not bad, quite respectful; but
27says the last part of my letter is all sentimental rubbish. Well
28sentiment is is a good bit stronger than many other things in the
29world; see, national feeling up holding my beloved little Japs.
30
31 I’m much better & went to Camps Bay this evening & sat on a big rock
32& watched the sea & I saw it all! Such a sea, quiet high tide, not a
33wave or a ripple, & the crimson sun going down in the West behind one
34little bank of crimson cloud all there was in the sky. It was glorious.
35 It was quite dark when I came back, a clear sky & the young moon
36standing just over the Lion’s Head! I must go to bed now. I met Mrs
37Sauer
& Dorothy in Adderly St yesterday She is such a loveable, sweet,
38simple girl; my heart was all drawn to her. Mary looks thin & tired.
39Some how her old life seems gone.
40
41 Dear Anna Purcell is blooming. Dr Purcell is a little better she says.
42
43 Good bye, dear one
44 Tell Alice I was sure she would like Isabella Ford. I can’t say they
45are alike, but somehow I always think of them together.
46 Olive
47
48 When I get back to Hanover I’m going to leave every thing & try to
49get my novel revised even if I only do ten lines every day.
50
51
52
Notation
The letter Schreiner sent is her 'Letter on The Taal', published in the Cape Times 10 May 1905 (p.9); it also appears in a shortened version as Appendix E in (ed) Cronwright-Schreiner (1924) The Letters of Olive Schreiner London: Fisher Unwin. The novel she was revising is From Man to Man.